Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/42

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9*s.m. jA*.i4,m

<fec. By a Connoisseur. London, Allen, 1775. 12mo." Of "Connoisseur" I can find no information. JOHN KADCLIFFE.

SHAKSPEARE AND THE SEA (9 th S. i. 504; ii. 113, 189, 455). Thanks to the Concordance for I do not pretend to have remembered it myself I am able to refer MR. YARDLEY to one instance in which seaweeds are mentioned by Shakspeare :

As weeds before

A vessel under sail, so men obeyed And fell below his stem.

'Coriolanus,'!!. ii. 109.

R. M. SPENCE, D.D. Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.

MRS. WOODHAM (9 th S. ii. 508). The follow- ing particulars respecting the death of this unfortunate actress are given in 'Londina Jllustrata,' by Robert Wilkinson, 1815, under the heading of 'Astley's Amphitheatre, West- minster Road ':

" September 2, 1803, about half -past two in the morning, the theatre with nearly forty houses were consumed by fire ; everything was lost except the horses. But the most distressing circumstance was the loss of Mrs. Woodham, Mrs. Astley's mother. She was seen at the two pair of stairs window of the dwelling-house in front, and a ladder was raised to extricate her. She appeared to intimate she had forgot something ; which, it is conjectured, was the receipts of the two previous nights' per- formances (left in her care), and retreated for it, and almost immediately returned to the window ; but the very instant she appeared, the floor fell in, and she was lost. This lady was about sixty years of age, came out at Covent Garden Theatre, Jan. 17, 1770, as Rosetta in ' Love in a Village,' in which she was very successful, and continued performing at that theatre two seasons. She was a pupil of Dr. Arne, and being uncommonly elegant in dress and person, was generally called Buck Spencer. Miss Spencer afterwards sung at Marylebone Gardens, then went to Ireland, and was a great favourite there for many years. She married a Mr. Smith, and afterwards a Mr. Woodham."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

"RUMMER" (8 th S. x. 452; xi. 270, 395; xii. 17, 198). The following extract from a recent work, for private circulation only, on the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers of London, compiled by Mr. William Ramsey, Past Master, appears to confirm the sugges- tion I made with regard to the derivation of this word :

" Rummers, as special glasses, were in use at least as early as Addison's time, because in May, 1703, he wrote to Mr. Wyche at Hamburg, protest- ing that he had a desperate design in his head to have attacked him in verse, but could not find a rhyme to ' rummer.' Rum was then, and long con- tinued to be, the foundation of punch, and its first consumption in its own glasses without the inter-

mediary bowl was the inauguration of ' hot grog, 5 a solitary, sullen, and dismal drink, as distinguished from gregarious punch in the social bowl, but almost the same thing, though with fewer ingredi- ents. The modern and rather tedious Scotch mode of operation with the tumbler, toddy ladle, and glass is nothing but a surviving version en petit of the punch bowl process. The oldest rummers proper now met with are of the last years of the eighteenth century ; they have a very ugly and massive character, and their shape can bear no relation to those of the time of Addison. The type has lingered almost to the present day, but was long ago nearly overwhelmed Dy other forms." 'The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers,' 1878, p. 39.

JOHN HEBB. Canonbury Mansions, N.

PORTRAIT RINGS (9 th S. ii. 346, 372). Much information on this subject will be found in ' Finger-ring Lore,' by Wm. Jones, 1877. A number of specimens to be seen in South Kensington Museum are given at pp. 496-7. W. B. GERISH.

PRIVATE GATES IN LONDON (9 th S. ii. 308). To name the gates, bars, posts, &c., removed by order of the County Council would occupy much space in the columns of 'N. & Q.' Sixty-seven are described in the Standard of 19 November, 1892, and six in the same paper of 20 November, 1897.

Gates and posts still exist in this neigh- bourhood at the north end of Huddleston Road, to which I directed the attention of the County Council in November, 1892, and in July, 1897. In the following November I was informed that " the Council had decided not to take any steps for the removal of the obstruction," and referred me to the vestry of Islington. Can any explanation be given? EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

ROYAL NAVAL (OR NAVY) CLUB (9 th S. ii. 327, 411). My best thanks are due to the correspondents who have kindly answered my query on this subject, both in * N. <fe Q.' and privately. I am much obliged to them for clearing up the matter so far as they have done. I now only beg for a few details of the history of the " club of that title which was started in London a few years ago, but is now defunct." I shall be grateful to any corre- spondent who will tell me where and when that club was started, and when it ceased to exist. JULIAN MARSHALL.

CEDAR TREES (9 th S. ii. 187, 214, 290, 333). John Evelyn states that he had frequently raised the cedar from its seeds, and " why then it should not thrive in Old England, I conceive is from our want of industry"