Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/132

This page needs to be proofread.

126


NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. M*Y. i9is.


Office in the Town of St. Ives, having now been carried on for more than Sixty Years." He also had a circulating library, and was clerk to the Board of Guardians. It was a continua- tion of Croft's, whose earliest date I have recorded is 1792.

Johnstone (George Frederick), bookseller, 1854- 1879. Post Office, The Pavement, hatter and stationer, 1854. The post office was removed to Bridge Street before 1877, when he adver- tised again in Kelly's ' Directory ' as a book- seller.

Parker (Henry George), printer, Bridge Street, Feb., 1886-1911. Parker celebrated the 25th year of his printing business and the 21st birth- day of his son Reginald George in February, 1911. The firm is now Parker & Son. Reginald George Parker is a second lieutenant in the Northumberland Fusiliers (1915).

Clarke (James G.), printer, The Broadway, 1888- 1911. Clarke left St. Ives for Vancouver, and was succeeded by R. W. Clenn, May 18, 1911.


HERBERT E. N ORRIS.


Cirencester.


(To be concluded.)


SIR WALTER SCOTT IN NORTH WALES: AN EFFORT TO CORRECT LOCKHART. In Lockhart's ' Life of Scott ' (I use A. & C. Black's edition, 1896), chap. Ixiii., we read of an excursion to Ireland made by Sir Walter, with his daughter Anne and Lockhart as companions, in 1825. The account relates how they started from Edinbxirgh on July 8, went from Glasgow to Belfast, travelled over Ireland, " started for Holyhead on the 18th of August," travelled through North Wales, and up to the Lake District, and were at Elleray, the beautiful home of Prof. Wilson, " on the banks of Windermere," by Aug. 24, as a letter, quoted in the chapter, and bearing that date, proves.

Lockhart says that " Sir Walter kept no diary during this excursion." Then he adds, " From my own [letters] to the ladies left at home, I could easily draw up a pretty exact journal of our proceedings." It must be kept in mind that Scott lived till Sept. 21, 1832, and that Lockhart's ' Life ' appeared in 1837-8. About ten years would have thus passed, since the occurrences connected with the Irish excursion, when Lockhart was compiling the ' Life.' He does not seem to have had any diary to guide him as to dates, but he evidently had access to the letters he himself had written, mostly, presumably, to his wife, as he went from place to place during the excursion.

We feel grateful to him for including such a long extract from one of these letters,


bearing on the passage of the party through; North Wales, He says that the letter was written " the following week," after they had been through North Wales, and it is dated " Elleray, August 24." The first statement made in this extract is this : " We slept on Wednesday evening at Capel Carig, which Sir W. supposes to mean the- Chapel of the Crags." There is something wrong in one of the three statements as to dates : they would not start for Holyhead from Dublin on Aug. 18, sleep on a W T ednes- day 'night at Capel Curig, and write on Aug. 24 at Elleray. The Wednesdays of these two weeks in August, 1825, were the 17th and the 24th respectively. They were at Elleray on the latter Wednesday, Aug. 24. If they started from Dublin on Aug. 18,. that would be Thursday. Where then could they get a " Wednesday evening " to sleep at Capel Curig in North Wales ? My belief is that the letter is more likely to be correct, written as it was when the occurrences were fresh in the author's mind, than his statement that they started from Dublin on Aug. 18 a statement made about ten years after the event, and probably a slip in calculation. I believe they must have started from Dublin on Tuesday, Aug. 16, perhaps on Monday the loth, and slept at Capel Curig over Wednesday night, the 17th, and pro- ceeded to Llangollen on Thursday, the 18th. I ought to point out that Sir Walter Scott was greatly mistaken in supposing that Capel Curig means a " Chapel of the Crags." Lockhart has transcribed the name in- correctly. It is not " Carig," as he has it, but Curig, the proper name of a well- authenticated saint. The place-name means the Chapel of St. Curig.

T. LLECHID JONES.

DYEING YELLOW AND GREEN ON COTTON. The following letter was written to Grey- Cooper, Esq. (afterwards Sir), by one Dr. Richard Williams, dated Jan. 10, 1775, from New Inn, No. 8, and is of interest as revealing the name of the inventor of a method of dyeing yellows and greens on cottons :

" When I lay'd open my method of dying Yellows and Greens on Cottons to the Lords of the Treasury, Lord North gave me leave at any future day to present a Memorial to that Honour- able Board relative to the Culgee handkerchief fabric in Spitalfields, which I should have done last winter, but to prevent any objections being started to the carrying this business into execution on account of those Colours, Mr. Robinson advised me to defer it till they might be put in practice ; and that lieing now done, and their advantages ascertained by the inclosed letter and patterns