Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/305

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ii s. iv. OCT. 7, i9ii.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


299


GBINLING GIBBONS AND ROGEBS (11 S. iv. 89, 137, 154, 217, 255). In Mid-Victorian days George Alfred Rogers had a high reputation in artistic especially architec- tural circles although he is but little known to a later generation. His art-school was situated in Maddox Street, and several of his pupils turned out well. One, the wife of a country clergyman, executed the wood- carving for her husband's church. Charles Knight's ' Cyclopaedia of the Industry of All Nations,' 1851, referring to " Jordan's carving machinery " (art. ' Carving '), says :

" A very large amount of the carving in the new Houses of Parliament has been effected by this machine. The more delicate work for the same building, requiring hand-processes, is en- trusted to Mr. Rogers, whose exquisite produc- tions have done much towards the revival of a taste for this art."

Rogers was also engaged successfully on the interior carving of various churches in London and the provinces among others, St. Michael's, Cornhill.

Late in life he published two books, only one of which is in the British Museum :

" The Art of Wood-Carving : Practical Hints to Amateurs, and a Short History of the Art. By George Alfred Rogers, Artist in Wood to the Queen and Professor at the Crystal Palace Schools of Art ; Author of ' Some Account of the Wood- Carvings of St. Michael's Church, Cornhill.' London : Virtue & Co., Ivy Lane. 1867."

The work contains several wood-cut illus- trations by the author frames, brackets, panels, &c.

I have often thought George Alfred was related to W. H. ("Harry") Rogers, a well-known ornamental designer in wood and stone, who flourished forty or fifty years ago ; but I have no real grounds for this belief. HEBBEBT B. CLAYTON.

39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

Readers of ' N. & Q.' will find in early numbers of The Art Journal (then The Art Union] some facts of interest concerning Rogers, the wood-carver whose name has been mentioned in connexion with Grinling Gibbons. In The Art Union, 1845, p. 341, is a note on the work of Mr. Rogers of Great Newport Street ; and in an article in 1847, p. 211, some illustrations are given of several brackets in boxwood carved by the artist.

There appear to have been two artists, father and son, at work in the middle of the nineteenth century. In The Art Journal, 1866, an illustration is given of a side- board-carving representing the knighting of Sir Edward Waldo. I may add that in 1867 Mr. W. G. Rogers read a paper before


the Royal Institute of British Architects on Grinling Gibbons.

Several carvings are contributed by Mr. Mark Rogers to the present exhibition at the White City. I do not know if he is a descendant. A. YOCKNEY.

TWINS AND SECOND SIGHT (11 S. iii. 469 ; iv. 54, 156, 259). Abundance of information on this subject will be found in Galton's ' Inquiries into Human Faculty,' a section of which is devoted to ' History of Twins.' See the edition just issued in " Everyman's Library," pp. 155-73.

WM. H. PEET.

ALABASTEB BOXES OF LOVE (11 S. ii. 169). The quotation is from Dr. J. R. Miller's

  • Weekday Religion,' chap. xvi. ( ' Kindness

that Comes Too Late '). G. H. J.


0tt


Educational Charters and Documents. By Arthur F. Leach. (Cambridge University Press. )

THE history and literature of pedagogy is a department of knowledge which Mr. Leach has made peculiarly his own. His aim in the present volume is to do for the educational history of England what Bishop Stubbs in his ' Select Charters ' did for its constitutional history. The remarkable collection of representative charters and documents which he has brought together, ranging from the foundation of the Canterbury School in 631 to the Board of Education Scheme in 1909, will be invaluable to the student of" education ; while his illuminating Introduction,. in which he traces the evolution of the grammar school, Indus literarius (a term found in Plautus),. will be of interest to all readers.

The study of Greek was introduced into schools,. it seems, by Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, though the teaching of the classics had been sternly prohibited by Pope Gregory the Great. From the very beginning the school and the- Church, the master and the priest, stood to one another in the closest relationship, and the bishop was the school inspector. An interesting refer- ence to the game of football in London schools occurs in 1118, when the boys resort to a field in the suburbs ad lusum pilce celebrem ; but we question whether this means " a solemn game of ball," as Mr. Leach translates it, unless boys of that date were very different from those of ours. We also much doubt whether the fact of salutary discipline being administered in St. Albans Grammar School, 1309, by the bachelors, bacularii, indicates that they got their name from the disciplinary stick, baculus (p. xxx).

We have noticed a few other slips. Mr. Leach translates Alcuin's line " Cassiodorus item, Chrysostomus atque Johannes," " Cassiodorus, Chrysostom and John " (p. 17), as if three persons were referred to instead of two. Johannes le-