Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/488

 480

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. DEC. 14, 1901.

(British Museum) to this effect bears the pro vision that "This ticket admits bearer tc dinner at Scots Hall in Blackfryars " (port folio i.). " Round the Rose "apparently refers like " under the rose r " to the flower of Venus consecrated by Cupid to Harpqcrates, the god of silence. "Free and easies" of an ostensibly " harmonic " character were numerous, both within and without the City at the beginning of the nineteenth century but their devotion to the god of silence was not always marked enough for magisteria" approval.

The Free Trade Club. A semi-politica club, originally established in Regent Street and thence removed to St. James's Square Messrs. Cobden, Bright, Moore, and other members of the Anti-Corn Law League were its founders and principal frequenters ; but it never came into vogue with the com- munity, and is now extinct. (' The London Clubs,' 1853.)

The Friendly Brothers was a benefit society of gentlemen's servants which met at the "Cock and Bottle" in Upper Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. Founded in 1807.

The Friends of the People Society (for Par- liamentary reform) met at the " Freemasons' Tavern " in 1792

The Gang (1784) met at the "Star and Garter Tavern " in Pall Mall.

The Gloucestershire Society, a charitable institution, met at the "Crown and Anchor" in the Strand, where was sung

" ' George Ridler's Oven,' a Right Famous old Gloucestershire Ballad, corrected according to the Fragments of a Manuscript copy found in the Speech House, in the Forest of Dean, several cen- turies ago."

Golden Fleece, Knights of the Antient and Honourable Order of the. See Knights.

Gor-mo-gon, The most August and Ancient Order of the. This society, resembling that of the " Free and Accepted Masons," was in existence from 1725 to 1738, when it was dis- solved. (See 'N. & Q.,' 3 rd S. vii. 457.) The following advertisement, calling a " General Chapter," occurs in the London Eveninq Post of 25 April, 1732 :

"By Command of the Vol. Gl. A General Chapter of the most August and Ancient Order Gor-mo gon will be held at the Castle Tavern in fleet Street on Monday, the 1st of May, to com- mence at Twelve o'Clock ; of which the several Graduates and Licentiates are to take Notice and give their Attendance. K. A. T."

Nor passed the meanest unregarded ; one Rose a Gregorian, one a Gormagon.

Pope's ' Dunciad,' iv. 576. Green Dragon Forum.-See < Old and New London.

Green Ribbon Club.- See * The King's Head Club ' (Timbs's ' Club Life,' p. 35).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

(To be continued.)

SHAKESPEARIANA.

'HAMLET,' I. i. 117, 118 (9 th S. viii. 237). It is clear that a line has been lost. If I venture to supply the missing line, and read the passage as follows, I think that I shall make less alteration than ME. THISELTON has made :

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. Such monstrous prodigies were then beheld As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood. Disasters dimmed the sun ; and the moist star, &c.

Stars with trains of fire are comets ; and these have been often thought ominous. Homer speaks of drops of blood, falling from above, as indicative of misfortune :

< Iliad,' xvi. 459. I think that he also mentions dews of blood, but I cannot find the passage in which he does so. I do not think that the stars were associated with dews of blood. I think that dews of blood and stars with trains of fire were the prodigies. Blood is a common prodigy. Virgil says that it flowed from wells before the death of Julius Caesar.

E. YAEDLEY.

' ROMEO AND JULIET,' II. ii. (9 th S. iv. 221). ME. YAEDLEY is apparently correct in his suggestion that the reference in Apollodorus to a saying of Hesiod is to one of the latter's pst writings. The passage from Apollodorus, i. 3, is given among the 'Hesiodi Fragments, ' No. 83) in Gaisford's ' Poetse Minores Grseci,' Dxonii, 1814, vol. i. p. 196, but Hesiod's text not given. ROBEET PIEEPOINT.

' A MIDSUMMEE NIGHT'S DEEAM,' II. i. 36, J7.

Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn.

According to Johnson, "the sense of these

ines is confused The mention of the milk

eems out of place, for she (the fairy) is not iow telling the good, but the evil that he Robin Goodfellow) does." Ritson under- tands "labour in the quern" as a mischie- ous prank : " He skims the milk when it ught not to be skimmed, and grinds the corn > r hen it is not wanted." It seems plain that " labour in the quern " s a mischievous prank, but in the same way s in

bootless make the breathless housewife churn.