Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/168

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. i. FKB. 13, im.


near the Oxford- Arms in Warwick Lane. MDCCXLIV. (Price One Shilling and Six- pence.)" In it are plenty of examples of Pamela, e.g. :

This secret soon the fair Pamela found, Whose Beauty spreads unnumber'd Conquests round.

C. i. 1. 31.

Here first Pamela drew the vernal Air, The beauteous daughter of this happy pair.

C. i. 1. 75.

No Maids attend, no shining Toilet's grac'd, Pamela 's only by Pamela lac'd. C. iii. 1. 17. It need scarcely be said that the Pamela of the above-mentioned skit is a very different person from the Pamela of Samuel Richard- son's novel. Who was J W , Esq. ?

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

SHAKESPEARE'S "VIRTUE OF NECESSITY" (10 th S. i. 8, 76, 110). A few years ago a writer in the English Historical Eevieiv stated* that the phrase "faciens virtutem de necessi- tatem " was used in the twelfth century by William of Tyre. I should have included this information in my observations at the second reference! but for the fact that the Review writer did not cite "chapter and verse." Perhaps one of your readers can supply this omission. Grimm's 'Deutsches Worterbuch' quotes (s.v. 'Noth') some old examples, one of which (not the earliest), dated 1545, is thus expressed in rime : Wir miissen doch inn unsern Sachen Usz der Nodt ein Tuget machen.

With regard to Shakespeare's use of the proverb, the writer of an article in the Nineteenth Century for February, entitled 'A Forgotten Volume in Shakspeare's Library,' discourses of a rare book published in 1581,f with a view to "showing that the great poet was in no small measure indebted " thereto. The Nineteenth Century writer is of opinion that if Shakespeare used the proverb at second hand he borrowed it from Pettie rather than from any other author, and quotes the following from the 'Civile Con- versation' (i. 5): "Whereof followeth a vertue of necessite." Whatever the value of this opinion, it strengthens my belief that the proverb was as familiar to Shakespeare's English as to his foreign contemporaries.

F. ADAMS.

SADLER'S WELLS PLAY ALLUDED TO BY WORDSWORTH (10 th S. i. 7, 70, 96). The 'New Burletta Spectacle, Edward and Susan,' was produced at Sadler's Wells Theatre on the


  • Vol. ix. p. 7, note 13.

t " The Civile Conversation of M. Steeuen Guazzo, written first in Italian, and nowe translated out of French by George Pettie."


opening night of the season, Easter Monday, 11 April, 1803. It was written by Charles Dibdin the younger (manager and part- proprietor of the house), and composed by W. Reeve, the scenery being painted by R. C. Andrews. The principal characters were by "Mr. King (his first appearance here these five years), Mr. Smith, Mr. Townsend, late of the Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden (his first appearance at this Theatre), and Mrs. C. Dibdin/

The lyrics, with descriptions of the scenery, in many of my grandfather's Sadler's Wells pieces were printed, but I have not seen a copy of this one. Some idea of the manner in which the Cumbrian Arcadia was presented in it may be evolved from the further infor- mation advertised :

" In the course of the Piece an incidental Ballet (composed by Mr. King) in which Mr. King and Mad. St. Amand, will dance a Pas Deux, ac- companied on the Harp. Mr. L. Bologna and Mr. Banks will dance a Comic Pas Deux, accompanied, on the Union Pipes, by Mr. Fitzmaurice (his first appearance in London) ; and Miss Gayton, pupil of Mr. Jackson, late of Covent Garden Theatre, only nine years of age, will dance a Hornpipe with a Skipping Rope (her first appearance in Public)."

It was also announced that,

" shortly after the opening, the Proprietors mean to give a benefit, the profits of which will be appropriated towards the Subscription for the Beauty of Buttermere, particulars advertised in a few days."

Of the result of this benefit (if it took place) I have no record. The two principal parts were played by Townsend and Mrs. Dibdin, the former introducing a new song (by Dibdin and Reeve) called 'The Mammoth and Bonaparte.'

In his ' Memoirs ' the author said : "The pieces which I wrote for our opening con- sisted of 'New Brooms; or, the Firm Changed'; ' Edward and Susan ; or, the Beauty of Butter- mere,' an operatic piece in rhyme, founded upon a fact which had but recently occurred, implicating the seduction, by fraudulent marriage, of the daughter of the keeper of the Char Inn, near the Lake of Buttermere ; and for which the perpetrator forfeited his life in each of these two pieces Towns- end played the principal character ; ' Jack the Giant Killer,' a serious pantomime, in which young Menage performed Jack, and Signer Belzoni, who was remarkably tall, and an uncommonly fine pro- portioned man, played the Giant, whose dwarf was most whimsically sustained by Mr. Grimaldi, who performed in every line ; ' Fire and Spirit ; or, a Holiday Harlequin,' in which King played Harle- quin ; Mr. Hartland, Pantaloon ; Mr. Grimaldi, Clown; and Mile. St. Pierre, the Columbine; with a Ballet, composed by Mr. Bologna, junr. ; and an Extraordinary Gymnastic Exhibition by Signr. Belzoni, announced as ' the Patagonian Samson.' :>

Of the scenery it is recorded that " we exhibited as beautiful displays of Scenery as any Theatre in London." 'Edward and