Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/111

 9ths.iiLF E B.ii,m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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icted that all the markets should be held on the 25th December. This was touching the people, especially the country folks, on their most sensitive point. It was hardly to be expected that they would quietly submit to so extraordinary a rule, nor did they.

It seems extremely improbable that Crom- well, who was not at all. of an ungenial nature, though liable to hypochondria, and who was fond of music, and even, according to a contemporary writer, Capt. Hodgson, quoted by Carlyle, "loved an innocent jest," issued so unkind an order as the foregoing^ Did he not, at a time during his Protectorate when the theatres were closed, allow Sir William Davenant to give dramatic represen- tations of some kind in a little theatre near Lincoln's Inn Fields ? This does not look as if Cromwell was deeply infected with Puri- tanical verjuice. If, as an old writer quoted by Washington Irving says, " Old, old, good old Christmas were gone. Nothing but the air [sic : hair ?] of his good, grey old head and beard left," I think we may take it for granted that it was not Cromwell who gave him his conge, though it is possible that fanatical local magistrates may nave congedie", or attempted to congedier, the good old gentle- man within their own jurisdictions. Some folks appear to be under the impression that Oliver Cromwell was personally respon- sible for everything sour and unpleasant that occurred during the Commonwealth.

May I appeal to Dr. S. R. Gardiner, or, failing the learned historian of Common- wealth times, to any other well-informed correspondent, to tell us the truth of this matter? In the name of justice, let us have no more stones thrown at " the king without a sceptre, the prince without a throne," within a few months of the tercentenary of his birth.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Ropley, Hampshire.

PLACE-NAMES. Headers of *N. & Q.' who take an interest in the subject of place-names may like to add the following rather singular examples to their lists : Grenesty, Grene- waye, Wetewong, Goteres, Meresfurlong, Haverlondsclad, Kydesholm, Kyningholm, Hare ward wellesike. These occur, amongst others of a more modern type, in a Compotus of Kettering for the year 1292, about to be published. I have hitherto been unable to dis- cover in what part of the manor the lands were situated ; all traces of their names are lost. CHAS. WISE.

Weekley, Kettering.

GREY STONE. The following extract from the charming papers ' In Bad Company ' of Vladimir Korolenko may be of interest to

folk-lorists. The hero, the son of a Eussian district magistrate, has made friends with two vagabond children, Valek and Marussia. He wants the little girl to run a race with him, but she looks like a frightened bird and begins to cry loudly :

"'You see,' said Valek, 'she does not like playing.'

" He sat her on the grass, plucked some flowers, and threw them to her; she ceased crying, and quietly sorted the plants, said some words, turning to the golden buttercups, and put the bluebells to her lips. I calmed myself, and threw myself beside Valek, near the little girl.

' ' Why is she so -- ?' I asked at length, indicat- ing Marussia with my eyes.

"Unhappy?' Valek answered,"with a question, and then said, in the tone of a man perfectly con- vinced, ' That, you see, comes from the grey stone.'

"Ye es,' repeated the little girl, as a feeble echo, ' it comes from the grey stone.'

1 ' From what grey stone ? ' I inquired, not under- standing.

" ' The grey stone has sucked life out of her,' explained Valek thereupon, gazing on the sky as before. 'So says Tiburtsi ...... Tiburtsi knows

' ' Ye es,' repeated the little girl, in a faint echo, ' Tiburtsi knows everything.'"

The italics are mine. Tiburtsi, a leading member of the "bad company," had been sent in his youth as attendant on a young nobleman at a Jesuit school, and had there absorbed the learning intended for his youth- ful master. He was wont to harangue his fellow-outlaws as patres conscript^ and be- wilder them with lengthy extracts from Cicero and Xenophon.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Brixton Hill, S.W.

THE DATE OF SHAKSPEARE'S ' JULIUS CAESAR.' The date of the production of 'Julius Caesar' can be fixed within narrow limits. Meres, in his 'Wit's Treasury' (entered on the Stationers' Registers, 7 Sept., 1598), does not mention it. On the other hand, a very definite allusion to the play (first pointed out by Halliwell-Phillipps) occurs in John Weever's "The Mirror of Martyrs, Or The life and death of that thrice valiant Capi- taine, and most godly Martyre Sir lohn Old castle Knight Lord Cobham. Printed by V. S. for William Wood. 1601." On sig. A 3 verso is the following passage : The many-headed multitude were drawne By Brutus speach, that Caesar was ambitious, When eloquent Mark Antonie had showne His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious ? Mans memorie, with new, forgets the old, One tale is good, vntill another 's told.

The work is not entered on the Registers of the Stationers' Company, so it is impossible to say whether it appeared early or late in