University College, Aberystwyth. SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL (cliv. 154).– There is a detailed description, with illustration, section, and plan, of a crypt at St. Saviour's, Southwark, in the Gentleman's Magazine of June, 1835, signed by E. J. C." who had recently explored it. He gives the length of the crypt as 95 ft. 6 ins., and breadth 33 ft. 6 ins. The crypt appears to have been destroyed when warehouses allowed to be built over the precincts of the

cathedral on the north side.

were

G. W. WRIGHT.

Sir

On a beautiful day in May, 1742, Agnes Surriage, a daughter of poor but decent folk, was in the little front garden of her house in Marblehead, when Sir Charles drove by in his coach. Her dress was very short, for she had out-grown it, and there was no more cloth in the house to piece it down, and she had taken off her shoes and stockings. Charles, who had an artist's eye and soul, was not insensible to her beauty. He paused at the garden gate, and began to converse with Agnes. After he had caressed her flowing hair, he gave her half-a-crown with which to purchase a pair of shoes. Then he departed, but the picture of Agnes did not leave his mind, and shortly afterwards he found himself again on the road to Marblehead. obtained her parents' permission to take her to Boston with him, to have her educated, but he was so much in love with her that he could not let her remain at school. He built an elegant house at Hopkinton, 25 miles from Boston, and there he kept her in the midst

He

QUAKE (cliv. 101, 142, 159, 175). It may interest MR. CARDEW to know that there was an English Bridgetine convent, Syon Abbey, in Lisbon, at the time. They had been established there since 1594, the Sisters being always recruited in England. The convent was completely destroyed by the earthquake, but providentially not one of the inmates was killed. Sister Catherine Witham wrote home to her mother a very vivid account of their experiences. The original letter, of which I have a copy, is in the possession of Syon Abbey, now at South Brent, S. Devon.

The nuns, who were homeless and without the necessities of life, drew up a petition to their friends in England. It has been preserved in a rather curious manner. Add. MS. 5821 in Brit. Mus., which relates to Cambridge University, has on p. 90, without any connection to what precedes or follows, a note by the then owner of the MS., William Cole, M.A., F.S.A., on the destruction of the English Convent, followed by a transcript of its petition.

RORY FLETCHER.

The earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 recalls to mind one of the romances of American history. It was at this time that Sir Charles Frankland, Bart., was collector of Customs at Boston, an office more sought for than that of Governor, on account of the perquisites attached thereto, although the salary was only $500 per annum. His winning and generous manner made him a favourite in the vice-regal" society of the town.

twenty servants.

In 1754, Frankland visited England, and brought Agnes with him. The following year they were at Lisbon, at the time of the earthquake. The day of this happening, Frankland and Agnes were riding through one of the streets of the city. A house fell on them, and they were buried beneath the ruins for several hours before they rescued. The next day he led Agnes to church, and they became man and wife.

were

JAMES SETON-ANDERSON.

THE HE STORY OF SAVILE ROW (cliv. 147). All lovers of Old London must have read with much pleasure MR. W. COURTHOPE FORMAN's article on the above subject. I have a very interesting trade-card, platemark measuring 8 by 5 inches, of Archd. Robertson, Printseller and Drawing Master, in Savill Row Passage, adjoining Squib's Auction Room.'

Except for the name and trade, it is engraved in script-hand throughout, and enumerates the various items dealt in; at the bottom is a footnote "N: B: Sandby's works in Aqua Tinta, to be had complete.

At the top, in an oval-shaped panel, enclosed in a rectangular border, is a very picturesque view of the premises, engraved in aquatint, after the manner of Paul Sandby, and printed in sepia. This shows the entrance to Savile Row Passage, looking towards Savile Row, Robertsons's shop being on the right.

It should be noted that Robertson spells Savill with two l's and no e, and that although Squib " in the last part of the address is so spelt, over the entrance of the auctioneer's gallery the word Squibb" appears. Savill Row Passage " is now called Savile Place, and there is an inscribed stone with this name on it on the front, facing Savile Row, but it has had the bottom word Place let in at some time, since it is quite easy to see that the former word or words have been cut out and another stone bearing the word "Place" inserted instead. George Grote, the historian, lived at No. 12, Savile Row, from 1848 until his death in 1871, and in September, 1905, the London County Council placed one of their encaustic commemorative tablets upon the house. A similar one was placed in 1881 by the Society of Arts on No. 14, the residence of Sheridan.

I am not aware of any views of the actual thoroughfare of Savile Row, but I remember to have seen illustrations of Poole's premises when they were decorated or illuminated on the occasion of various public and royal celebrations or rejoicings.

