Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/221

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D*S. vm. SEPT. 7, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

213

English version. It may be remembered tha the elder Mr. Weller objected to subscribe to "flannel waistcoats" and "moral pocket handkerchiefs" for the little negroes, ai " they did not know the use of them." Or Sam asking what the latter articles were, i' was explained that they had 'Beggar's Peti tions' stamped upon them, and other verses.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

The Beggar's Petition ' appears in * Eleganl

Extracts' (poetry), vol. i. p. 481 the collec tion is sufficiently well known, though some what out of date and, I believe, in Enfield';

Speaker.'

C. C. B.

With a somewhat extensive familiarity with pur ballad literature I never heard of a song in which "the days call the sun their 'dad,' but there was a lyric extensively popular (in the metropolis, at all events) during the forties called ' The Lamplighter,' to be found in ' The Universal Songster.' The first lines ran :

I 'm jolly Dick, the lamplighter, They say the sun 's my dad.

Can A. F. T. mean this production ?

This ballad was dramatized and produced at the vanished Olympic Theatre about 1842, with the then celebrated George Wild, ladder, lantern, and all, in the title role. As the custom then was, it was reproduced at several of the metropolitan theatres concurrently with the run of the original. It illustrates a proposition of mine, that " realism " on the stage is not quite such a modern innovation as is popularly believed. A then up or down to date scenic " sensation " was provided by a representation of Temple Bar- now removed as seen from Fleet Street, with a " real " cab rank and double row of lighted gas lamps. GNOMON.

Temple.

JOHN STOW'S PORTRAIT, 1603 (9 th S. vii. 401, 513 ; viii. 86, 146). I beg to confirm the statement of MR. PAGE and other writers anent the materials employed for the monu- ment of the illustrious topographer, which is the chief ornament of the church of St. Andrew, Undershaft, London. I join with him in expressing wonder at " any man in his senses who has seen the original [monument] setting down such a statement [that the work is of terra-cotta] as his deliberate belief."

Like MR. PAGE, I have several times examined this monument, and I reject the notion that it comprises a morsel of terra-cotta. No man acquainted with the art-crafts of Stow's time would, without the most stringent tests of his eyes and his fingers to that effect, accept

the assertion that a memorial of that nature and of terra-cotta was made in England before, in, or soon after Stow's days. I tried the bust and its encadrement both with my eyes and my fingers ; in addition, I made a drawing of the work in water colours, and thus qualified myself to confirm MR. PAGE and other correspondents of *N. & Q.' who have described the bust as of alabaster or properly, alabaster being white, of veined or full- coloured marble of that soft sort which is commonly called alabaster. Harder marbles occur in the encadrement, but terra-cotta nowhere.

Where the " terra-cotta theory " came from I neither know nor care, but I can once again confirm 'N. & Q.'s correspondents as to the extent of the circulation of the " theory " re terra-cotta, and the tenacity with which the compilers of dictionaries and their like copy each other. I am " a painter by trade," and occasionally I am employed to review books on art and artistic archaeology. In the latter capacity I reviewed for a certain publication a then new book where this monument of Stow was declared to be of terra-cotta. My eyes, my fingers, and my drawing justified me in pointing out the error thus expressed. I did not want to take the editor out of his depth, and therefore said nothing about terra-cotta art in England. So far my "copy." The printer's proof of it was, however, quite another affair, because it was made once more to aver that the bust is of terra-cotta ( !) ; nor could my correction of the proof, together with an account of the nature and extent of my experiences as to his particular work, move the authorities, who pinned their faith upon the compilers of dictionaries and their like, who copied one Another and did not know terra-cotta when hey saw it, although as to the use of marbles, coloured and uncoloured, in the orm of alabaster or what not, witness hun- ireds of monuments in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. Marble was abundantly em- )loyed in this country long before and long after Stow's days. As to the colouring not >ainting proper of this work, I take it that, according to the long-prevailing practice in uch cases, the material was stained and )erhaps partly gilt. F. G. STEPHENS.

ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD' 9 th S. viii. 99). I have a perfect copy, the itle-page of which is as follows :