Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/422

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. iv. NOV. is, 1911.


song as given in The Folk-lore Journal. It does not, however, seem to me at all to fit in with the song indicated by Dickens. These are his words :

" It was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's respected name. Thus you were to

Hammer, boys, round Old Clem !

With a thump and a sound Old Clem !

Beat it out, beat it out Old Clem !

With a clink for the stout Old Clem !

Blow the fire, blow the fire Old Clem !

Roaring drier, soaring higher Old Clem ! "

Dickens runs this all on as prose ; but I have taken the liberty of setting it out in lines, the better to accentuate the rime.

JOHN T. PAGE.

The Elms, Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

COL. GORDON IN ' BARNABY RUDGE ' (11 S. i. 11, 74). At the latter reference the threat put into the mouth of " Col. Gordon" by Dickens (' Barnaby Rudge,' chap, xlix.) is attributed, on the authority of Lord Stanhope's ' History of England,' to Col. Murray, " one of Lord George's kinsmen."

It is quite possible that more than one member of Parliament threatened Lord George Gordon with death on the occasion referred to. In the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' we read under " Holroyd, John Baker, first Earl of Sheffield " :

" When the famous petition from the Pro- testant Association was presented to the House of Commons by Lord George Gordon on 2 June, 1780. Holroyd laid hold of Lord George, saying : ' Hitherto I have imputed your conduct to mad- ness, but now I perceive that it has more of malice than madness in it ' ; adding at the same time that if any of the mob made an entrance into the house he would instantly inflict summary ven- geance on. his lordship as the instigator."

Sir Walter Besant writes :

" His [Lord George's] cousin, General Murray, actually followed him sword in hand, ready to kill him on the first appearance of the mob." ' London in the Eighteenth Century,' 1902, p. 486.

In the Parliament of 29 November, 1774, to 1 September, 1780, there was only one Murray, viz., .Col. (later Major- General) James Murray of Strowan, member for Perthshire. John Baker Holroyd, elected at a by-election 15 February, 1780, was member for Coventry. The latter, as leader of the Northumberland Militia, took an active part in suppressing the Gordon riots. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

BURIAL INSCRIPTIONS (11 S. iv. 348). For copies of the monumental inscriptions in the mortuary chapel see the ' Brief History


of St. George's Chapel, Hyde Park Place, Cumberland Gate, W.,' by Cecil Moore, pub- lished by Hatchards. There is no date on the title-page, but the preface is dated " Advent, 1883." G. F. B. B.

The inscriptions in the burial-ground of St. George's, Hanover Square, in the Bays- water Road, were printed in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, vol. iii., Second Series, p. 125, and subsequent volumes.

GEO. J. ARMYTAGE.

Kirkley Park, Brighouse.

JESSIE BROWN AND THE RELIEF OF

CKNOW (11 S. iv. 328). See ' N. & Q.,' 2 S. v. 147, 425 ; 7 S. iii. 408, 483. At the econd reference it is stated that there was no Jessie Brown in Lucknow, and that the 78th did not play their pipes. In a news- oaper article dated 3 May, 1889, drawing attention to ' The Music of the British Army,' contributed to The National Review or May, 1889, by Mr. F. J. Crowest, refer- ence is made to " a certain Highland lassie hut up in Lucknow during the Mutiny, and straining ears and eyes for the tokens of .coming relief." It goes on to say :

" This Highland lassie never lived in the flesh, but was an imaginative creation of a lady who had cultivated her ruling faculty by much writing for the newspapers and magazines. This lady thought that a Highland lassie in the beleaguered city would be good copy.

" The Highland lassie of Lucknow, in fact, made the tour of the world of print, and though there is absolutely not one word of truth in her, he, probably, will not receive her official and final contradiction until the Judgment Day."

I have seen it stated that Jessie Brown was the wife of a corporal.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

Full details of the incident mentioned appeared in The Illustrated London Neius of 19 December, 1857. They are given in a letter written " by a lady, one of the rescued party." Jessie Brown is therein referred to as " the wife of a corporal in my husband's regiment." The letter ends as follows :

" Jessie was presented to the General on his entrance into the fort, and at the officers' banquet her health was drunk by all present, while the pipers marched round the table playing once more the familiar air of ' Auld lang syne.' "

Some time in the early sixties a song was. published entitled ' Jessie's Dream,' music by John Blockley, words by Grace Camp- bell. Prefixed to the song is an account similar to that published in The Illustrated London News. It purports to be an extract '\from a letter written by M.'de Banneroi,