The small low buildings between Poole's and Clifford Street have recently been replaced by a tall block of shops and offices of a very imposing character.

E. E. NEWTON.

Hampstead, Upminster, Essex.

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UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (cliv. 83, 124).Something about the stage history of this story is to be found in Arthur Hornblow, A History of the Theatre in America,' ii. 69-70; in Mary Caroline Crawford, The Romance of the American Theatre,' 390-396; and in Velona Pilcher, The Variorum Stowe (Theatre Arts, x. 226-239; April, 1926). Doubtless the histories of the London stage will mention English productions. Almost no reminiscences nor biographies of American actors who lived in the second half of the last century are without allusions to the play.

Miss Crawford states that Mrs. Stowe did

not protect the dramatic rights for her novel, which was published 20 May, 1852. In August, Charles Western Taylor's dramatized version appeared at Purdy's National Theatre, New York, without success. In September, George S. Howard, the manager of the Museum at Troy, New York, who believed the part of little Eva suited to his daughter Cordelia, played his version to delighted audiences. Countless versions have since been used; the printed copies are often anonymous. In fact, with barn-storming Shows" such as are still to be found in rural parts of the United States, valiantly holding their own against the movies, the play is improvised to suit the place and the scenes available. The original little Eva was still living in 1925.

Winnetka, Illinois.

"Tom

PAUL MCPHARLIN.

P. McP.

SIR THOMAS WHITE AND THE KIBBLEWHITES OF SOUTH FAWLEY, BERKS (cliv. 45, 86, 143). I think MRS. E. E. COPE is too severe with the Heralds with regard to their granting distinct arms to branches of the same family. When this was done it was not, I take it, from any defect in the memories or records of the College, but from the fact that the men gathering an estate in lands or money or distinguishing themselves in their individual careers, wished frequently to found their family on the bases of their personal achievements. In the armigerous middle class there was not always a desire to identify oneself with a coat that was perhaps only two generations old, nor a wish to link up with collateral branches more of kith than kind. Besides which with five, six, or more Johns and Williams in one generation, and monomarks not yet invented, some distinction even between brothers was necessary, or how preserve one's cupboard of plate" and one's covered cups "the gilt-edged investment and reserve fund of the time from cousinly lapses memory! Hasted tells us brothers even arranged changes in spelling of the family name to avoid confusion and to establish a separate line. Prelates and great lawyers

had set an example of taking new arms on promotion, and heraldic differences " of the paternal coats were possibly not much understood or practised except by great families under the direct supervision of the Heralds themselves. Personally I find dissimilarity of arms as little reason for distinction be tween families, as similarity, if uncorroborated, is evidence of relationship. PERCY HULBURD.

ANCIENT SEALS (cliii. 298, 393, 442, 481; cliv. 33). On the antiquity and use of seals there exist also some German writings, especially Grotefend, Ueber Sphragistik (Breslau, 1875, and Seyler, Geschichte der Siegel (Leipzig, 1891).

Olomouc, Czechoslovakia.

OTTO F. BABLER.

It was

ACK BOARDS (cliv. 81, 121, 158).—In my BACK childhood's home there was in the schoolroom from before 1857, when I was old enough to recollect it, a back board such as that described by R. S. B. (ante p. 121). used by the girls, who were made to lie on it for a spell, whether they liked it or not, as it was held to be good for them. I recollect using it myself as a youth, when ill, about 1865. In 1894 I found it had disappeared. R. C. TEMPLE.

GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER, R. N. (cliv. 117, 179). This class of personage formed a considerable proportion of Drake's crews in his voyage round the world, and his status in the sixteenth century is explained in my comments on 'The World Encompassed in the Argonaut Press edition of that work. R. C. TEMPLE.

BOOK OF CRESTS (cliv. 118).-This book was probably first issued in 1815, as Elven's Heraldry,' the author being J. P. Elven. In 1828 it was re-issued in two volumes as The Book of Family Crests' improved and published by H. Washbourne." Other editions, improved by Washbourne, and with no author or compiler mentioned, appeared at various dates, the eleventh edition being dated 1877.

was

of

FRANCES CURSON: OLIVER GADBURY (cliv. 136). The Cursons Waterperry, co. Oxon, were a Catholic family who intermarried with the principal recusant families of the county. Sir John Curson's daughter Frances "stolen away by Walter (was it Oliver ?) Gadbury, farmer, of Wheatley, and became the mother of the famous John Gadbury, astrologer and almanack maker (see 'D.N.B.'). Sir John was succeeded by his third son Thomas, who was made Baronet in 1661. Is then Sir John rightly described in the Chancery Proceedings Kt. & Bart"? Was the objection to Gadbury on the point of religion, or that he was only a farmer? The Cursons had been Lords of the Manor of Waterperry since the fifteenth century.

as

RORY FLETCHER.

