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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vi. OCT. 5. 1912.
' MEMOIRS OF SCRIBLERUS' (11 S. vi. 167).
Why are these ' Memoirs ' attributed to
Pope? Surely they are by Arbuthnot.
In Aitken's ' Life and Works ' they are
included among the undoubted works of
Arbuthnot. The author says :
" The Memoirs of the extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus seems to be almost entirely by Arbuthnot, but he was helped by Pope and others."
In a note on the 'Memoirs' he says that Pope, Arbuthnot, and Swift " projected to write a satire, in conjunction, on the abuses of human learning. But the separa- tion of our author's friends, which soon after happened, with the death of one, and the in- firmities of the other, put a final stop to their project, when they had only drawn out an im- perfect essay towards it."
Johnson, too, in reference to the 'Memoirs,' says :
" If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches perhaps by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules are so little practised that they are not known."
" Martin " is said to have originated as a synonym for " Swift," one of the original projectors of the satire. The earlier chapters of ' Tristram Shandy ' are evidently the result of suggestion supplied by those of the ' Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus.' This seems to be made still more probable by the fact, which is hardly a coincidence, that the second syllable of Tristram is the first syllable of Martin reversed.
J. FOSTER PALMER.
8, Koyal Avenue, S.W.
TITLE-DEEDS (11 S. vf. 88). The substance of the Earl of Mornington's speech in the House of Commons on Thursday, 21 Jan., 1794, on a motion for an Address to His Majesty at the commencement of the session of Parliament, was : " All the succeed- ng outrages, the burning of the title-deeds and country houses of all gentlemen of landed property," &c.
A. H. W. FYNMORE.
^CHURCHYARD INSCRIPTIONS (11 S. vi. 206, 255). The suggestion for a Bibliography of Transcriptions from Gravestones is a com- mendable one. I am able to make a con- tribution to it. A considerable manuscript collection of such transcriptions, taken from monuments in the burial-places of Liver- pool and neighbourhood, is in the Reference Department of the Corporation Public Library. The items date from the early part of last century, and include many
curious epitaphs. The collection is fully
indexed, and has already proved of no small
service to those interested in genealogical
research. GEORGE T. SHAW,
Chief Librarian. Liverpool Public Libraries.
EARLY FRENCH PLAYERS IN ENGLAND (11 S. vi. 128). MR. W. J. LAWRENCE'S query not having, so far, drawn any informa- tion as to the MS., I ventiu-e to suggest that " the Queen of France " was Mary (1496- 1533), sister to Henry VIII., widow of Louis XII., and wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, whom she married in 1515, very soon after Louis's death. Dr. Gairdner mentions in his life of Charles Brandon in the ' D.N.B.' that the Duchess was con- tinually called the French Queen. In the accounts of the treasurers of the town of Cambridge she appears as " my lady the Frensshe Qwene " shortly after her second marriage (Cooper's ' Annals of Cambridge,' i. 298). " The Queen of France," assuming that Payne Collier reproduced the wording of the MS., is not exactly the same as " the French Queen," but may, perhaps, be allowed to pass. Mary of France seems, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, to have " delighted in masques and revels sometimes altogether." In her life in the ' D.N.B.' more than one occasion is mentioned in which she was dis- guised at a royal entertainment, and she is said to have taken a prominent part in the maskings at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Further, the connexion with Norfolk and Suffolk (Mary died in the latter county, and was interred in the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds) seems to point to Thetford as a likely place to be visited by her players. But what evidence is there that these players were not English? The Queen's own residence in France had been of the briefest. EDWARD BENSLY.
VICARS OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, LITTLE MISSENDEN (US. vi. 209). Thomas Walden Hanmer, s. Graham, of Simpson, Bucks, cler. B.N.C. Oxon. matric. 5 Dec., 1799, aged 19; B.A. 1803, M.A. 1807, rector of Little Missenden 1810, and of Simpson, Bucks, 1845, until his death 14 Jan., 1871. A. R. BAYLEY.
The Rev. William Haslam was that some- what noted Evangelical clergyman whose " conversion " is described in his book ' From Death unto Life' (1880). He was vicar of Little Missenden during 1871-2, whence he proceeded to the perpetual curacy of Curzon
