Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/28

 NOTES AND QUERIES. &* s. vm. JULY 6, 1901.

the drama, the Honourable Fluphery Arde-

dardee, who possessed "apairof whiskers

of dimensions such as ought to have made Lord Dundreary, if he could have seen them, faint away." " Lardydardy " was extensively " boomed " at the halls (by George Ley bourne in particular) from 1865. I recollect hear- ing early in 1873 a lady serio-comic at the old Winchester which, by the way, was, I be- lieve, the first music-hall, as differing from a " sing-song " or " free-and-easy," ever opened in London ; during the forties and the early fifties, under the name of the Surrey Music Hall, it led the way for the modern theatre or palace of varieties singing an "up-to- date " ditty, the chorus of which ran :

Riding on the Tram way, easy, gay, and free ; Riding on the Tram way, that 's the style for me ; Where the noble sum of two pence is all you've

got to pay ; You can do the lardydardy on the new Tram way.

During 1880 Nelly Power fairly took the town by storm :

He wears a penny flower in his coat,

La-di-da ! And a penny paper collar round his throat,

La-di-da !

In his hand a penny stick, In his tooth a penny pick, And a penny in his pocket,

La-di-da! La-di-da! And a penny in his pocket,

La-di-da !

Somewhere between 1867 and 1870 (I have not got the exact date, so it may have been later) a " Bab Ballad " appeared in Fun en- titled 'Lorenzo de Lardy ': Dalilah de Dardy adored

The very correctest of cards, Lorenzo de Lardy, a lord- He was one of Her Majesty's Guards.

I think it possible, though the suggestion may seem far-fetched, that the inventor of "lardydardy" derived the word from "Lard !" 'O Lard! 1 "Lardy!" which, if one may judge from old plays and novels, would appear to have been rather in use among the bon ton during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But (as another pro- posed derivation) may it not come from " A- d'ye-do?" ("How do you do?") a way in which "swells" (or those who wish to be' con- sidered so) often greet one another ?

HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

rfy, Keulrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane, S.E.

Oddly enough, when I read the reviewer's reference to this it never occurred to me that I knew anything about it ; but directly I saw the verse quoted by MR. INGLEBY I recol- lected that I have known it all my life. I heard the song, I should say, about 1865, and

I think it was sung in a play called 'The Widow Hunt' at the Strand Theatre, in which the late John Sleeper Clarke was very funny. I think Eleanor Bufton was the widow.* Why I learnt that verse I cannot say, unless it was the chorus. My recollec- tion varies slightly :

I like to la-di-da with the ladies, For that is the style that suits

The noble name and glorious fame Of Captain de Wellington Boots.

Clarke acted the poltroon captain, and as the widow objected to some wall-papers he exhibited, he said, " Ah ! that is not of my choice." RALPH THOMAS.

DE BATHE AND HOLSWORTHY FAMILIES (9 th S. vi. 269). As I am preparing a paper on 'Neighbours of North Wyke' for the Devon Association, and as Bath is an adjoining property to the south-eastward of that old seat of the Wykes family, I should be much interested in learning anything con- cerning its owners and residents. Among my Record Office gleanings are the following notes, which may be of some use to P.

The "Mark Sladen" said to have owned Bath in 1600 must be meant for Mark Slader, a regular North Tawton name.

In 1625 Simon Weekes,t armiger, lord of the manor of Brodewode-Kelly, was seized also, among other messuages, lands, &c., of a messuage, carton, &c., called the Barton of Bath in North Tawton, then in the tenure of (Mark or Mary ?) Kellands ; also of Gosse's tenement and Downhouse al's Dawnehouse in North Tawton, in the tenure of Mark Cottell, and of a messuage called Thornes- Clawton in the tenure of Matthew White. In another part of the inquisition (to quote without translating) : "Et q'd ten ta et cet'a p'missa in N. Tawton ten fc de Joh. Wood armiger et Marc. Cottell gen'os. de man'io suo de N. Tawton in lib'o soc. et val. p' an' 40* 01 ."

In the 'Cal. of Fines ' (Divers Com. Hil., 35 Hen. VIII.) I find Alex. Wood querent, et Ric. Eggecombe milit' deforciant, de tercia pars man'ii de N. Tawton et de t'cia pars ten. et redd, in N. Dunsthedyoke (or Dims- chedyoke?), Bath, Newlond, Aysherigge et Lamberty's week (anothername for Chawleigh Wyke or North Tawton Wyke).

In 33 Hen. VIII. (Easter Fines) Robert Fisher, chaplain, and Martin Slader held

[* Yes. H. Irving was the Felix Featherley and Ada Cavendish Mrs. Featherley. 'The Widow Hunt,' a rearrangement by Stirling Coyne of his ' Everybody's Friend ' (Haymarket, 2 April, 1859), was first given at the St. James's 16 October, 1867.]

t Ch. Inq. post mortem, Car. I. (27, 90).