PRE-ROMAN HILL-TOP ROADS (cliv. 136). There were no " roads " in this country before those made by the Romans, but there were undoubtedly trackways which were used a thousand or two thousand years or more before their time, and which were formed gradually by many centuries of foot traffic. That the hill-top camps or entrenchments, which are generally attributed to Neolithic times, were approached by such tracks is natural, and some of these tracks can be traced from one hill-fortress to another. The

string of these camps along the ridge-ways and downs of the south of England led Mr. R. Hippisley Cox ('The Green Roads of England,' second edition, 1923) to take the view that there was a settled government over the whole country at that early period, and that the hill-camps were merely stopping-places or caravanserais on the route to the coast and the Continent. We are gradually learning that our very remote predecessors were by no means So savage as we have been given to understand. But not all such tracks led

to hill-tops or kept along the high ground. Dr. Cyril Fox (The Archeology of the Cambridge Region,' 1924) classifies the trackways into ridgeways, hill-side ways and valley routes (pp. 141-2). Ridgeways follow the crest-line of hills; on the chalk downland of the south of England they appear to be the earliest type, probably earlier than the hill

forts."

Your querist, MR. G. S. GIBBONS, is evidently familiar with Mr. Alfred Watkins's writings (Early British Trackways,' and 'The Old Straight Track,' 1925), which show these trackways to be directed to sight points. The Pilgrims' Way goes back long before the time of Christian pilgrims to Canterbury, and may have been a track from Avebury or Stonehenge to the Kent coast (see Hilaire Belloc, The Old Road,' 1921). For ancient roads south of the Thames see the Archæological Review, i. 1888, pp. 439-40; iii. 1889, 89-98. Some of these tracks were directed to fords across rivers, and Julius Cæsar may have followed one of these routes to cross the Thames by a ford at Westminster or Brentford. We have reminiscences of such crossing-places in place-names compounded of ford (such Brentford), stoke (Bishopstoke), etc., and considerable literature is growing up around this subject, and I should be pleased to give MR. GIBBONS further information.

as

FREDK. A. EDWARDS. 34, Old Park Avenue, Nightingale Lane, S.W.

HERALDRY OF OXFORDSHIRE (cliv. 137). In all of the following places the Harcourt Arms, Gules, two bars or, may still be found in this county, so far as I am cognisant :

1. Stanton Harcourt. In the Harcourt Aisle of the Parish Church, where are to be seen numerous tombs and effigies and other memorials for many generations past of the Harcourt family.

2. Stanton Harcourt. The towers of the Castle which was erected by Sir Robert (III) Harcourt, K.G., in A.D. 1450, were all formerly fitted with stained glass windows containing the Harcourt armorial bearings. Of these, however, only the tower called "Pope's Tower" still remains, the others having been dismantled by Viscount Simon Harcourt, the Lord Chancellor, in 1710, in order to provide stone for additions to the mansion which he had recently purchased at Nuneham Courtenay (see below).

3. Stanton Harcourt. The gatehouse of

4. Nuneham Courtenay. In the church which was built by George Simon, 2nd Earl Harcourt, in 1760, are (or were) displayed the Harcourt arms in French tapestry.

WILLIAM HARCOURT-BATH.

EDMUND SPENSER, HIS CONNECTION

WITH NORTHANTS (cliv. 29, 69, 123). According to Dr. Round ('Peerage and Family History') the earliest known ancestors of the Spencers of Althorp, co. Northants, with whom the poet claimed relationship, were two brothers-William, of Radbourne, co. Warwick and John, of Hodnell, co. Warwick. William was the ancestor of the titled branch, and of the three ladies to whom the poet dedicated his poems. John, a grazier, died in 1496/7, leaving a son, Thomas, born in 1493, who succeeded to the Hodnell property. In 1550 a John Spencer sold the manor of Hodnell to Thomas Wilkes. The date is significant. Did this John Spencer migrate to London, and was he the father of the poet, who was born in London in 1552 or 1553? If so, the poet's kinship with the Spencers of Althorp is explained.

