Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/187

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

181

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 63. NOTES : U.B.L. Sir Henry Wotton, 181 The Founders of Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, 183 Button Games, 184 The Two Watsons, 185 London Water Supply Archbishop Simon Theobald ' Old St. Paul's' Mural Tablet Rutabaga A Centenarian at Bversden, 186.

QUERIES : " Gancanagh" " Gambaleery " Strong's Bluff Trinity Windows" Galingall" Charade A. Hamilton "Maiden speech" Burden Family Duke of North- umberland, 187 Innes=de Insula Sharpe Supplications in the Litany Scott's 'Guy Mannering' Driving Cus- tom " What all "Red Cassocks' The Chant of Achilles ' MassSna Major-General Ware Nicholson, 188 Missing Poem, 189.

REPLIES : Cooke Family. 189 " Acreware": "Mollond" "Mutus dedit," &c. Black Images of the Madonna Peas, Pease, and Peasen, 190 Rime to " Month "Lend- ing Money by Measure Clough Epitaphs, 191 Stonard : Vincent: Newcombe De Feritate Oxford Portraits- Hereditary Odour Addison's ' Rosamond,' 192 Tom Brown and Dr. Fell" Ductus litterarum" Keltic Words Caron House Camelian Ring, 193 " Dies creta notandus " The Sibyls in Scotland " Ceiling," 194 Unwritten History "Copper-tailed" R. Graham, 195 "Helpmate" Cape Town Thackeray's Latin, 196 Landor Wilkie's Epigoniad' Papal Bull "Writer of sorts," 197 Scott's 4 Antiquary 'Slough, 198.

NOTES ON BOOKS: Heron-Allen's 'Fitzgerald's Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam 'Salisbury's Dandliker's ' History of Switzerland 'Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

U.E.L.

THE United Empire Loyalists' Associa- tion, which was incorporated under the laws of Ontario in 1897, nas for its object to unite, irrespective of creed and party, the descendants of those families who, during the American Revolutionary War of 1775 to 1783, sacrificed their homes in order to reside under the flag to which they desired that they and their children should remain for ever loyal. Anxious to perpetuate this spirit of loyalty to the empire, this association desires to rescue from oblivion the history and tradi- tions of loyalist families before it is too late. It has, very properly, its headquarters in On- tario, for the Empire Loyalists who settled in Canada preserved the country to the British crown in the war of 1812-14, and their descend- ants are even now building up new provinces in the north-west. There are, however, on this side of the water the descendants of loyalist families who fled to England, and their co-operation in the work of the associa- tion is warmly invited. We understand that the executive committee intend to publish regularly an historical and genealogical journal, and we gladly offer to those inter- ested in this subject the hospitaHty of our columns for the prosecution of their inquiries.

EDITOR.

SIR HENRY WOTTON AND THE BACON- SHAKSPEARE CONTROVERSY.

IT is far from my intention to take any part in this silly discussion. It has had its little day, and it is improbable that we shall hear much, if anything, more about it. My sole object in writing this note is to add some further information to the following passage in Mr. Lee's admirable 'Life of Shakespeare,' p. 371 :

"Tobie Matthew wrote to Bacon (as Viscount St. Albans) at an uncertain date after January, 1621 : ' The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation and of this side of the sea is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another.' This unpretending sentence is distorted into con- clusive evidence that Bacon wrote works of com- manding excellence under another's name, and among them Shakespeare's plays.* According to the only sane interpretation of Matthew's words, his 'most prodigious wit' was some Englishman named Bacon whom he met abroad probably a pseudonymous Jesuit like most of Matthew's friends. The real surname of Father Thomas Southwell, who was a learned Jesuit domiciled chiefly in the Low Countries, was Bacon. He was born in 1592 at Sculthorpe, near Walsingham, Norfolk, being son of Thomas Bacon of that place, and he died at Watten in 1637."

This is what Mr. Sidney Lee says, founding his remarks on "Birch's Letters of Bacon, 1763, p. 392." I find from Lowndes's ' Manual ' (London, W. Pickering, 1834) that Dr. Birch published, in 1754, a book entitled * Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,' which is thus characterized :

" Dr. Birch has formed his narrative of the most striking facts in the numerous letters of the Bacon family, though, as might be expected, the letters are much abbreviated.

The full title of the work referred to by Mr. Lee is, according to the same authority, "Letters, Speeches, Charges, Advices, &c., now first published by Thomas Birch, D.D., with a supplement, London, 1763-4." There is no doubt that the Bacon family wrote many letters, especially the most famous member of it ; and it is also true that many letters were written to them, of which the majority would be addressed to its most dis- tinguished representative. Sir Henry Wotton ives in his ' Reliquiae ' (fourth edition, Lon-

on, 1685, p. 297) an interesting note, dated 20 Oct., 1620, signed "Fr. Verulam Cane.," in

hich he says :

Furthermore attributes the authorship of Mon- taigne's ' Essays ' and Robert Burton's ' Anatomy of Melancholy' to the great Chancellor! 'The Great Cryptogram,' by Ignatius Donnelly (London, Sampson Low & Co., 1888).
 * The writer to whom Mr. Lee doubtless refers