Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/387

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III. MAY :>0, '99.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

381

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 73.

fO' BS :-Sir Hugh Evans of Gloucestershire, 381-Cheney 01 Cheyne, 382-Mary Pyper The Last of the War Bow, 3b i-James II. at Rochester Wage : Wages-The Bottle- Cf niurer " Hauged, drawn, and quartered " " Janis- sa y," 384 English Epitaph Abroad - " Foy Boat"- ". torn-crake "Itnssian Folk-lore Ancient Customs at P. lerborough "Caved in " Jews and Spartans, 385- Sl- elton's Cipher " Adrop "Parish of no Importance, 386.

lUURlES " Gow" " Heels o'er gowdie" ' Merry Tales

'of Gotham,' 386 " Chiffney-bit" Une Naturaliste Abbot: Benthams Sir W. Cornwallis Baronetcy offered by George III. Lamb and Banner Literary Work by Shaw of Tynron C. Stuart, 387 King of Jerusalem Mucantius County Nicknames Allhallows the Great Nelson's Diary' Pepysiana,' 388 St. Medard Name of Portrait Wanted B. Jones Hamilton's Class Motto, 389.

lEI'LIES : Place-name Oxford, 389 Coronations on St. George's Day, 390 Author of Verses Place-names Paine's Portrait Inscription on Richard II. 's Tomb Frisbie, 391 French Poet Process for removing Paint- Rolling-pins as Charms Napoleonic Broadside Camp- bell's ' Wallace,' 392 Harper Family County Histories- Number of Jurors Oxford Expulsions Nag's Head, 393

i Berkshire Carol Charles I.'s Death Order of the Litany

Boniface the Bavarian Massena, 396 " Soluta " 'Oxford Argo' D'Aulnoy and Microphone Sir T. Ver- non, 397 Mural Tablet Gate : Sign of Inn Arlington

1 ' Foreign Courts and Homes,' 398.

OTES ON BOOKS : Wheatley's ' Pepys 'Major Hume's 'Spain, 1479-1788' Addy's '[Evolution of the English House' Plumptre's ' Dante'' Quarterly.'

fotices to Correspondents.

SIR HUGH EVANS A GLOUCESTERSHIRE

WORTHY.

AT first sight it may not be quite evident ow Sir Hugh Evans can be claimed as a Gloucestershire character, when (as every- ody knows) he was a Welsh schoolmaster ving at Windsor. But no less an authority lan Mr. Justice Madden, in his learned and nusing ' Diary of Master William Silence,' ices Sir Hugh in the Gloucestershire group characters of which he writes. On p. 76 relates how iVill Squele had gone to Oxford from an ancient ool at Shrewsbury, and had brought thence a ong love for a few Latin masters, and for a poor elsh lad, Hugh Evans, who had received a free ucation at Shrewsbury, and afterwards as servitor Oxford, and whom he had made happy for life by esenting him to the vicarage of Hogshearing, the les of which were worth full sixteen marks a ir. It was from Evans that William Silence rued the elements of Latin," &c.

ien so learned a Shakespearian scholar us associates Sir Hugh with Gloucester- re, it may not appear too fanciful to go a p further, and suggest that Shakespeare, drawing Sir Hugh, had a real Gloucester- re character in his mind, whom he may ve heard of when he was staying in the

Cotswold district among the Shallows Slenders, and the rest ; though (as will be shown), if my identification be accepted, too much is made of Sir Hugh's learning in the passage quoted above.

The position of Sir Hugh (who, so far as I can see, does not receive his surname until it appears in the First Folio version of the ' Merry Wives ') is not quite the same in the First Quarto as it is in the First Folio. In the Quarto he is merely a parson at Windsor ; he is not the vicar of Windsor, but Ford calls him " our parson," and nothing is said of a school. In the Folio he keeps a day-school, which is attended by the sons of the well-to- do residents of Windsor ; he is on terms of friendly intercourse with the Windsor group of characters, as he is in the Quarto, but now (by the additions to the first scene) Shake- speare associates him also with the Gloucester- shire group. Indeed, the impression left on one's mind after reading the opening of the play is that Sir Hugh is on terms of such close familiarity with the Gloucestershire party that he must have come to Windsor as part of the Shallow household, perhaps as tutor or governor to Slender. It is not till we find Slender explaining to Sir Hugh that Shallow is "a justice of the peace in his country, simple though I stand here," that one has any suspicion that they are not on the most intimate relations with one another.

If the Quarto is taken to present in any complete form Shakespeare's original draft of the play, we must suppose that originally the dramatist did not conceive of Sir Hugh either as a schoolmaster or as a character in any way connected with the Gloucestershire group. But without entering into a discussion as to the exact relation between the Quarto and the Folio (which seems very doubtful) we may take it as certain that the Quarto was printed from a version that was not authorized by Shakespeare. That being the case, we need not assume that it presents the work as it left his pen, and the omission from it of certain characteristics of Sir Hugh will be no evidence that he altered his conception of the character after the publication of the Quarto. But, after all, this does not bear much upon the point, for the Sir Hugh of the Folio was undeniably a schoolmaster, and (we may suppose if we like) connected with Gloucestershire.

Now what is interesting is that there was a real Sir Hugh, a Welsh schoolmaster, living in Gloucestershire, whose eccentricities were marked enough to attract the attention of a writer independently of Shakespeare. The passage where he is mentioned is to be found