Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/104

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. VIL FEB. i, 1913.


VANISHING LONDON : PROPRIETARY CHAPELS (11 S. ii. 202, 254, 293, 334; iii. 140, 193, 258; iv. 434; vi. 33). An impending change in the ministry of Gros- venor Chapel, South Audley Street, chapel- of-ease to St. George's, Hanover Square, is notified. The Rev. F. Norman Thicknesse, the Rector of St. George's, writes to his parishioners :

"I am able to announce that the Rev. W. B. Trevelyan, of Liddon House, has undertaken the care of (Trosvenor Chapel, in which he will be assisted by the Rev. W. J. Bartlet, who has for Ifi years been working at St. John the Divine, Kennington."

The chapel is now closed for repairs, to be reopened early in February.

CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenaeum Club.

AUTHORS WANTED (11 S. vii. 50).

  • \\~ho : s the Dupe ? : a farce written by

Hannah Cowley, published in 1779, and produced at Drury Lane.

' The Country Girl/ There are two comedies bearing this title. The first is by Anthony Brewer, 1649; the second by David Garrick, 1766, and was acted at Drur\ r Lane.

' Miss in her Teens.' A farce, also by Garrick, acted at Co vent Garden in 1747. It is said to have met with great success, partly, perhaps, owing to the clever acting of the author and of Woodward, a very popular actor of the time.

' The Citizen.' A comedy in three acts by Arthur Murphy, 1761, was brought out at Drury Lane in the summer of that year, under the joint management of Samuel Foote and the author.

' The Waterman ; or, The First of August/ Ballad opera by Charles Dibdin. Acted at the Haymarket, 1774.

See Baker 's 'BiographicaDramatica,' 1782, vol. ii. WM. NORMAN.

The authors of the plays mentioned by MR. LEWIS are as follows :

' Who 's the Dupe ? ' A farce by Mrs. Cowley. Produced at Drury Lane, 10 May,

' Raising the Wind." A farce in two acts by J. Kenney. Produced at Co vent Garden, 5 Nov., 1803.

' The Country Girl.' A comedy in five acts. Altered from Wj^cherley's ' Country Wife ' by David Garrick. Produced at Drury Lane, 1766.

' Miss in her Teens ; or, The Medley of Lovers/ A farce in two acts bv David


Garrick. Produced at Co vent Garden, IT Jan., 1747.

' The Honest Thieves/ A farce in two- acts by T. Knight. Produced at Covent Garden, 9 May, 1797.

' Blue Devils ' (not ' The Blue Devil '). A farce by George Colman the Younger from the French. Produced at Covent Garden, 24 April, 1798.

' The Citizen/ A comedy in three acts bv Arthur Murphy. Produced at Drury Lane, July, 1761.

' The Waterman ; or, The First of August.* A ballad opera by C. Dibdin. Produced at the Haymarket, 17 Aug., 1774.

CLIFTON ROBBINS.

  • Miss in her Teens,' a farce by David

Garrick, was first acted at Covent Garden in 1747. It was taken from Dancourt's one-act prose comedy ' La Parisienne/ which was first acted in Paris on Wednes- day, 13 June, 1691. Garrick's play is cited in ' N.E.D/ under ' Bam ' and ' Pure * (IV. 8). B. M.

[BLADUD, MR. W. DOUGLAS, Miss FOLKARD, MRS. FEXN, MR. WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK, MR. J. PARSON, and A. F. S. also thanked for replies.]

DIED IN HIS COFFIN (11 S. vi. 468). Surely it is not necessary to resort to a pun in order to explain this phrase. A coffin seems to have been a by no means uncommon object in an eighteenth-century bedroom. I am afraid that I can throw no light on the particular case of Dr. Bentley, but the following passages seem to afford parallels for the practice.

From the Diary of the Rev. John Thorn - linson (Surtees Soc., ' North-Country Diaries,' ed. J. C. Hodgson, p. 66) :

" 1717, May loth. The story of my grandfather's keeping his coffin in his bedchamber i'or six years ; applauded as a piece of extraordinary Christian courage."

From ' The Memoirs of Percival Stock- dale,' i. 152 :

"William Gare [of Lesbury, Northumberland, d. 1749] was a carpenter, and in one instance he exercised his profession in a very remarkable way. He made a coffin for himself, and another for his wife, which \vere lodged in his house many years before either of them died/'

In Samuel Richardson's novel * Clarissa ' the heroine orders her coffin, and uses it for a writing-desk for some weeks before her death.

In Mr. Edmund Gosse's ' Gossip in a Library ' there is an account of the death of Dr. Donne, chaplain to Charles I. I have not the book at hand, and cannot give the exact reference or date, but the event took