Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/519

 VII. JUNE 29, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mention any figure of Sir Christopher Hatton.

2. Dealing with these figures in 'Londinium Redivivum,' vol. iii. (1803), p. 61, Malcolm wrote :

" Another I believe to be the recumbent effigies of Lord Chancellor Hatton, in armour, and with the insignia of the Order of the Garter." Was this belief well founded? Malcolm explained in a foot-note that his conjectures about the figures were formed before seeing Gough's observations (loc. cit.). "Far be it from me," he added, "to adhere pertinaciously to my own opinion. The general resemblance of effigies to each other is well known."

3. In Charles Knight's * London,' vol. iv. (1843), p. 347, where the figures, or some of them, were again described, it was stated that

"one statue of goodly aspect, and in complete armour, has lost his legs : strange enough to say, that is supposed to be Elizabeth's dancing Lord Chancellor/

Was this supposition correct ? Is it possible that the statue referred to was that which Gough (loc. cit.) described as "Sir Thomas Heneage to the knee," and was that descrip- tion accurate ? Am I right in thinking that Hatton was a Knight of the Garter, but Heneage not ?* H. C.

FLOWER GAME (9 th S. vii. 329, 397, 474). I have been a reader of 'N. & Q.' for twenty years, but have refrained until the last few months from offering it contributions, because I have been painfully struck with the aggres- sive tone with which some enter discussions in its pages. A contributor does not know how soon he may have to defend himself from an onslaught, made in perfectly good faith, but written in language which not one of your con- tributors would dream of using verbally to another. I sent you a few lines about dan- delion chains, venturing to write that they are " apparently unknown around Northamp- ton." I wrote that because I believed it. I have been collecting instances of children's games, local customs, and folk-lore around Northampton for the last fifteen years. I have inquired about dandelions scores, hun- dreds, of times half a dozen times at least in every parish bordering on Northampton of old people and children, and I never once came across a single instance of dandelion chains. Instead I find there is a sincere horror among children of touching dande- lions, for fear of very undesirable conse- quences at night. Having crystallized the result of all this investigation into the few

[* Yes.]

words above quoted, carefully guarded by the word " apparently," because I know how difficult it is to be sure of a negative, I am attacked by a " surprised " Northamptonshire gentleman, who not only says that my statement is " unaccountable," but that 1 " hazarded " it. And why does he say that ? Simply because he has seen children making dandelion chains (he does not say so, but I conclude that is what he means) at West Haddon. West Haddon is nine or ten miles from Northampton, and I submit that my phrase "around Northampton" would not generally be understood in this connexion as including an area of at least 300 square miles. Even if it were so understood, this sort of controversy is not encouragement to the mildly disposea to write in your columns.

K.

" ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME " (9 th S. vii. 427). To demand the source of a proverb is to demand the impossible, even of omniscience. Some proverbs, it is true, derive a certain cachet from their being cited in certain great classics ; but they are no more the creation of the citer than the preacher is the author of the text that he prefixes to his discourse. "All roads," &c., has its equivalent in all European languages, and La Fontaine quotes it in the form of Tons chemins vont a Rome in his 4 Juge Arbitre, 1'Hospitalier et le Soli- taire' ('Fables,' 12, 28, 4). The point of the proverb, which is generally misunderstood, is to the effect that so long as the object is attained, the means thereto are immaterial.

PHILIP NORTH.

Every one soon or late comes round by Rome. R. Browning, ' The Ring and the^Book,'

CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield.

TEA AS A MEAL (8 th S. ix. 387 ; x. 244).- An earlier suggestion of the use of the word tea as descriptive of a meal than its employ- ment in 'The Vicar of Wakefield ' (1766) is to be found in 'Moll Flanders,' published in 1722 (though solemnly declared oy Defoe to have been " written in the year 1683 "), the heroine severely blaming a female friend for spreading a story " when she had not the least ground more than a little tea-table chat." Congreve, moreover, m 1700 had employed a similar phrase, Mirabell, m 4 The Way of the World ' (IV. i.), defining " genuine and authorised tea-table talk as "mending of fashions, spoiling reputations, railing at absent friends, and so forth, Mrs. Millamant [in the same scene declaring her intention to be "sole empress of my tea-