Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/128

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NOTES AND QUERIES. t ,2s.v MAT . 19ia


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WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.


BRISTOL WILLS MISSING. We have lost from our Cathedral records a parcel of old wills dating round the year 1500. The parcel contains 49 leaves. Will you be so good as to make known our loss, caused through the sudden death of a Bristol gentleman who was indexing our records ? The parcel was not found in his house, and we can only surmise that some one had borrowed it. Several attempts to discover these wills have so far failed.

(Canon) J. G. ALFORD. The Cathedral, Bristol.

BYRON'S BUST AT OXFORD. Can any one kindly tell me from what bust of the poet in youth the beautiful cast in the Oxford Public Library is copied ? I have vainly endeavoured to find out at Oxford the name of the sculptor who executed the original, but my theory that it may be a copy from Thorwald sen's famous work remains unsubstantiated. Nor could I learn where that portrait bust now is since Lady Broughton (daughter of John Cam Hob- house) bequeathed it to the King.

The supreme beauty, which Byron's con- temporaries found so wonderful is better conveyed in this noble young head than in any other portrait known to me. Hence my appeal to your readers for information- which I could not obtain at the Oxford Public Library, where one might have hoped for it, considering the fame of both the artist and the poet. Y. T.

R. S. SURTEES. Could any of your readers give me information concerning the life of R. S. Surtees, author of ' Handley Cross,' ' Sponge's Sporting Toiir,' &c. ? The materials for a life of this gentleman are extraordinarily small. That he was born in 1803 ; was at Durham School, and left in 1819; went into a solicitor's office in London ; founded The New Sporting Maga- zine in 1831, and was editor till 1836 ; was Parliamentary candidate for Gateshead in 1837, but did not proceed to a poll ; was High Sheriff for Durham in 1856, and died at Brighton in 1864, constitutes almost all that we know of him.

Mr. Ralph Nevill in his book ' Tlie Man of Pleasure ' (Chatto & Windus, 1912), pp. 138-9, speaks of him as at college. If


this is correct, which University was it, and when ? The Fame gentleman in a- book called ' The Merry Past ' speaks of him (p. 88) as keeping hounds at Boulogne somewhere about 1818-19. This surely is an error ; he would only have been about 15 or 16 years of age.

I should be very glad of any information as to his life at Brighton, or directions as to where information could be obtained.

G. FENWICK.

The Hall, Higham Dykes, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

[The 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' devotes nearly three- columns to Surtees, and supplies some additional personal details. Various authorities are named at the end of the article.]

GLADSTONE ON DANTE. I am told that an article entitled 'The Natural History of Dante,' by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone,, appeared in The Nineteenth Century. Tha only clue I have as to the date of its publica- tion is that it appeared just before Canon. Vaughan's article on ' The Birds of Dante ' in The Churchman of May, 1894. If any of your readers can tell me where I can obtain, copies of either of these articles, I shall be greatly obliged. In any case I shall welcome details concerning the first mentioned.

HUGH S. GLADSTONE.

40 Lennox Gardens, S.W.I.

SIR FRANCIS ANDERSON'S DESCENDANTS. I seek genealogical details about the descendants of John, Roger, George, Robert,. Francis, and Thomas Ander.-on, eons of Sir Francis Anderson (bapt. 1614) by his wife Jane, dau. of John Denton of Barnard Castle, Esq. Sir Francis was member of Parliament for the borough of Newcastle- on-Tyne in the " Healing Parliament." Did any of the descendants of the sons- mentioned above migrate to St. Petersburg ? JAMES SETON- ANDERSON.

18 Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells.

ENGLISH PARISHES IN 1705. The Lambeth Library is said to contain an interesting; return of the state of the parishes of England in 1705. Where can I see a description of this return, indicating its scope, &c. ?

J. HAMBLEY ROWE, M.B.

ANGUISH STREET : " SCORES." In the old fishing town of Lowestoft is an Anguish Street. Can it be that the street owes its name to the grief of the fishermen's wives ^ bereaved so often by the ?.ea ? In Lowes - toft, too, the steep narrow lanes (many of which have steps) leading from the old fishing town to the top of the hill are called " Scores." What does the name mean ?

J. R. H.