Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/353

 XI. MAY 2, 1903.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

345

that he "lives unregarded" by Cambridge. Indeed, Harvey must have been of necessity in some trade for his living as early as 1592, for while speaking of the Countess of Pem- broke he says (Grosart, i. 279) : "in remember- ing her, I forget myselfe, and what a tedious letter is here for him that maintaineth a chargeable family by following his business." Nashe tells us (' Strange News,' 1592) that Harvey and his brothers were brought on the stage at Clare Hall in " the exquisite comcedie of Pedantius." H. C. HART.

MAY DAY IN LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE, 1660-80. The Rev. Oliver Heywood, Inde- pendent minister of Coley, near Halifax, makes these entries in his ' Diary ' (ed. J. Horsfall Turner, 1881-5) :

1660. " At the very time when the king came in, 1660, at Chorley, there was a stately may -pole erected, upon w ch was set a crown, and a crosse, with a coat of armes, & adorned with braue gar- lands ; at certain times every year they met there, & had hired a piper to play on Sundays and holy- days ; had very lately drest it ; but upon Tuesday, July, 1666, there was terrible thunder, & the thun- der-bolt split it to shivers, & caryed the ornaments nobody knows whither, & broke it to the very bottom, tho' set two yards within the ground ; this is a certain truth, I lookt at the place." III. 98.

1667. "[Manchester.] That night they have a foolish custom after twelue a clock to rise and ramble abroad, make garlands, strew flowers, &c., which they call Bringing in May. I could sleep little that night by reason of the tumult, the day after being May the 1st." I. 240.

1680. " On May-day, being Saturday, a great number of persons of the poor and baser sort, begun early in the morning, (even while it was dark) to bring in May ; they divided themselves into 3 com- panys, every company above 60, one about the Crosse, another about Starfold, another about Clark- brig [Halifax], men, women and big youths ; they had all white wast-coats or sheets about them, with huge, great garlands, flowers^ branches of trees ; they had 2 or 3 drums, pipers, fidlers ; some of them had white banners flying with red crosses ; thus they went up and down the town to all houses,

receiving money thus they kept rambling about

most of the day ; a lusty fellow got upon the staires by T. C. shop, with an huge, great garland banner ; the rest fell a-dancing about the place

where the May Poll had been there was never

such work in Halifax above 50 yeares past, at w ch time Dr Favour was Vicar [1593-1623], M r John Barlow lecturer ; at that time rude people brought in a may-pole, but they strenuously opposed them in preaching."-!!. 270-1.

In 1681 he writes down forty reasons why he thinks there will be a return of Popery ; the eleventh is " the vain old customs that people are fond of, & will not part with" (ii- 217). W. C. B.

JOHNSON : AN ANECDOTE. The accom- panying anecdote referring to Dr. Johnson

is taken by permission from ' Stuartiana ; or, Bubbles blown by and to some of the Family of Stuart,' privately printed in 1857. The author, the late William Stuart, Esq., of Tempsford Hall, Beds, and Aldenham Abbey, Herts (died 1874), was the eldest son of Primate Stuart (Archbishop of Armagh, 1800-22). The presentation of the latter to Johnson is related by Boswell, 10 April, 1782. The narrator is the Hon. Mrs. Stuart, the Archbishop's wife, Sophia Margaret Juliana, daughter of Thomas Penn, of Stoke Pogis, second son of William Penn, the Quaker. She, too, made Johnson's acquaintance, and at a much earlier age than her future husband. As she speaks of the incident as not having been previously " put on paper," it is possible that the anecdote is intdit ; but perhaps some readers of 'N. & Q.' may be able to throw light on this point.

"During my infancy, the hours in society were so early, that children were, when very young, initiated into the society of their parents and seniors. My mother, who would not have me behind others of my age, took me to all her tea- drinkings and small parties ; to great ones she never then went. I thus often passed dull evenings, and all I could learn was patience ; but the recol- lection of the various characters with which so much society made me acquainted, has enlivened my old age, and given to the memoirs and books which have since been published, a pleasing force and verity, by conjuring up the persons and manners of the actors so visibly, as amply to repay my yawns. I used often to go with her to Mrs. 'Mon- tague's and Mrs. Vesey's. the principal houses where the ' bas blues ' [sic] met ; and among other noted persons, 1 there frequently met Dr. Johnson. The usual arrangement of the room was a circle of arm- chairs, in the centre of which sat the Doctor, with his arm upon his thick cane, exactly as Sir Joshua Reynolds has pourtrayed him. I generally sat by the side of Miss Burney, the author of ' Cecilia,' at a window behind the circle, but where we were able to hear the conversation.

" Some one I think Soanie Jenyns wishing to give Dr. Johnson a goad, as you would a wild beast, in order to make him throw off his moody fit, began to abuse his sesquipedalian verbiage as use- less encumbrances, which neither added force to, nor elucidated the subject. After some discussion on the question, the Doctor grew amused and animated, and burlesquing himself as he often did when in a good humour said, ' Now, Sirs, I conclude you think that story ' (some fashionable anecdote told in cant terms, and with a few elegant asseverations) 'properly related. For my part I should say, " As I was one day making my pedes- trian peregrinations, I casually obviated a huge rustic ; him I interrogated concerning the obliquity of the sun, and how long it was since the duo- decimal repercussion had been repeated on the superficies of the tintinnabulum ; he hesitating a response, I elevated the obtuse end of my baculum, and gave him a blow on his pericranium, to the total extinction of all his intellectual faculties."' He then threw himself back in his chair, and roared his tremendous laugh. Every one joined in it ; but