Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/206

 168 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. VL SBT. i, ifloa the ' Cama Gustapha.' I know not when I was so much diverted : I wish I was near him to tear the napkin from his talent." — ' Memoir and Corre- spondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan,' ii. 258. Mrs. Grant of Laggan was practically a contemporary writer. She was the personal friend of Sir Walter Scott, Prof. Wilson, De Quincey (one, she says, of " the many strange things and persons I have encountered in my journey through life"), Mrs. Hemans, Wordsworth, and others of our immediate Eredecesaors. To-day we read her 'Letters •ora the Mountains' — or, at any rate, we should read them for their descriptive sense and vigour, their insight into character, the acuteness and the discrimination of their literary criticism— and we sing from time to time her charming song " O where, tell me where," which from its melody is popularly called 'The Blue Bells of Scotland,' and from certain references is heedlessly assumed to embody Jacobite sentiment and aspirations. When a writer who practically lived yester- day uses, as Mrs. Grant does, a word that the dictionaries enter as obsolete, one natu- rally pauses over such a conjuncture and wonders whether the process of decay has been so swift and final as these signs in- dicate, or whether the lexicographer may not, after all, have been premature in drawing his inference. THOMAS BAYNE. [Churl as a verb is described as obsolete in 'H.E.D.'] WB must request correspondents desiring infor mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct. _ " NIGHT CHARGES " IN OLDEN TIME. — Can any of y_our readers give me authoritative information as to the disposal by night watchmen, of persons "taken up" in London until brought oefore a magistrate? I learn from 'Liber Albus' (book iii. part ii.) that any person wandering about the City after curfew " with sword or buckler, or with any other arm for doing mischief whereof evil suspicion may arise, or in any other manner ...... shall be taken by the keepers of the peace and put into the Tuu [erected 1283], which for such misdoers is assigned. And on the morrow he shall be arrested and brought before the Mayor of the City and the Aldermen ; and according as they shall find that such persons have offended and are thereunto accustomed, they shal be punished." Were any other places besides the Tun? or Cornhill, used for the custody of "nighl charges," and what places were used for the purpose before 1283? Dr. Reinhold Pauli lints that brawlers, drunkards, and vaga- » » HI s were " run in to the cells at the City gates in the fourteenth century, but quotes 10 authority. H. J. "HALF MOON" TAVERN: "THE MAYPOLE."— [ am anxious to discover a drawing of the ' Half Moon " Tavern in Cheapside, between Gutter Lane and Foster Lane. The name was changed to " New London " Tavern, and it was demolished in 1817. This tavern must not be confused with the "Half Moon" in Aldersgate Street, of which there is a draw- ing in Allen's 'London,' vol. iii. I should also be pleased to find a print of " The May pole "in the Strand, about 1750-60. I shall be glad to know if any of your readers have at any time come across either of these prints. FRANK WRIGHT. 19, Northfield Road, Stamford Hill, N. AUTHORS OF BOOKS.—Can any reader of N. <fc Q.' inform me of the authorship of the Following works ?— 1. " The Pursuits of Literature | a satirical poem I in four Dialogues | with notes I London:) Printed for T. Beckot, 81, Pall Mall | 1808." This book is a very good index to the senti- ments existing in certain circles at that period. 2. " The | Theory | of Agreeable I Sensations : | in which | the Laws observed by Nature in | the Distribution of Pleasure are in- [ vestigated ; and the Principles of Natural I Theology and Moral Philosophy | are established. I Including likewise, relative to the same Subject, | a | Dissertation | upon | Harmony of Stile. | London | Printed for W. Owen, between the | Temple Gates, Fleet- Street. | MDCCLXXIV." F. M. [1. By Thomas James Mathias, for whom see 'D.N.B.' 2. Translated from the French of Louis Jean Levesque de Pouilly.] LIST OF BOOK SALES. (See ante, p. 128.) —Mr. George Offor, of Hackney, an emi- nent bibliopole and one of your earliest and most esteemed correspondents, died on Thursday, 4 August, 1864 (3rd S. vi. 150). The forthcoming dispersion of his valuable and extensive library was announced in your columns, ibid., 485. The sale by auction com- menced on Tuesday, 27 June, 1865, and was announced to last de die indiem until Satur- day, 8 July ; but on the night of Thursday, 29 June, after about an eighth of the col- lection (fetching good prices) had been dis- posed of, the remainder of the books, ifec., was destroyed by fire. Unhappily such a loss had not been insured against, and the