Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/124

This page needs to be proofread.

118


NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. in. FEB. n, 1911.


GRANGE COURT, ST. CLEMENT DANES (11 S. iii. 28). Mr. Canning, attorney, who lived next door to " The Grange Inn " in Carey Court, " facing Lincoln's Inn Play- house," offered in 1742 a reward of thirty shillings for the recovery of

" a new superfine cloth Coat, of a light Colour, made Frock - Fashion, with little Stiffening, had a Roll Sleeve, a very narrow fall-down Velvet Collar, a Plait-behind, lin'd with Shalloon, and Silver Plate Buttons on when lost." Daily Advertiser, 25 March.

Was not this Mr. Canning probably the un- fortunate father of the distinguished George Canning, who, when he came to London, entered himself of the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar ?

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

OWLS CALLED " CHERUBIMS " (11 S. ii. 505 , iii. 15). The likeness of the bird to the cherub is indicated by the fact that a well- known Oxford don secured nicknames from both. From Jowett's ' Life and Letters,' by Campbell and Abbott (1897), I gather (p. 66) that Mrs. Grote called Jowett " the cherub," and Mrs. Ferrier of St. Andrews " the little downy owl."

HIPPOCLTDES.

QUAKER OATS (U.S. ii. 528; iii. 75). I may be wrong, but I have always taken it for granted that the name owed its origin to the fact that the gentleman who introduced Quaker Oats to the public is a member of the Society of Friends.

EGERTON GARDINER.

SHIP LOST AT SEA IN THE FIFTIES (11 S. ii. 528 ; iii. 76). The vessel in which Thomas Hall, brother of the late Sir John Hall, Premier of New Zealand, left this country in 1852 was burnt to the water's edge and its passengers transferred to another boat.

S. D. C.

PAUPER'S BADGE (US. ii. 487 ; iii. 55). In Scotland the beggar's badge appears to have been enforced at an earlier date than the pauper's badge (referred to at the first reference) in England. Mr. Ingleby Wood in his ' Scottish Pewter- Ware and Pewterers ' says, p. 4, that in 1574 " an Act was passed requiring all deserving beggars to wear a pewter or leaden badge for the purpose of distinguishing them from the ' sorners and vagabonds,' as the undeserving were termed," and that the Scottish gipsies " did not hesi- tate to forge these badges for sale to other rogues and as a means of obtaining alms for themselves from the charitably disposed."


A special chapter of Mr. Wood's book r pp. 115-21, is devoted to the subject of ' Beggars' Badges.' No. XXXI. of the very fine plates which adorn the book shows ten examples of the collection of beggars' badges- (many of them of pewter) which is to be found in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, Edinburgh. Another collection may be seen in the Smith Institute, Stirling. G. L. APPERSON.


A Quaker Post-Bag : Letters to Sir John Eodcs of Barlbrough Hall and to John Gratton of Many ash, 1693-1742. Selected and edited by Mrs. Godfrey Locker-Lampson. (Longmans &Co.)

THE book before us is of unusual interest. Though the literature of the Society of Friends published in the seventeenth and " eighteenth centuries has long attracted attention, these letters are widely different from any of the others which are generally known. They reveal the ordinary domestic life of the Quakers in a manner not found elsewhere, and give the reader a clearly denned impression of the gentle and kindly characters of Sir John Rodes of Barlbrough Hall and his circle of friends. Ideas are, perhaps, too often repeated, for his correspondents were not invariably on an equal level of intellectual development with himself, some of them being, simple people who valued not only his sterling, goodness, but also his position as a baronet the only Quaker baronet in England, so far as. we know. Their admiration did not prevent them from speaking freely, however, when they considered that it was a duty ; and none of them was afraid of giving unasked advice. Living in an age when the tie of marriage was considered almost a necessity for every man of good repute r they constantly offered suggestions which in these days would be stigmatized as highly impertinent.

Thomas Lawson, although he did not know Sir John by sight, evidently took great interest in his character and pursuits. He had heard 1 that the baronet was fond of plants, and seems to have credited him with a sympathy for botan- ists, since he draws attention to the fact that he himself has wandered in all directions in search of specimens, and further avows that he takes interest in antiquarian matters also, though botany is his chief study. The ardent desire he had to spread knowledge is proved by the fact that when George Fox, William Penn, and others became anxious to buy land near London for a " Garden School House " where all kinds of English plants and many foreign varieties were to be cultivated, Lawson determined to have a hand in the work. His project was to write a book in Latin for the use of the students, so that they might study the ancient language which they were intended to acquire, and at the same time learn something of the botanical specimens around them. Unhappily, this undertaking,.