Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/244

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. in. MARCH ., 1917.


overlooked that Swift, who disliked Burnet, and Defoe (although at that date, I believe, actually in prison) were both alive." But no one acquainted with Defoe's literary style and habits of thought would believe him the author of the Mist articles, while Swift, at the moment of their publication, within a very short period of Wild's execu- tion, was in Ireland, flushed with his recent triumph with the ' Drapier's Letters.' It was not, indeed, until March, 1726, nearly a year after the articles appeared, that he set .out once more for London, after an absence of twelve years, a fact I had submitted, among others, to Mr. Lang before he gave the opinion I previously quoted.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

JONAS HANWAY, 1712-1786, TRAVELLER AND PHILANTHROPIST (12 S. iii. 129). Mr. W. W. Skeat in his pleasant little book ' The Past at our Doors ' (1911) says Han- way introduced the umbrella " oh his return from Persia about 1750, some thirty years before it was generally adopted. Some kind of umbrella was, however, occasionally used by ladies at least so far back as 1709 ; and a fact not generally known is that from about the year 1717 onwards, a ' parish ' umbrella, resembling the more recent ' family ' umbrella of the nine- teenth century, was used by the priest at open-air funerals, as the church accounts of many places testify. In 1752 General Wolfe (at that time lieutenant-colonel) wrote from Paris that people ' there used umbrellas in hot weather to defend them from the sun, and something of the same kind to save them from snow and rain.' "

Mr. Skeat then proceeds to mention the " royal " umbrellas used in, the Far East and in Africa, that carried over the Doge of Venice, the fan, held before the Pharaoh, and a curious umbrella represented in an Anglo-Saxon MS.

It is recorded that Byron's tutor, Henry J. T. Drury (' D.N.B.,' xvi. 56), assistant- master at Harrow School 1801-41, had a great objection to the harmless, necessary umbrella considering it a mark of effemi- nacy. On one occasion, meeting one of his pupils armed with the offending object, he seized the weapon and broke it across hi6 knee. Times have changed.

A. R.


I do not know the exact date when umbrellas were introduced, but it must have been during the early part of the seventeenth century. Tom Coryate, in his ' Crudities,' mentions umbrellas with surprise in reference to his visit to Cremona in June, 1608. He says :

" Here I will mention although it may seem frivolous, yet will be a novelty that many do


carry a thing which they call in the Italian tongue umbrellaes. These are made of some- thing answerable to the form of a little canopy,, and hooped inside with divers little wooden hoops ,- that extend the umbrella in a pretty large com- pass. They are used especially by horsemen,, who fasten the end of the handle to one of their thighs."

J. FOSTER PALMER.

"RTJNT" (12 S. iii. 167). I question whether this word is intended to denote pigs in the lines quoted. The reference is, I think, to cattle of a small breed, especially^ those from the highlands of Scotland, and from Wales. See the ' E.D.D.,' vol. v. p. 190. A. C. C.

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE (12 S. ii. 495 ; iii. 39). I am grateful to MAJOR G. YARROW BALDOCK for so kindly furnishing a copy of the inscription on the mural monument to- Churchill in St. Mary's Church, Dover. I should, however, very much like to know whether there is still any memorial over his grave in the churchyard of St. Martin's, Dover. I find that at 1 S. x. 378 a corre- spondent makes the following explicit state- ment :

" His [Churchill's] remains were brought over [from Boulogne] and interred, not in St. Mary's,, but in St. Martin's Churchyard, a small deserted cemetery in an obscure lane behind the market. By climbing over a wall at the back of St. Martin's Academy, I found the real tomb, with this in- scription :

1764. Here lie the remains of the celebrated

C. CHURCHILL.

' Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies.' [Candidate.]"

In the same note, reference is made to the memorial to Churchill in St. Mary's- Church, but strange to say the only part of the inscription given is a line which might well be a missing eighth line from MAJOR BALDOCK' s copy. I quote the paragraph as follows :

" There is a monument to the poet here in St. Mary's Church (not churchyard) ; but this is only a cenotaph, although not so stated in the inscription. It contains a very exaggerated, panegyric of him in fourteen verses [sic] (not however a sonnet), which is anything but lucid in its grammar, and therefore I will not transcribe it. In it he is called the ' Great high priest of all the Nine ' ; which is rather an unfortunate- expression applied to Churchill, for he was a clergyman and gave up his gown, and became- a most decided layman ; and as such went on visit to the celebrated Wilkes, then living in retirement at Boulogne, where he died."

At 8 S. i. 289 appeared a reproduction of a paragraph from The Daily Graphic of Jan. 9, 1892, referring to Churchill's grave-