414
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. in. MAY 27, 1905.
Queen Mary's subjects acquiring consider-
able skill, her son James I., some time
between 1603 and 1625, started a little colony
of plaiters in the neighbourhood of Luton,
it being observed and I think it is the case
still that the straw there was more than
usually brightly coloured and strong. The
trade was fostered and developed by the
Napier family, then occupying Luton Hoo,
and seems to have thoroughly established
itself in that and the surrounding districts
by the end of the seventeenth century, for
Oldmixon, in his ' History of England,' 1724,
mentions the trade as thriving, and as having
prospered for more than a hundred years.
See further the Journal of the Society of
Arts, 21 December, 1860.
J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. 6, Elgin Court, Maida Vale, W.
The 'N.E.D.,'*.v. ' Hat, J gives a quotation of 1540 in which ".iij. straw hats "are men- tioned. Q. v.
I have unfortunately mislaid a history of Dunstable published about the end of the eighteenth century ; but, if my memory serves me rightly, there is an account therein of the above industry being centred at Dunstable many years prior to the reign of James I. CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.
Bradford.
GOETHE AND BOOK-KEEPING (10 th S. iii. 328). The reference for which your correspondent seeks may be that in ' Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship' (Carlyle's version, Book I. chap, x.), where Goethe makes Werner, in argument with Wilhelra, eulogize "book- keeping" in defence of a commercial as against a higher intellectual life, but simply as foil to Wilhelm's brilliant utterances in favour of the latter :
" What advantage does he [the merchant] derive from the system of book-keeping by double entry ! It is among the finest inventions of the human mnd ; every prudent master of a house should introduce it into his economy."
" Book - keeping by double entry" is not perhaps a study that Goethe himself would have seriously recommended by way of attaining or ascertaining what "he makes Wilhelm in reply allude to as " the net result of life," though in itself, no doubt, extremely useful. M.
COPYING PRESS (10 th S. ii. 488 ; iii. 153).! am glad the name of the inventor of the copy- ing press has been duly recorded in 'N. <fe Q.,' and I should like to add to the information supplied by the editorial note at the first reference that specimens of the original
Soho copying press, together with packets
of Watt's copying-ink powder, and a press
copy taken from a letter dated 1785, I think,
may be seen at the Victoria and Albert
Museum. The manufacture of copying presses
was a very important branch of business at
Soho. I have not the slightest desire or
intention to deprive Watt of the credit to
which he is justly entitled, but it is curious
to notice that the same idea seems to have
occurred to Samuel Hartlib, who commu-
nicated to Evelyn ('Diary,' 27 Nov., 1655) an
account of "An inke that would give a dozen
copies, moist sheets of paper being pressed
on it, and remain perfect." The passage may
be found at p. 310 of the first volume of the
four-volume edition published in 1852.
K. B. P.
SHACKLEWELL (10 th S. iii. 288, 352). The house 14, Kingsland Row (not Road), Dalston, in which Lamb had lodgings while residing at 20, Russell Street, Covent Garden, is now swept away. Those interested in this subject would do well to turn up and consult a very interesting correspondence which will be found at the following references : 8 th S. v. 18, 114, 194, 477 ; vi. 9.
An engraving and description of Lamb's house in Colebrooke Row, Islington, appeared in The Illustrated London Neivs of 6 January, 1849. JOHN T. PAGE.
West Haddon, Northamptonshire.
ANTIQUITY OF JAPAN (10 th S. iii. 149). Dr. Engelburtus Ksempfer's 'Account of Japan' first appeared in English in 1728. Ksempfer was a Dutchman, and visited Japan as medical officer of the Dutch factory towards the end of the seventeenth century. In chaps, iii., iv., ix., and x. of Blackwood's edition MR. F. A. EDWARDS will find all the particulars he desires.
CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.
Baltimore House, Bradford.
The antiquity of the Mikado dynasty is enveloped in such a prehistoric mist that the lads of the Rising Sun themselves cannot see further back than 660 B.C. The Japanese fix the foundation of their monarchy under Syn Mu about this year before Christ. The earliest known government was strictly here- ditary and theocratical. Syn Mu was at once the high priest, or representative of the divinities, and king or emperor of the people. One hundred and twenty-three Mikados have sat on the throne of Japan. The date of the beginning of the Japanese Empire that is, 660 B.C. was not officially fixed until 1872, when the Chinese system of counting time was discarded for that in use in Europe. The
