Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/69

 9* s. v. JAN. 27, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

61

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARYS, 1900.

CONTENTS. No. 109.

NOTES : Horace Walpole and his Editors, 61 Shak spear iana, 62 Parish and other Accounts, 63 Early Hi tory of the Steam Engine, 64 "An end"-"Mayfa marriages" "The green-eyed monster," 65 Boswell 4 Johnson 'Bible Originally in Dutch " Knobkerrie " Marquessate of Winchester, 66.

QUERIES : " Hudger " Cromwell's Letters Thoma Powell John Monger Bottled Burton Sir Henry Mor gan French Society in the Last Century "A far cry t Loch Awe" Shelley Bibliography, 67 Wordsworth' 'Excursion' Sir Michael Cromie Lieut. Van Schaick Reade Family -Churches built of Unhewn Stones En gravings of Ralegh Pictures by Lawrence Bedingfiel Family, 68 ' The Squire's Pew ' Dunbar=Ogilvy Eastwood Family "The Roman wash" "Joll" Prince of Wales Salisbury, Collegium de Valle Carles or Carlos Family Corney House, 69.

REPLIES: Place-name Oxford, 69 'Dr. Johnson as Grecian,' 71 Earls of St. Pol " Hoastik carles" "Middlin'" Dandy's Gate, 72 Hawkwood "Lowestof China" "A good pennyworth," 73 Hogarth's ' Sigis munda 'St. Eanswyth Cardinal Wardlaw, 74 Heading to a Chapter of a Kempis ' The Book of Praise 'Anker holes or Anchorites' Cells Thames Tunnel Enigma bj Praed "Quagga" and " Zebra," 75 " Dan" Chaucer " Marquee/' 76 Unclaimed Poem of Ben Jonsoii Saladin and the Crusader's Wife, 77.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' A New English Dictionary on His torical Principles ' Timmins's ' Nooks and Corners o Shropshire 'Hume's 'Modern Spain ' Seccombe's 'Th< Age of Johnson ' Mason's ' Social Chess ' Collet's ' His tory of the Taxes on Knowledge ' Brushfield's 'Aids tc the Poor in a Rural Parish ' ' Whitaker's Naval an< Military Directory ' ' Shakespeare-Bacon.'

Notices to Correspondents.

HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS EDITORS.

(Continued from 9 th S. iv. 533.) LETTER 522 (Cunningham's ed., vol. iii p. 101), addressed to Hon. H. S. Con way anc dated "Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Sept. 2, 1757," is evidently misdated. It is impossible that it should have been written in Septembei of that year, for the following reasons. 1. The date; in 1757 2 Sept. fell, not on Thursday, but on Friday. 2. Horace Walpole writes "Charles [Townshend] met D'Abreu t'other day, and told him he intended to make a great many good speeches next winter ; the first, said he, shall be to address the King not to send for any more foreign troops, but to send for some foreign ministers." It is not likely that Townshend, so late in the year as Sep- tember, would speak of the approaching winter as " next winter." His remark as to the advisability of "sending for" ministers implies a scarcity of ministers at home. This remark would have had no force in September, 1757, as the Pitt and Newcastle ministry (which lasted until 1762) had then been in office for several months.

3. " I shall go to town on Monday, and if I find anything else new, I will pack it up with a flower picture for Lady Ailesbury,

which I shall leave in Warwick Street with orders to be sent to you." From the tenor of this sentence it is obvious that Conway was at home, and at leisure. But this was not the case in September, 1757. In July of that year Conway was appointed by Pitt to take part in an expedition against Kochefort. From that time until the expedition sailed (8 Sept.) his movements were uncertain, as may be seen from Horace Walpole's letter to him of 14 Aug., 1757 (vol. iii. p. 95), where he says, "I must not expatiate from the un- certainty of this letter reaching you." It was not likely, therefore, that Walpole would write thus unconcernedly nearly three weeks later, and only four days before the expedi- tion actually sailed.

On the other hand, this letter appears, for the following reasons, to belong to April of the year 1757 :

1. Horace Walpole writes: "I found the pamphlet much in vogue ; and, indeed, it is written smartly. My Lady Townshend sends all her messages on the backs of these political cards ; the only good one of which with the two heads facing one another, is her son George's." In Walpole's letter to Mann of 20 April of this year (vol. iii. p. 71) he writes as follows: "Pamphlets, cards, and prints swarm again: George Townshend has pub- lished one of the latter This print which

has so diverted the town, has produced to-day a most bitter pamphlet against George Townshend, called 'The Art of Political Lying.' Indeed, it is strong." This pamphlet, published on 20 April, 1757, is doubtless the one alluded to in the letter to Conway, while the card of the " two heads " is no doubt the one mentioned by Walpole in his 'Memoirs of George II.' (ed. 1822, vol. ii. p. 199, note), where he writes, under date of March, 1757, ''Townshend had been author of the first political caricature card, with portraits of Newcastle and Fox."

2. Additional evidence as to the date is supplied by Charles Townshend's suggested mportation of ministers. It has already oeen shown that there was no ground for any >uggestion of the kind in September, 1757. The allusion is obviously to what Horace Walpole elsewhere calls the "Inter -Minis- Cerium " the period between 5 April (when p itt was dismissed) and 29 June (when he eturned to office with Newcastle). Between hese two dates the country was without a ninistry.

From a consideration of these points it ppears that this letter was written during he last half of April, 1757, or at the begin- ing of May at latest. As Walpole's letter to