Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/274

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. OCT. 1,.'98.

without title, but I suppose) preface. His reply was, "I thought of that, but I found that I did not really know what constitutes an edition and I still do not know." I felt precisely the same difficulty when I reprinted my notes from ' N. & Q.' (8 th S. xi. 3, 62) en- titled ' British,' with, however, many altera- tions and additions, so that it really was a second edition. I have referred to the various volumes of ' N. & Q.' where the " edition " question has been discussed, but they are all on different points from the one I now moot.

KALPH THOMAS.

GARDEN or THE COLONIAL BANK, BISHOPS- GATE. Another of the fast-vanishing relics of picturesque London has iust disappeared. The garden of the Colonial Bank, Bishops- gate Street Within, has lately ceased to be a farden, and is now being partly built upon, 'ortunately, the interesting old garden of 41, Crosby Square is at present in no danger of destruction. The courteous occupier of the house presented me with the solitary flower on a large old may tree, which, together with the fountain, the fig trees round the walls, and the old-fashioned arbour, has a strange old-world look, surrounded as it is by a forest of offices, &c., in hideous con- trast to the old garden's peaceful calm.

MATILDA POLLARD. Belle Vue, Bengeo.

INSECT NAMES. Is it not remarkable, con- sidering that the Saxons had so many names for animals, that we have so few English names for insects ? Bees, flies, wasps, gnats, represent thousands of different forms.

EMMA ELIZ. THOYTS.

EPITAPH IN LEDBURY CHURCHYARD. The following amusing epitaph was recently copied from a tombstone in the churchyard at Ledbury. The spelling and punctuation are those of the original :

In Memory of

John Heath Cooper of this

town Never known to be paralised

by any Man in his profession

he had a Natural Genius in many

other things but Leaving this sinfull world in

hopes of a better

He died Oct br y e 21 9t 1772 Aged 54. When young he was beloved By all that knew him But growing old & poor They all forsook him But God his Father & his friend Did still regard him to his end.

CHARLES HIATT.

" SELDOM COMES A BETTER." (See ante, p. 135.) There is a poem of fifteen stanzas on this proverbial saying in Evans's ' Old Bal-

lads,' No. xxvii. (vol. iv. p. 270). It is entitled "Seldome comes the better ; or, An admoni- tion to all sorts of people, as husbands, wiues, masters, and seruants, <fec., to auoid muta- bility, and to fix their minds on what they possesse. In two Parts."

The book, in four volumes, is dated 1784, and is dedicated to the Duke of Northumber- land, i. e., Hugh Percy, first Duke of North- umberland, who died in 1786, the husband of Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, who died in 1776, and to whom Bishop Percy dedicated his 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.' Many of the ' Old Ballads ' Dear strong internal evidence of having been re- stored or patched up. The success of the ' Reliques ' no doubt prompted the publica- tion of this work. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

RASTELL'S ' PASTYME OF PEOPLE.' I said in my note (8 th S. i. 308) on this very rare and curious book that there must be still two, if not three copies, which might some day turn up. One of these has recently come to light in the last portion of the Ashburnham Library, sold in May last. It was one of the two formerly belonging to Ratcliffe, at whose sale in 1776 it was bought by Dr. Chauncey for 4. 7s. We have now, therefore, at least two remaining to be accounted for, viz., the one mentioned in Osborne's 'Bibl. Harl.,' vol. v. No. 1254, and Towneley's copy (sold in 1814). In the cata- logue of the Earl of Hardwicke's library (sold in 1888) it was stated that three perfect copies were known, viz., that in the British Museum (from West's library), one in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, and another in Earl Spencer's library at Althorp ; but I happen to know that these two are imperfect, having a note of the imperfections in both, and this notwithstanding Dibdin's note written with his own hand in the last-men- tioned copy and declaring it to be " perfect " ! FRED. NORGATE.

Two HUSBANDS FOLLOWING THEIR WIFE TO HER GRAVE. Mr. Watson, in his ' History of the Tendring Hundred in the Olden Time, co. Essex,' relates the following wonderful romance connected with Thorpe-le-Soken in that county :

"In 1749 it seems a young gentleman who repre- sented himself as a Florentine fell dreadfully in love with a beautiful young lady calling herself Miss Catherine Canham. They married, travelled all over Europe, and were very happy, till at the end of three years the lady was taken ill at Verona and there died, having begged her husband to take her dead body to England ; and on learning that she was in reality the wife of the vicar of Thorpe, her husband had her body embalmed, and under the