Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/405

. xii. NOV. 14, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

397

capital crime ? Is truth never so strange as fiction in this particular 1

EUGENE F. McPiKE.

Chicago, U.S.

AITKEN (9 th S. xii. 129,213, 273). ME. JOHN T. CUEEY mentions the well-known fact that the names Will and Bill are forms of William. This has reminded me that a play on these two words was very common during the times of excitement which preceded the great Reform Act. King William IV. was assumed to be in favour of the Bill, and jokes bad and good were a consequence of this opinion.

In a scrap-book, mainly made up of cuttings from newspapers of those days, my father has preserved some verses entitled ' The Epitaph,' which he had taken from a paper I am unable to identify, wherein it was stated that they were quoted from the "Diamond Magazine for November," a periodical I do not remem- ber to have heard of elsewhere :

Here lies poor BILL his sand has run

He died of forty stripes and one.

Though young, he was in wisdom Grey

'Twas the Lords 1 Will, the Bishops say ;

But I suspect they slew the lad.

Just as hard Commons killed his dad.

'Tis true the Crowner sat, and sent

This verdict, " Died of ' NON CONTENT.' "

But clear your crystals, Boys and dry

The radical moisture in your eye ;

We have a BILL whose power can save

Your dear dead darling from the grave ;

And he, despite each Tory worm,

His scatter'd ashes will reform.

The will of Bill is law, d' ye see ;

The Bill of Will-the law shall be ;

So here 's Will's Bill and here 'a Bill's will,

Bill Will and nothing but the Bill.

K. P. D. E.

ENVELOPES (9 th S. xii. 245). The magazine writer who said, "Envelopes in those [the pre-penny-postage] days were not invented : letters were folded together and open at the sides," was right. Envelopes and stamps came into use in the year 1840, when my father Rowland Hill's postal reform was established. Of what use the envelopes found among papers of George III.'s time could be, even supposing that envelopes and papers were of contemporary date, it is difficult to see, though it is easy to understand why the former bore no post-marks (i.e., office stamps) upon them. Under the old system a letter enclosed in an envelope would, as consisting of two separate pieces of paper, have been charged double postage, as, for example, between London and Wolver- hampton, twenty pence for the two. The "franks" of the classes privileged to make all but unlimited use of the Post Office,

without contributing a farthing to its revenue, always figured outside their letters, but I have never seen a frank written out- side an envelope. ELEANOE C. SMYTH. Harborne.

With regard to COM. EBOE.'S communication on this subject, perhaps I may be permitted to mention that some fifty years ago, when I was a small boy in Dublin, my father remarked to me one day, whilst I was looking at him sealing up a letter with the aid of red wax and his signet ring : "I always think, Hen, that if I lick an envelope I am really sending off my saliva to a friend or relation." Of my father it may be said, in the words of the humorous Hudibras :

He knew what 's what, and that 's as high

As metaphysic wit can fly.

'Hud., 'I. i. 149.

HENEY GEEALD HOPE. 119, Elms Eoad, Clapham.

In a letter written from Paris in April, 1802, Robert Emmet says to Madame Gabrielle de Fontenay, "The letters which I enclose in this were brought by Mr. Barnes, of Dublin. I was forced to take off the envelope to put them in with mine" ('Life of R. Emmet,' by D. J. O'Donohue, p. 60). FEANCESCA.

See 2 nd S. iv. 170, 195, 279, 397 ; 4 th S. ii. 56, 238 ; 5 th S. xii. 74, 238, 478, 516 ; 6 th S. xi. 126 ; 8 th S. i. 126, 172 ; ix. 88, 194, 318.

G. L. APPEESON.

HOUSE OF LOEDS AND QUEEN CAROLINE

(9 th S. xii. 349). Sir George Hayter's picture will be found in the National Portrait Gal- lery. The key -plate is annexed to the picture, and an alphabetical index of the portraits is given in the Catalogue. G. F. R. B.

CHAELES READE IN BOLTON Row (9 th S. xii. 248, 332). Your correspondent who finds a difficulty as to where he can consult back directories may be interested to know that the Guildhall Library possesses a peculiarly complete collection of London directories. EDWAED M. BOEEAJO.

The Library, Guildhall, B.C.

Reade certainly resided at one time in Magdalen College, Oxford, for I can re- member to have seen him in his surplice and hood of D.C.L., in his stall on the left hand under the organ loft, as vice-president of the college. I cannot, however, give the exact date, but it was in the fifties. It may be observed that the surplice at Oxford is the badge of a man on the foundation of a college, and is again and again worn by lay- men. In those days the fellows of Magdalen