128. 1. MAY 20, 1916.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
Ryder or Rider: Skynner: Amyand (12 S. i. 349).—While I can give your correspondent no exact answer to his query, the following remarks may be of interest, and possibly of some assistance to him.
Amyand House, Twickenham, Middlesex, was for many years the home of the Haggards, of which family Sir H. Rider Haggard is a distinguished member.
The house, dating back to the reign of Queen Anne, and perhaps earlier, contains some handsome chimneypieces of that period, although the once extensive park, now largely covered by bricks and mortar, is only perpetuated in our memory by Amyand Park Road and Rider Terrace.
I myself first saw the light at Amyand House, and the rustle of its ancient trees still haunts my ears, while the charm of its old-world garden is yet remembered in my dreams. G. B—L.
JOHNSTONE OF LOCKERBIE (12 S. i. 248,
334). All evidence points to the Johnstones of Lockerbie being descended from the Johnstones of Elsieshields. " Gavin of John- ston," of Elsieshields, and of Esbie, cadet of Johnston of Lochwood, died c. 1485, and had by his wife, Mariota Scott, at least two sons. Archibald, the elder, died in 1480, but his son Gavin carried on the line of Elsieshields. William Johnstone of Marjoribanks, the younger son, was the grandfather of William Johnstone of Lockerbie. The name of the father of this younger William is uncertain, but it appears to have been Thomas. It is possible that male descendants of the Johnstones of Lockerbie exist, but the main line of that family ended with two coheiresses in the eighteenth century.
There is a printed pedigree of the Loc kerbie Johnstones in ' The History of the Johnstones,' by C. L. Johnstone, recently published. I am afraid Sir William Fralser's
- Book of the Johnstones ' does not give any
detailed account of the Lockerbie branch. That book deals almost exclusively with the main branch of the house of Johnston, now represented by Mr. Hope- Johnstone of Annandale, and it gives practically no in- formation of any value concerning the cadet branches of Wamphray, of Westerhall, of Corrie, of Elphinstone, or of Elsieshields. If MRS. FORTESCTJE cares to write to me on any particular point, I shall be happy to try and help her, as I have a good many notes on the Scottish Border house of Johnston collected over several years.
F. A. JOHNSTON.
56 Queen's Gate, S.W.
0n IBaafcs*
Tico Pioneers of Romanticism : Joseph and'
Thomas Warton. By Edmund Gosse. Warton
Lecture on English Poetry, VI. (Published:
for the British Academy by Humphrey Mil-
ford, Is.)
THIS is one of the most delightful, and should* prove one of the most useful, of Mr. Edmund' jrosse's interpretative studies. Joseph and Thomas Warton are not to the casual reader nspiring figures in the army of poets, and yet, [ike the bicycle-scouts to whom Mr. Gosse very aptly compares them, they were the incon- spicuous and soon-forgotten, but authentic fore- runners whose arrival heralded a numerous marching army one which had set its face in a^ new direction.
It was they who first denied the soundness of the poetic theory which, in England, culminated in Pope ; they first insisted that imagination,, sensibility, " enthusiasm," were as truly factors in great poetry as " discernment " and " moral! wisdom " embellished with elegant classical' images. Joseph Warton would allow the palm of supremacy to three English poets only Spenser,.. Shakespeare, Milton in days when to set these above Pope was to write oneself down not only an ass, but a vulgar ass.
A very interesting fact about the brothers is their having come to their opinions so early in life,, but yet not out of a naive and inspired ignorance rather out of an unusually thorough familiarity with poetry, united to keen sensibility of the romantic, the " enthusiastic " order. They had',- as we know, the courage of their opinions, and bore, in some degree, the brunt of their generation's contempt ; but they did not, after all, fail of comfortable worldly advancement, a fact which, if it shows that their originality lacked energy and staying power, seems to indicate also thai? the energy of the classical tradition was stagnant,, if not on the wane, in the general lettered public of their early middle age.
Some of the most noteworthy of Mr. Gosse's ; remarks in this lecture are those at the beginning,, where he points out the folly of assuming as is so commonly done that the poetic pleasure taken by a past generation in work which has for us no attractiveness argues in that generation an actual want of taste and faculty for poetry, a sort of reprehensible " impossibility." This point is skilfully and tellingly illustrated by comparing the Wartons and their immediate predecessors with the young men of our own day, and the writers on the one hand from whom they are- beginning to move away, and those who, on the other, claim their latest allegiance.
Some Studies in the Topography of the Cathedral" Close, Exeter. By Ethel Lega-Weekes. (Exeter, Commin.)
THIS is a splendid piece of antiquarian work, and 4 for thoroughness could hardly be surpassed.. Unfortunately, it refers to a subject of limited! extent and of limited interest for it does not include the Cathedral and it will appeal to a limited public. There is only a short, formal? preface, and no conclusion. The writer plunges at once into details, and stops abruptly when the details are finished, merely adding a very good?.
