Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/247

 9". s. viii. SEPT. 2i, ifloi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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least, of losing his commission. Now the most cursory reference to the Times special war correspondent of that day Tuesday, 21 August, 1860 I believe the reporter was the (now) doyen of British war correspondents, the venerable veteran then Mr. (now Sir) William Howard Russell* will show that Commodore Tatnall was not reported to have " joined in the fray," neither was he credited with the original utterance of the saying so frequently repeated since : as a phrase it was of respectable antiquity, to my personal re- membrance, even in 1860. What really was said to have happened was substantially as follows. I quote from remembrance of the communication from China as it appeared in the Times. I venture to think the bald facts more essentially dramatic than any of the numerous subsequent paraphrases.

While the bombardment of the Taku Forts was hotly proceeding Commodore Tatnall, U.S.N., in command of a frigate cruising under the stars and stripes in the Gulf of Pechili, put off in a well-manned launch to pay a visit of courtesy to the British admiral on board his flagship an ordinary act of politeness between naval officers of rank of different nationalities, although perhaps not of frequent occurrence during actual active hostilities. The British crew, stripped to the buff as low as the waist the custom in those days when working the guns were "at quarters," busily occupied loading, ramming, firing, and sponging. While paying his re- spects to the admiral the United States naval officer dismissed his boat's crew until he should require their services to return to his own vessel, allowing them, all but a couple of tars left in charge of the launch hanging on to the side, to go forward and make the ac-

Juaintance of the British Jacks Brother onathan fraternizing with Brother John Bull. When the commodore desired to reioin his vessel some difficulty was experienced in collecting the dispersed crew of the launch ; at last they appeared strolling aft towards the gangway, hastily pulling on shirts and jackets as they came along, under charge of the coxswain. To TatnalFs sharp inquiry as to where they had been loitering the cox knuckled and scraped and falteringly ex- plained, " For'd, sir, giving this ship's com- pany a hand at working the guns ! " " Work- ing the guns ! " angrily roared the commodore. ' ' Don't you know we 're neutrals, sir 1 " " Beg pardon, sir," replied the cox, with another

Bowlby who represented the Times on this occa- sionthe clever young war correspondent who was afterwards treacherously murdered by the Chinese,
 * I am not quite sure whether it was not Mr.

knuckle and scrape, " couldn't help it, sir ; after all, * blood 's thicker than water.' "

GNOMON. Temple.

[The origin of this saying was discussed 7 th S. xi. 487; xii. 53, 78, 114.]

JOHN QUINBY, FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXPOKD. The story how this Lutheran died, " half starved with cold and lack of food," in the steeple of his college, where he was im- prisoned as a heretic by Dr. London, the warden, will be found in Strype's 'Ecclesias- tical Memorials,' i. 376, and in ' Narratives of the Reformation,' Camden Soc., 1859, p. 32. The latter reproduces Archdeacon Louthe's manuscript, which Strype followed. It seems to me to be worthy of notice that the truth of this story, which Louthe set down for Foxe's benefit some fifty years after the event, is in no small degree confirmed by a letter, undated, but ascribed to 1536, which Robert Talbot, the antiquary, wrote to Thomas Cromwell's servant Morison, and the substance of which appears in the ' Calendar of Letters, &c., in the Reign of Henry VIII.,' vol. xi., No. 1185. Talbot, who figures in Louthe's story as a Lutheran who "started back," but was nevertheless " expulsed by the warden," probably made some attempt to get his fellowship restored to him, and the letter contains his version of how he came to lose it:

" My adversaries will object that I put the matter in the hands of Dr. Hunt, and must be bound by what he has done. 1 answer, I did it not sponte, but straitly exacted by the sub- warden of the House that then was, whose name is Siitton, and Dr. Whyzte and Dr. Hunt ; which three were sent to me and my fellow, Sir Quynby, deceased, by the warden, whose prisoners we then were, and required us for the saving of the college's privileges to put our rights respectively in the two doctors' hands. Mr. Sutton and Dr. Whyte, who are still alive, will

not deny this upon oath P.S. If you once bring

all well your part shall be worth a doublet cloth of satin."

This letter not only confirms the story of Quinby's imprisonment, but supplies, I think, an adequate explanation of the entry, "re- cessit 1528," which was put against his name in the New College Register. I have heard it said that the fact that the entry was not "obiit 1528" militates against the story of his being starved to death. Talbot's letter, however, suggests that a consent to resign was wrung from Quinby before he "slept sweetly in the Lord." In that case an entry which ignored the scandal could be justified by the authorities as strictly correct.

John Quinby's memory has been kept alive by his defiant jest about " warden pie," which