Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/421

 L ii. NOV. 19, '98.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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parish during late years, with the aforesai chapel as its church. Practically it was, an may be still is, the private chapel of Ear Nelson, who took an amazing interest in it.

W. B.

MARY BOWLES (9 th S. ii. 348). Mary Bowie was daughter and coheiress of Pierce Galliarc of Bury Hall, Edmonton, and Bradshaw, co Derby, and of Lincoln's Inn, barrister-at-law by his wife Ann, daughter of John Hughes, o London, merchant, and of Edmonton. Marj Gal Hard married Charles Bowles, of Sheer House, co. Surrey, third son of Humphry Bowles, of Wanstead Grove and Burforc Manor, Shropshire. Charles Bowles died 1796 leaving issue.

KEGINALD STEWART BODDINGTON.

BENCH MARK (9 th S. ii. 328). The 'H.E.D says, s.v. :

"The horizontal bar is the essential part, the broad arrow being added (originally by the Ordnance Survey) as an identification. In taking a reading an angle iron is held with its upper extremitj inserted in the horizontal bar, so as to form a temporary bracket or bench for the support of the levelling staff, which can thus be placed on abso lutely the same base on any subsequent occasion Hence the name."

The dictionary also says :

" When the spot is below sea-level, as in mining surveys, the mark is inverted."

ARTHUR MAYALL.

DR. JOHNSON AND TEA-DRINKING (9 th S. ii. 265). The inordinate consumption of tea which, even under his own confession, belongs to the personality of the good Doctor, may, after all, have not been so, and especially if judged by modern standards. It has to be remembered that tea was, in the Johnsonian age, a luxury, and was dispensed in small doses. As I write I have before me some teacups of that era such as were in ordinary use the fluid capacity being but a little over one ounce. Twenty-four of such cups would total barely a pint and a half.

GEO. CLULOW.

Johnson himself gloried in having swal- lowed twenty-five cups, in revenge upon a lady who tried to exploit him, while at the same time he "did not treat her with as many words " (Cumberland's ' Memoirs ').

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings.

SHERIDAN AND DUNDAS (9 th S. ii. 28, 118, 274). It is not a question of inventing this mot. Sheridan had undoubtedly noted the form, and it is extremely unlikely that he would leave it unused. But the alleged

" reply " to Dundas is certainly an invention. The author of ' Sheridaniana ' does not men- tion his authority, for the very best reason he knew of none. If the words were uttered in debate they would be found in the three volumes of Sheridan's speeches, &c., in the Commons. There are some good and little- known things in these, but this "reply" is not one of them. It may have been uttered in conversation in fact, it is the kind of thing that appears to-day in "Per- sonal " or in " Lobby Gossip " paragraphs. In 'N. & O.' some time ago MR. FRASER BAE knocked the bottom out of another story founded on the same idea, wherein Dundas becomes somebody else Burke for choice.

Of ' Sheridaniana' it is little use to speak. It has preserved a good many things which would have been well forgotten. That Sheridan was a wit no one doubts ; that, being a wit, he was the author of some of the "jokes" in this book cannot be believed. Their general level is immeasurably beneath Hook. He certainly repeated himself, and Pitt's crushing sneer, uttered more than once after the first Begum speech, was well merited. But a trick of repetition does not excuse unauthenticated jests, the very form of which is uncertain. The author of ' Sheridaniana ' may have been above suspicion: but the Faults of the book are the faults of all books that try to fill up a reputation for ready wit necessarily an unwritten repu- tation by accepting all sorts of anecdotes, tor many of which there is absolutely no authority. How many of the tales about Swift are really true ? Ten in a hundred ? 3r five? For the unnamed ones in Joe Vtiller substitute Swift, and you have a very acceptable volume. If Sheridan's oral wit had no better foundation than the eneral " stories " about him, the chance would be an unfortunate one for Sheridan. Wise poets may wrap truth in tales, but anwise recorders of " jokes " do not. This is

at I meant to suggest only this, and, by all hoary merriment, nothing more.

GEORGE MARSHALL. Sefton Park, Liverpool.

SIEGE OF DERRY (9 th S. ii. 208). B. will pro- >ably be able to see the particulars of the )rovision for the inhabitants in either the Lev. G. Walker's 'A True Account of the iege of Londonderry,' Lond., 1689, or John lempton's 'Siege and History of London- erry,' Lond., 1861.

ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.

BARBERS (9 th S. i. 467 ; ii. 191). One of the reatest followers of the craft was certainly