Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/9

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
10th S. V. Jan. 6, 1906.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
1

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1906.


CONTENTS.—No. 106.

NOTES:—London Improvement, 1—Sir Thomas Nevill, 2—'The Epicure's Almanack,' 4—An Earlier Charles Lamb—Zouave Uniform, 5—"Pretty Maids' Money"—"Hooshtah"—The Metropolitan Railway Birds of East Finmark—Cecil Family, 6—Beu Jonson's Works, 7.
QUERIES:—Cardinals' Pillars—Ennobled Animals—Scott and Carey: Scott in Ireland, 7—Thomas Barry—Ned: "To raise Ned"—Malthy: Mawbey—Penn and Mead Jury, 1-70—Monumental Brasses in the Meyrick Collection—Born with Teeth—Francis Prior: Annabella Beaumont, 8—Will-power as recorded in Historical Portraits—Calfhill Family—Garioch: its Pronunciation—Piper at Castle Bytham—Napoleon's Coronation Robe: its Gold Bees—Riggs—'Census Report, 1851'—Robert Weston—Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 9—Grindleton, 10.
REPLIES:—London Newspapers, 10—'King Nutcracker'—"From pillar to post"—Authors of Quotations Wanted—Mozart—Charles Lamb, 11—Crockford's—'Military Discipline'—Oscar Wilde Bibliography—Bowes of Elford—Repartee of Royalty—Almanac, c. 1744, 12—Norwich Court Rolls—Archbishop Kempe—John Pitts—Church Spooons—"Smith" in Latin—Looping the Loop: Flying or Centrifugal Railway, 13—Thomas Pounde, S.J.—Ausias March—'Nicholas Nickleby'—Welsh Poem, 14—Anthony Rich—Wooden Water-pipes in London—Mulberry and Quince—John Penhallow—"Jan Kees," 15—Parliamentary Whips, 16
NOTES ON BOOKS:—Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets'—'L'Homme et son Image'—Burke's 'Peerage'—Reviews and Magazines.
Mr. Sidney Lee's Shakespearean Discovery.
Booksellers' Catalogues.
Notices to Correspondents.



Notes.


LONDON IMPROVEMENT.

In my remarks on the increasing beauty of London, under the head 'Kingsway and Aldwych' (10th S. iv. 361), I partially reviewed what had been done during the last sixty years in the making of new thoroughfares and the improvement of old. It will now be a pleasure to me to extend the reference to other work accomplished in the advance so interesting and satisfactory to all Londoners.[1]

The ardent demand for width and open spaces, parks, gardens, and playgrounds, has been noticed, and some work in that direction has had mention. In Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, originally one expanse, we have a grand inheritance. The Park and the Gardens have been carefully preserved, and progressive taste in the culture and arrangement of flowers and shrubs (especially of the sumptuous rhododendron) has greatly enhanced their beauty. A great work here has been the rectification of the Serpentine, the necessary complement of the landscape. Its existence has not been happy. Made for pleasure and ornament by Queen Caroline in 1730, it had nevertheless become the filth deposit of a district of growing London. The polluted West Bourn was long suffered to bring down the sewage, and although the evil stream had been diverted some years before the "forties," the horrid deposit remained, and was even augmented at times of flood. The Metropolitan Drainage scheme, a work of great magnitude which must have mention here, although, as underground, it did not affect the outward beauty of London finally shut off all sewer communication with the Serpentine; but not until ten years later (1870) were the cleaning, deepening, and shaping of the lake effected. And although its present supply of water from wells and surface drainage, and occasionally from the metropolitan system, is not generous, we have now a handsome lake. Green Park and St. James's, as the satellites of Hyde Park, have shared in the advance of enlightened culture. Regent's Park and the much loved "Zoo" have also progressed; and in the more modern London the old, wholesome example has been followed in the making of Victoria, Battersea, and several minor parks. Not only this, but every green and common has become a pleasaunce: and the grand old squares are more carefully tended, their green lawns and noble trees (wonderful in the heart of London) compensating us for the clouded skies and wet weather we sometimes find depressing. Finally, in the list of these open spaces come the last homes of past generations: the burial-grounds of the dead have become the gardens of the living, in some instances the playground of children.

It was about the end of the forties that the building of Gothic churches was revived. Greek churches, correct or incorrect, and built to serve equally the living and the dead, had been long in vogue; now the mediaeval English form again commended itself. It is not becoming to criticize severely the first examples of the revival, or even the "restorations" then effected; mistakes no doubt were made, and it would be sad indeed if after sixty years of building nothing had been learnt. One of the first


  1. Referring to my preceding note, I find that Kingsgate Street was demolished in the widening of Southampton Row in continuation of Kingsway. It is, however, satisfactory to notice that "Kingsgate Baptist Church" (connected with the fine Church House of that denomination) preserves the name. The date "1560" in the same note I have to acknowledge as a slip. Theobalds was obtained by James I. in 1607, in exchange with Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, for Hatfield (Walford, 'Greater London,' i. 380). Also it should be read of Westminster and Blackfriars bridges that Westminster is the wider by five feet.