Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/144

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. ix. FEB. is, 1902.

gine one much worse than this." It has been said that the next best thing to a very, good pun is a very bad one ; and, conversely, the next best thing to a very bad anagram may perhaps be admitted to be a very good one. I hope, therefore, that I may be allowed in this connexion to revive the memory of what seems to me to be a first- rate anagram, if not at once so striking as the briefer ones, such as "Horatio Nelson honor est a Nilo," yet re- markable for its very length as well as for its appositeness. I transcribed it from some public print in the early time of the Crimean War, and, if I remember rightly, before the death of the Czar Nicholas.

I may say beforehand (1) that the form " Tsar " is recognized in French dictionaries ; (2) that the two O's have been inserted by myself to make the anagram complete ; but it is just possible that there may have been a slight inaccuracy in my transcription.

" A sa Majeste imperiale, le Tsar Nicolas, souverain et autocrate de toutes les Russies." This, transposed, will be found exactly to make the following : " O, ta vanite sera ta perte ; O, elle isole la Russie ; tes successeurs te maudiront a jamais."

Another example of a very good anagram is the following : ' Confessions of an Opium Eater ' : "If so, man, refuse poison at once. " This, like the other, is perfect. The source of it I have quite forgotten.

C. LAWKENCE FORD, B.A.

Bath.

PINS IN DRINKING VESSELS (9 th S, iv. 287 358, 484; ix. 10). Lord Arundell of Wardour kindly informs me that the earliest and fullest account of the Glastonbury Cup was written by the Right Rev. Dr. Milman, and appeared in the eleventh volume of Archceologia. Strangely enough, MR. PIERPOINT, while writing so fully about this tankard, ante, p. 10, omits reference to this account by the author of the ' History of Winchester.'

RONALD DIXON. 46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

ROYAL TENNIS COURT AND NELL GWYN (9 th S. ix. 69). There never was a Royal tennis court in the Haymarket, or near it Ihere was a tennis court in James Street Haymarket, which was called "Royal" by its lessee in the last century, but without any authority for so doing. There was a tennis court in St. James's Palace, just north of the stable-yard and south of Cleveland Row

Offi * w i here A a g rou nd- P l a n in the Office of Woods and Forests, a copy of which I possess, by the kindness of an old friend. &. will nnd what is known about those two

old courts in my * Annals of Tennis,' of which a copy is in the British Museum ; or I should be happy to show it to him. The book is out of print. There is no trace of an under-

f round passage in either of these courts ; and should think that the " record " of Nell Gwyn visiting the court, if it exist, must be only to be found in some work of fiction. At Windsor, indeed, there was a court near her house, St. Alban's Lodge, close under the walls of the Castle ; but no subterranean approach was needed there, for the court stood in her garden, or at its boundary.

JULIAN MARSHALL.

The Royal Tennis Court was situated on the south side of James Street, Haymarket, and originally formed part of the celebrated gaming-house which was known as Shavers' Hall, from its proprietor, Simon Austbiston, having been barber to the Lord Chamberlain, Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. The building was converted in 1866 into 'a storehouse for military clothing ; but an old tablet, inscribed "James Street, 1673," was preserved in the wall, and is, I believe, still in existence. The Tennis Court was a favourite resort of Charles II., and may very probably have been visited by Nell Gwyn, though I can find no record of the fact.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

MOVABLE STOCKS (9 th S. vi. 405 ; vii. 14, 118, 214). The Western Daily Mercury for 22 January is responsible for the following :

"Earl Brownlow, speaking at the Lincolnshire Police Court Mission at Lincoln, remarked that although the punishment of the stocks was done away with legally so many years ago, he had him- self seen a man in the stocks. He was staying once in a small town in Shropshire, and in the middle of the market-place saw a man in the stocks. The stocks were on wheels, and were kept in one of the archways of the market, and when any of the market people were caught using light weights or selling bad meat or fish, or in any way cheating, the stocks were run out into the middle of the market and the person was placed in them and kept there until the market was over. Lord Brownlow added that he did not know but that, with proper organization and proper arrangements, it would be a good thing if the stocks could be used again."

HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.

ST. CLEMENT DANES (9 th S. vii. 64, 173, 274, 375 ; viii. 17, 86, 186, 326, 465 ; ix. 52). In a genealogy of the family of Clapham, of Clap- ham and elsewhere, co. York, deduced from Pharamund, King of the Franks, as contained in one of the original note-books (1720) of the Rev. John Lambe, M.A., rector of Ridley, co. Kent, now in my possession, it is stated