A. S. W. CLIFTON.

DAMPIER OF EAST COKER (cliv. 137).

be

The following items of news may interesting to you and to the enquirer in your paper. The Dampier family resided in this parish in the seventeenth century, and their old Manor House, known as Hymerford House,' ," is still standing, and outwardly is in much the state as it was in their day. We have a fine tablet in the church, of recent erection, to the memory of William Dampier, explorer. Our earliest Register dates from 1560, and although it is in fair preservation, I recently had it transcribed and with the Register before me, I find the following entries of the Dampier family between the years 1640 to 1660:

1641. Baptism of Margaret Dampier, daughter of William and Elizabeth Dampier. March 20th.

1645. Marriage.-Dampeerie (?) John and Joan Mudford. Nov. 6th.

Burials.-Dampeerie (?) William, William Jnr. July 24th.

son of Dampeerie (?) Elizabeth, w. of William Jnr. Aug. 2nd.

Dampeerie (?) Margaret and Elizabeth, Ds. of William, Jnr. Aug. 4th.

1646. Baptism.-Dampier, Ann, d. of George and Ann. Jan. 7th.

ST. MICHAN'S CHURCH, DUBLIN (cliv. 155). Many years ago I visited this church, the dedication of which is to a Danish saint; and I well remember the being shown some of the bodies in a small vault and my handling some of the parchment-like skin of certain of the corpses. Perhaps, 'leatherlike" would be a more fitting description of the skin, which adhered in flaps to the other parts of the remains. The church I recall to my recollection as a very plain structure, of a somewhat" Georgian" type, with a dignifiedlooking tower. Unusual dryness, and an absence of dust, have for long been considered to be the main causes of the preservation of the bodies; but a fanciful suggestion made at one period was that the soil contained much tannic acid, derived from the oak-trees which, ages back, grew in a forest on the site of the church, and that the tannin acted as a preservative. As for the dates of the interments, the families in numerous cases are known; and with reference to the notion that any of the bodies are those of crusaders, few of the burials, it is believed, are much older than the end of the seventeenth century. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Arthur Vicars, F.S.A., wrote (of the crusaders idea):

The absurdity of this wild notion is obvious when we look at the coffins, which we have reasons for thinking are the original ones in which the bodies were first placed. They are of the ordinary shape of the present day, of which I believe I am correct in stating one of the earliest examples known is that of Lancelot, Bishop of Winchester, buried in 1626 in S. Saviour's, Southwark.

EDWY G. CLAYTON.

THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS (cliv. 117). This method of escape from Parliament was chosen by two famous historians, Macaulay and Gibbon. N. L.

SONGS ABOUT SOLDIERS (cliv. 9, 53, 88, from various collections of songs such as The 123, 160). The following have been taken Oxford Song Book,' and others. In only a few cases have I been able to ascertain the approximate date, perhaps other readers may help in this respect. The tune of many of these songs is much older than the words given in the collections I have taken them from, and some of them were commonly sung long before they were noted on paper-or parchment,— and certainly were not printed until much later. I have not included the names of such songs 'La Marseillaise,' The StarSpangled Banner,' the German Hymn of Hate, nor the many Highland and Jacobite songs which might well rank as songs about soldiers.

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6

The Tarpaulin Jacket' (White Melville); Marching Through Georgia' (H. C. Work); The British Grenadiers (1690); The Elephant Battery Men of Harlech ' (1468); Old King Cole' (a parody); Pretty Polly Oliver' (seventeenth century); When 'Wi' a Johnny Comes Marching Home Hundred Pipers Chevy Chase' (c. 1610); Darby Kelly' (John Whitaker, b. 1776) Johnny Cope' (1790); The Kerry Recruit (traditional South Irish recruiting song); Lord Willoughby' (1590; appears in 'School of Music,' 1603); Mally O (from Scots Songs prior to Burns'); 'Over the Hills and Far Away' (recruiting song of the Marlborough Wars, from Wit and Mirth,' 1719); The Shan Van Voght' (traditional Irish song of the Napoleonic wars); 'We be Soldiers Three' (from Deuteromelia,' 1609); 'The Minstrel Boy' (Thomas Moore); 'The Blue Bells of Scotland'; Scots Wha Hae (Burns); 'Let the Hills Resound'; 'The Loud Tattoo' (Dibdin); A Soldier's Life' (Stainer); The Girl I left Behind Me' (eighteenth century) The War Song of the Men of Glamorgan' (Scott); 'Farewell to Lochaber' (Allan Ramsey, b. 1686); The Agincourt Song' (1415, from the Pepysian Collection); 'L'Homme Armé' (tune said to have been sung by the Crusaders when entering Jerusalem, 1099; words adapted from the Gerusalemme Liberata' of Tasso); William Taylor (Somerset); 'The Cabul

River The Screw Guns'; 'O Soldier, Soldier' (traditional); The Swazi Warrior' (marching song of the Zulu war, revived in 1914); the 'Chanson de Roland' said to have been sung at the battle of Hastings, 1066; Hildebrandslied (thirteenth century, published in prose, 1729). A. H.