112
NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.vi. APRIL 10,1920.
JOSIAS CONDER. I have been asked to try
to find a portrait of Josias Conder. He was
born in 1789, and was editor of The Eclectic
Review and The Patriot newspaper. He was
a publisher, living at one time in Bucklers-
bury, and was well known as a Noncon-
formist and friend of Isaac Taylor. His son
Eustace Conder, once a Congregational
minister, wrote a memoir of his father in
1857, but it had no portrait.
FRANCIS DRAPER.
110 Albany Street, Regent's Park, N.W.I.
AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED.
1. Vecors segnities insignia nescit Amoris.
2. Tu, quod es e populo, quilibet esse potes.
JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.
3. Can any reader tell me where to find the follow- ing lines ?
Ou sont les gratieux gallons Que je suyvoye au temps jadis Si bien chantans, si biens parlans, Si plaisans en faictz et en dictz? Les aucuns sont mortz et roydiz, D'eulx n'est-il plus rien maintenant Repos ayent en paradis Et Dieu saulve le remenant.
H. K. HUDSON.
4. Who is the Author of the following and when and where did they appear ?
A little sod, a few sad flowers,
A tear for long-departed hours,
Is all that feeling hearts request
To hush their weary thoughts to rest.
FRED PAGE. 12 Buckett Road, Harringay, N.
WILLIAM ALABASTER.
(12 S. vi. 67.)
OXFORD GRADUATE cites Alabaster's sonnet from an anthology of 1913. The editor of the latter must have taken it from an article in The Athenceum written by the late Mr. Bertram Dobell about a dozen years ago. Mr. Dobell, having discovered Alabaster to be the author of a manuscript volume of verse in his possession, printed a most interesting article about it, illustrated by extracts from the sonnets it contained. The date I cannot at present supply ; but doubtless it could be learned from Mr. Percy J. Dobell, 77 Charing Cross Road. There are at least two other Alabaster MSS. of this same sonnet sequence, which I have seen and collated. A few years ago QTJARITCH .had, and sold, a Jacobean MS. of poetry, formerly in the Phillips Collection, which,
according to the catalogue, contained English^
verses by Jonson, Randolph, " Dr. Alla-
blaster," and others ; but no record seems
to have been kept of the purchaser, and
search so far is in vain. My own theory is
that Alabaster wrote the then fashionable-
" century " of sonnets : of these I have traced
eighty-five.
Their quality is certainly high, and shows a powerful mind worthy of that great generation. They are all religious, and were- apparently written in prison for Recusancy in 1597. Alabaster became a Catholic, not in Spain after the Cadiz voyage with Essex, as. all the biographical notices say, but at home. He wandered in and out of the " olde- religion " for nearly all the rest of his life, but died Vicar of Therfield in 1640. His- birthdate is 1567, not 1565, as given by OXFORD GRADUATE.
Spenser, Herrick, and other contem- poraries who mention Alabaster, never refer- to his English verse, which seems to have been kept secret " amongst his privat Friends."
The Rev. John Hungerford Pollen, S.J.,, printed in The Month (perhaps about 1912)> a paper which, unlike Mr. Dobell' s, threw a~ good deal of light on Alabaster's hitherto- lost biography. A few sonnets are given in, the text, and it is there added that some day the undersigned contributor to ' N. & Q.' proposes making this notable old poet, known only by his Latin writings, into ant- English book. L. I. GUINEY.
There is a notice of William Alabaster,. Latin poet and divine, in the ' D.N.B.' OXFORD GRADUATE'S question, whether he- " was favourably regarded as a poet of distinction by his contemporaries " is answered by Fuller, who in counting him among the ' Worthies of Suffolk ' styles him " A most rare Poet as any our Age or Nation hath produced." Perhaps Alabaster is best remembered at the present day as the author of the epigram beginning : " Bella inter geminos plusquam civilia fratres," on the- two brothers Rainolds, for whose story see US. viii. 131. EDWARD BENSLY.
Oudle Cottage, Much Hadham, Herts.
ROBERT TROTMAN : EPITAPH (12 S. vi. 66).
The affray in which Robert Trotman was
" murdered " was doubtless one of the-
numerous encounters between smugglers ancL
revenue officers which " constitute almost all 1
that is known of Bournemouth " before its
foundation in 1811 by Mr. Tregonwell. The-
seacoast between Christchurch and Poole,,,
