Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/100

This page needs to be proofread.

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. FEB. i, 1913.


extract from the tract is printed by H. J. j Todd in his ' Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer' (1810), pp. 273-4, the copy which he saw being in the Pepys collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge ; and it is mentioned by T. Warton in a note in the Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, vol. xi. (1813), p. 363. Immortality has been given to it by Charles Lamb. The third part of Sir William Temple's ' Miscellanea ' was published, after his death, by Swift in 1701, and the second essay was upon ' Health and Long Life.' In this he repeats several stories on the authority of " the late Robert, Earl of Leicester, who was a Person of great Learning and Observation, as well as of Truth " (pp. 124-5). He proceeds (pp. 128- 129) to say :

" The last Story I shall mention from that Noble Person, upon this Subject, was of a Morrice- Dance in Herefordshire ; whereof He said, He had a Pamphlet still in His Library, written by a very ingenious Gentleman of that County ; and which gave an Account, how such a Year of King James his Reign, there went about the Country a Sett of Morrice-Dancers, composed of ten men who danced, a Maid Marian, and a Tabor and Pipe : and how these twelve one with another made up twelve hundred Years. 'Tis not so much that so many in one small County should live to that Age, as that they should be in Vigour and in Humour to Travel and to Dance."

This essay by Temple gave great delight to Charles Lamb, who dwelt upon it lov- ingly, as the pleasant manner of a " retired statesman/' in The New Monthly Magazine of March. 1826, p. 260, in an article of ' Popular Fallacies ' that " My Lord Shaftes- bury and Sir William Temple are models of the genteel style in writing," which was afterwards included in ' The Last Essays of Elia,' and headed ' The Genteel Style in Writing.' Lamb quotes the above passage, and rightly prints the county as Hereford- shire. But afterwards a misprint, easily accountable for, was introduced into it. Charles Lamb was known to be connected with Hertfordshire, a small county, and so compositors and editors, with their little knowledge, conspired to print the county as Hertfordshire. Through the courtesy of the present Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum I have been allowed to consult the Lamb collection at that institution, with the following result.

The place is correctly printed as Here fordshire in (1) The Last Essays of Elia, 1833 ; (2) Elia, both series, Paris, Baudry, 1835; (3) Lamb's Works, ed. Shepherd, 1875; (4) Works, ed. Charles Kent [1876]; (5) Elia in Henry Mor- ley's "Universal Library," 1885; (6) Elia


in " Camelot Series " [1890] ; (7) Works, new edition by Shepherd, 1892; (8) Works, ed. E. V. Lucas, 1903-5, and (9) 1912 ; (10) Works, ed. Hutchinson [1908].

The misprint of Hertfordshire first oc- curred in Moxon's edition of Lamb's Works, 1840, and in his separate issue of Elia, both series, 1840. It was repeated in (3) Works, 1852 ; (4) Works. 1859 ; (5) Works, 1865; (6) Elia, 1867; (7) Elia, 1867, 1868, and 1869 issues of Bell & Daldy, by arrangement with Moxon ; (10) Works, 1870; (11) Elia [1875]; (12) Works, 1876 and 1882-4; (14) Elia, 1879; (15) Elia, 1883; (16) Elia, 1885; (17) Elia, 1888 (" Temple Library ") ; (18) Elia, 1889, Stott's edition ; (19) Elia [1889], Putnam's Sons' edition; (20) Elia, 1890; (21) Elia, 1892; (22) Works, 1895 ; (23) Elia [1895] ; (24) Works, 1899-1900 ; (25) Elia, 1900 ; (26) Elia, 1901 ; (27) Elia, 1902 ; (28) Works [1903] ; (29) Works, 1903 ; (30) Elia, 1904 ; (31) Elia ("Library of English Prose "), 1904- 1905 ; (32) Elia, 1905 ; (33) Works [1905, &c.]; (34) Elia [1906]; (35) Elia, 1907; (36) Elia, 1909. W. P. COURTNEY.


JOHANNA WILLIAMSCOTE (11 S. vii. 49). - It is a curious coincidence that this query and mine relating to the Lingen family should appear on consecutive pages, for Wincote also belonged to the Lingens at one time, and it adjoins Radbrook. Owing to similarity in the names, especially in earlier spellings, and to their comparative proximity, Wincote has often been confused with two other places Willicote, on the opposite or western side of the road leading from Stratford-on-Avon to Mickleton, and Wilmcote, the home of Mary Arden with the result that the possible claim of Wincote, and not Wilmcote, to be the place referred to by Shakespeare in ' The Taming of the Shrew,' Induction, sc. ii. 1. 23, has been as yet insufficiently considered by Shake- spearean scholars. Wincote, now a farm- house, stands at the junction of the parishes of Clifford Chambers, Preston-on- Stour, and Quinton, and, in spite of altera- tions made in 1888, still possesses many interesting features. In his too little known ' Walks round Stratford-upon-Avon ' the Rev. J. H. Bloom says :

" When Wincote was tirst inscribed on the roll of fame it had already beconie two that is, what is now Willicote was a moiety of Wincote...... At

an early date a family bearing the name of the Manor was residing here ; at least as early as the reign of Edward I., or late in that of Henry III., one John de Wincot was here. When we reach