Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/210

168 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. ix. A. 27, 1921. Mr Mason Printer in Chichester to be left till called for Pray receive this as a proof of the very limited powers & the benevolent inclination of your obliged & sincere Welhvisher W. HAYLEY. To Mr. William Hersee, Ooldwaltham, near Petworth. C. W. CLARK DUB ANT. STROLLING PLAYERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH j CENTURY. -Inasmuch as I had occasion! some time ago to make a slight study of this i subject and experienced much trouble in! collecting reliable data, it seems that some others might appreciate a brief list of con- ! venient books which assisted me, and might assist them, in learning more about this in- teresting phase of English theatrical life. MEMOIRS. The Wandering Patentee, by Tate Wilkinson. Memoirs of His Own Life, by Tate Wilkinson. Life of Mrs. Siddons, by T. Campbell. Life of Charles Macklin, by E. A. Parry. Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, by Jas. T. Kirkman. Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, by Jas. Boaden. Life of Edmund Kean, by F. W. Hawkins. Memoirs of Elizabeth Inchbald, by Jas. Boaden. Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian, by John Adolphus. The Itinerant, or Memoirs! of an Actor, by S. W. Byley. ^ Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft, continued . by William Hazlitt. ESSAYS. Romance of the Stage, by Percy Fitzgerald (chapters on the strolling player and on Tate Wilkinson). The English Stage, by William Hazlitt (pas- sages on minor theatres and strolling players). Book of the Play, by Button Cook (chapter on strolling players). Our Old Actors, by Henry Barton Baker (chapter on Kemble's company of strollers). Memoirs of Charlotte Clark (chapter on the hardships of strollers). The Theatric Tourist, London, 1805. William Godwin : His Friends and Contem- poraries, by C. Kegan Paul (concerning Thomas A. Cooper, i. 35-46; and concerning a strolling company, i. 258-259). Strolling Players in the Eighteenth Century, N. & Q.,' Bee. 11, 1915, 11 S. xii. 454-457 (Containing records of receipts and performances of one company, based on British Museum Add. MSS., 33, 488, fol. 3-5). CONTEMPORANEOUS COMMENTS. Alwyn, or The Gentleman Comedian, by Thomas Holcroft. The Borough, by George Crabbe (one ' Book *' on the subject). Wild Oats ; or The Strolling Gentlemen, by J. O'Keefe (comedy). The Apprentice, by Arthur Murphy (farce). Imitation ; or The Female Fortune Hunters (Anon, comedy, 1783). Bissertation of the Country Stage, a letter to the editor, The European Magazine, September, 1792, xxii. 230. Epilogue at the End of the Season, for a com- pany of Strollers in a Barn belonging to the Shears Inn, near Chelmsford, London Magazine, Sep- tember, 1773, xlii. 458. Epilogue, spoken at Midnight by a young man, who having committed some imprudences in the early part of his life has been abandoned by his relatives, and with a wife and four or five children^ been obliged to join a company of strolling players. European Magazine, November, 1785, viii. '389. ELBRIDGE COLBY. Captain of Infantry, U.S. Army. Camp Benning, Georgia, U.S.A. A QUASI - FOLK - RHYME. During the present tampering with time the old bit of weather-saying Rain before seven, Fine before eleven no longer serves. The substitution is sug- gested of Rain before eight By noon will abate. ST. SWITHIN. 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. MOORISH BATTLE-AXE AS CREST. Among the heraldic seals at the B.M. there is one which displays a crest described in the official catalogue as a Moorish battle- axe pelette. The date is 1315. On another ! seal, not in the B.M., dated 1308, the crest is the same. Has this crest any meaning or any historical reference ? Why should an English knight in 1308 wear oa his helmet a Moorish battle-axe ? ROBERT FITZAELEN. WILLIAM HERSEE. I should like to ask i correspondents of ' N. & Q.' to favour Jme | with any biographical facts regarding "the