Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/418

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. MAY 20, uie.

There are several references to Julian Hibbert in the early literature of the Chartist and of the Radical pre-Chartist movements. 'The Memoir of James Watson,' by W. J. Linton, contains, I believe, the longest account of him. There are also references to him in the Place MSS. at the British Museum (Add. MSS. 27,791, folios 247, 248). Hibbert was, in 1831, one of the founders of the National Union of the Working Classes, in which many of the working-men who launched the People's Charter seven years later associated for the first time. After Hibbert's death his press became the property of his friend James Watson the Chartist, and it is to the influence of Hibbert, presumably, that the typographical excellences of the numerous pamphlets published by Watson are due. They certainly contrast very agreeably with the other ephemeral literature of the time. Julius West.

3 Boscastle Road, N.W.


ANNE BOLEYN (12 S. i. 347). DR. COURTENAY DUNN does not give us any authority for the statement that Anne Boleyn was educated in the household of " some nobleman," where she fell in love with " some gentleman," but it is probably not a fact. There is very little reliable information in existence about Anne's early life, and the date of her birth, her age when she first went to France, whether she was older or younger than her sister Mary, are all disputed and much-debated questions, as will be seen on reference to the appendix to Paul Friedmann's Life of Anne Boleyn. The divergent evidence is critically ex- amined in this work, and if we can accept Mr. Friedmann's conclusions as probably the most reliable, Anne Boleyn was born in 1502 or 1503 at Hever in Kent. In 1514 (beimg then only 11 or 12) she went to France with Henry's sister, Mary Tudor, on the occasion of the marriage of the latter to Louis XII. In 1 522 she returned to England. Louis died the year after his marriage, and was succeeded by Francis I., whose queen Claude apparently took Anne under her guardianship, educated her, and kept her at the French Court till she returned to England. Beyond the fact that she mostly resided with her father, who held a Court appoint- ment at the Royal Palace at Hampton Court, the events of her life from 1 52 3 to 1 52 6 are not precisely known. But, says Mr. Friedmann, "whatever her good qualities may have been, modesty, did not hold a prominent place among


them. Sir Henry Percy was not the only man with whom she had an intrigue. Thomas Wyatt, her cousin, although already married, was her ardent admirer."

Sir Henry Percy (afterwards Earl of Northumberland, and one of the peers who tried Anne) was then a student of Court manners and customs, a wild, impetuous young gentleman, living with Cardinal Wolsey. Though affianced to Lady Mary Talbot, he desired to get out of the engage- ment in order to marry Anne Boleyn. The Cardinal, however, would not hear of it, and sent him home to his father. Possibly Percy is the lover to whom DR. DUNN alludes, but to get at anything reliable about Anne's pre-nuptial life is not easy, and as Mr- Friedmann, after devoting two volumes to- her, observes, " it has still to be written."

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

AUTHOR AND CONTEXT WANTED (12 S i. 369).

And in short measures life may perfect be is by Ben Jonson. It ends the ' Strophe or Turn ' in the third section of his * Pindaric- Ode on the Death of Sir H. Morison,' No. Ixxxvii. in ' Underwoods.' The Strophe,' which begins :

It is not growing like a tree, is included in Palgrave's ' Golden Treasury,' and, presumably, in other anthologies- Tennyson liked it (' Alfred, Lord Tennyson t a Memoir,' i. 73). EDWARD BENSLY.

This is not quite correctly quoted from Ben Jonson' s fine little lyric, in his ' Under- woods ' :

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make Man better be, Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere : A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, It was the lant and flower of Ligh


ght.


In small proportions we just beauties see ; And in short measures life may perfect be.

G. L. APPERSON.

[Thanks to several other correspondents who- have kindly supplied this reference.]

THOMAS HOLCROFT'S DESCENDANTS : MARSAC (12 S. i. 168). Surely MR. COLBY is wrong in speaking of Major Marsac as a descendant. I have always heard that his mother (sometimes known as the Comtesse de Marsac) married Thos. Holcroft after his birth. I believe there is a reference to him and his mother in Hazlitt's ' Life of Hoi- croft,' but I have not the book to refer to. This wife of Holcroft is buried in Marylebone