Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/366

 416 NOTES AND QUERIES. LIEUT. QUILLIAM, OF THE VICTORY.—The following interesting notes of Nelson's old officer appear in the Daily News of 27 Oct. The facts elicited being authenticated by Lieut. Quilliam's descendants, and likely to prove of permanent service to commentators and writers on naval history and biography, I send them for preservation in the pages of 'N. &Q.':- " On Monday last, commenting upon the Trafalgar demonstration, we alluded to Lieut. Quilliam, who steered the Victory into action at Trafalgar, and stated ' that it would appear that worthy had left no direct descendants.' We have since received from the great-grand-nephew of Lieut. Quilliam the following particulars with reference to him. After Trafalgar he was gazetted captain, and went to reside in the Isle of Man. and was appointed a member of the 'House of Keys," the legislative chamberof thelittleislandkingdom. Capt. Quilliam s house was in College Green, Castletpwn, then the metropolis of the island ; the house still stands, and is still known as 'Capt. Quilliam's house.' The captain died on 10 Oct., 1829, and was buried in Kirk Arbory Churchyard. A very beautiful white marble tablet to his memory still stands in the church, with an inscription recording his services. Capt. Quilliam died childless, but left a brother, whose name was Robert, and who was our corre- spondent's great-grandfather. Mr. W. H. Abdullah Quilliam, who writes to us from Fairfield, Liverpool, adds: I have in my possession a portrait (oil painting) of Capt. Quilliam, along with sundry other family portraits, including the late Mrs. Mary Quilliam, who endowed King Williams College, Isle of Man, with two farms, from the income of which, I believe, that institution derives about 40W. per annum. I also have in my possession the actual signet ring worn by Lieut. Quilliam at the time he steered the Victory into action. The stone is a cornelian, and the letter ' Q' is engraved thereon. Capt. Quilliam was a true Manxman, and there is a tradition, which has been carefully cherished in our family, that during the memorable action Admiral Nelson called out to him, ' How are you doing there, Quilliam?' To which the lieutenant replied, ' Middlin', my lord, muldlin'.' Anybody who knows anything of Manx customs, dialect, and manners will at once recognize the characteristic reply of Lieut. Quilliam. For to this day you can never get an old Manxman to say that he is doing very well ; his answer is always that he is doing ' middlinV" G. YAKROW BALDOCK. HOXTON AND ITS MADHOUSES. (See ante, p. 357.)—Hoxton was always celebrated for its madhouses and its chapels. I think D'Urfey and Torn Brown allude to this local peculiarity. MR. GIBBS will be glad to know that Mr. Miles's still exists as it did in his days and mine, with the brass plate upon the door. I fancy Charles Lamb was an inmate of this house for a short time before the sad calamity fell upon his sister. Whit- more House, a beautiful old building and grounds, belonged to Sir Thomas Whitmore, and here it was that Charles I. was enter- tained by its owner on his return from Scot- land. Mr. Rhodes, cowkeeper and brickmaker, lived in a house next door, of the same archi- tectural style and period, about 1830. He was the " rich uncle " of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and left that gentleman the property he owns in Dalston, Shacklewell, and neighbourhood. Ivy Lane never had a madhouse, to my know- leage, and Sir Walter Besant's book dealing with the " working classes " of this district is called 'Children of Gibeon.' 'All Sorts and Conditions of Men' is located in Stepney, and deals largely with Charrington's Brewery. I was certainly born in Hoxton in a street now destroyed. William Moy Thomas. Clement Scott and his distinguished and reverend father, and the Rev. George Rose (Arthur Sketchley) were also fellow-inhabit- ants. I sometimes sign myself "Johannes Hoxtoniensis." JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. PEACOCKS' EGGS.—In that excellent and interesting book ' Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire,'by Prof. Dill, there is a charming slip that is well worthy of being preserved in the pages of ' N. & Q.1 Giving a brief summary of the account of Roman social life in the 'Saturnalia' of Macro- bius, showing the more simple living of that generation when compared with former times, the author writes (p. 135): "Peacocks' eggs are not now even in the market." Such natural curiosities would at any time have been an awful omen, and would have filled the superstitious Romans with dread of what was to follow; and yetthey are only referred to casually as not now to be found in the market. ERNEST B. SAVAOE. ["Peacock" is a generic term( and we hold the locution " peacock's eggs" defensible. See ' N. & Q.,' 8"' S. xii. 57.] " IN PETTO."—A learned and charming work on Biblical and Oriental antiquities by one of our best Assyrian scholars is at present being advertised by the publishers, a well- known firm, with this commendatory opinion of the Pall Mall Gazette: " A museum inpetto." How a book fully published can still be in petto does not appear. Evidently the Gazette and the publishers confound the Italian petto with the French petit, with this amusing result. A. SMYTHE PALMER. South Woodford. THACKERAY ANA. —An attempt has been recently made to identify the numerous fugitive pieces contributed to periodicals by Thackeray before his reputation was estaa- iished by the publication of ' Vanity Fair.' I