-428,

BLAKE AND HIS FRIEND BUTTS (11 S. vii. 492).-Alexander Gilchrist, in his Life of William Blake,' gives ample accounts of the relations between the two men, and many of Blake's letters to Butts; but no account of the latter's life. He is said to have lived in Fitzroy Square, neighbour to Flaxman, who made his home from 1794 until his death in 1826 in Buckingham Street; it is probable he met Blake there. Butts was Blake's " one consistent patron.' He owned the "fresco " of the Canterbury Pilgrimage which was bought by Sir William Sterling Maxwell (p. 273) :—

One of the last, if not the very last, works bought by Mr. Butts of Blake, was the original series of water-colour drawings or Inventions from the Book of Job....This set of drawings.... has passed from Mr. Butts' son into the possession of Lord Houghton."-Pp. 327-8.

In the spring of 1901 the writer had the great privilege of seeing at Parkstone, Dorset, the remains of Mr. Butts's collection, inherited by his grandson, exhibited in a room attached to his house, specially built

for it.

66

The inquirer is in error as to Blake's intention in the apostrophe cited by him. The lines occur in some verses composed above a twelvemonth ago, while walking from Felpham to Lavant, to meet my sister," and sent to Mr. Butts in a letter apparently in continuation of one of 22 Nov., 1802. Clearly they were not meant to reflect on his friend as the following excerpts prove :

A frowning Thistle implores my stay

*

"If thou goest back," the Thistle said, "Thou art to endless woe betray'd.

King's brother, however unjust the sentence may have been. Poetic justice was, no doubt, done upon 'false, fleeting, perjured Clarence"; but Parliaments are rarely concerned with matters poetical.

Richard III. had been king for eight months before his first Parliament, which assembled on 23 Jan., 1484, confirmed his title to the throne, thereby accepting the inevitable. Says Bishop Stubbs :

:

"The bill, having been introduced before the lords in the king's presence, was carried down to the commons, and received their approval, after which, with the assent of the lords, all the statements contained in it were pronounced to be true and undoubted, and the king gave his assent. By such an extraordinary and clumsy expedient was the action of the June council made the law of the land, and the parliament bound to the truth of certain historical statements which many of the members, if not all, must have known to be false."

2. Apparently it was not until the Parliament of 1513-14 that full restitution was made to Clarence's daughter, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, of the rights of her family. But Richard III. had knighted (along with his own son) Edward, Earl of Warwick, when only 8 years old, at York, in 1483. Next year the usurper, having lost his only son, thought of making Warwick his heir, but on further consideration shut him up in close confinement in Sheriff Hutton Castle, and nominated John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, another of his nephews, to succeed to the throne.

A. R. BAYLEY.

[G. W. W. also thanked for reply.]

ST. KATHARINE'S-BY-THE-TOWER (11 S. vii. 201, 310, 376).-A royal commission was appointed in 1868, and reappointed in the following year, to inquire into several matters relative to the royal hospital of St. Katherine. Evidence was obtained from the Master, the Senior Brother, and the Chapter Clerk of the Hospital, and the Master appears to have been examined upon a report (whether printed or not does not appear) to the Charity Commissioners by Mr. Skirrow. The report of the Commission was issued in 1871, the official reference The references are to vol. i. of Gilchrist being [C. 3211, and the price 2d. I have

Poverty, envy, old age and fear
Shall bring thy Wife upon a bier.
And Butts shall give what Fuseli gave,
A dark black rock and a gloomy grave."
I struck the thistle with my foot,
And broke him up from his delving root;
Must the duties of life each other cross,
Must every joy be dung and dross?
Must my dear Butts feel cold neglect
Because I give Hayley his due respect?

edition, London, 1880.

P. 182.

T. F. DWIGHT.

inquired at the King's printers, and find that the evidence was never printed. Perhaps there was some reason for this suppression, the management of the hospital being then regarded as most unsatisfactory. In sup port of this I quote from p. 14 of the report: land of about two acres, on which is built the lodge "This property at present consists of a piece of of the Master, and another piece of land, the site of the chapel, the schoolhouse, and the residences of

the brothers and sisters, containing about one acre.
The houses of the brothers and sisters are situable
residences and sufficiently convenient; but the
Master's lodge consisting as it does of a double
coach-house, with stables for seven horses, a con-
servatory, greenhouses and forcing houses is
unnecessarily large, very expensive, and out of all
proportion to the wants of the charity."

During the five years 1864-8 the emolu-
ments of the Master varied from 1,511l. to
1,2127. The report is deserving of attention,
on account of the valuable historical details
which it contains.
R. B. P.
WASHINGTON'S CONNEXION WITH SELBY
(11 S. vii. 430).-Amongst my papers on
the Washington family I find a pamphlet

"An Examination of the English Ancestry of
George Washington, setting forth the evidence
to connect him with the Washingtons of Sulgrave
and Brington. By Henry F. Waters, A.M."
This was published at Boston in 1889, being
reprinted from the N.E. Historical and
Genealogical Register for October, 1889."

66

The pedigree chart therein inserted shows that Lawrence Washington, Mayor of Northampton, and grantee of Sulgrave, was eldest son of John Washington_ of Warton, co. Lancaster. JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

authenticity. Speaking of Cobbett in his
own Autobiography,' he says:—
and on various subjects. Amongst them is a
copious, and apparently very candid Auto-
Biography, which details a pretty faithful account
of his public career and writings. But I would
more particularly direct the young reader to
'The Life of William Cobbett,' a small thick
volume in 18mo, of which the third edition ap-
peared in 1835, extending to 422 pages. This is
To the Sons of William Cobbett,'
dedicated
and contains apparently a fair, discriminating
account of the man, the author and the poli-
tician.
cisms of William Hazlitt, Gifford in The Standard,
It also reprints the opinions and criti-
and others from The Morning Chronicle, The
Times, and The Atlas."
MARGARET LAVINGTON.

"His works are numerous, very voluminous,

THE READER' AND DR. JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY (11 S. vii. 468).-MR. COURTNEY will find in The Pall Mall Gazette of 17 or 18 Jan., 1867, in an article headed Shocking' Suicide of a Reviewer,' corroboration of the The Reader dealt with Dr. Latham's edition The criticism in story told by Mr. Escott. of the Dictionary then being published. Latham's edition is by no means a "cheap reprint," as Mr. Escott calls it; it was being issued at the time referred to in periodical instalments, and ultimately formed four large volumes. The Reader's reviewer proposed to deal with the work at length, and he devoted his "first notice to the Author's Preface.' Assuming the Preface to be Latham's, not Johnson's, work, he declared that

66

COBBETT BIBLIOGRAPHY (11 S. vi. 1, 22, 62, 84, 122, 142, 183, 217, 398).-I am afraid a note on this subject is too late to be welcome, but should be glad to know if the authorship of "The Life of William Cobbett, by Himself," has ever been definitely established. MR. MELVILLE does not seem to notice it. It was published in we have been obliged more than once to rub our pamphlet form by William Hone in 1816, eyes, and turn the book up again, to convince ourand Cobbett denied the authorship, and selves that such pretensions have been put forward in it as assuredly are there." complained of its inaccuracies; but in the seventh edition Hone challenged him with After quoting copiously from the Author's unusual vigour, and asserted its genuinePreface,' with numerous scathing comments, ness. They were, of course, rival publishers, the reviewer appealed to the publishers :and, on the face of it, it seems unlikely that but we do beg Messrs. Longman to cancel this "We do not wish to kick a man when he is down, Cobbett would have issued his autobio-Author's Preface, and substitute one for it which graphy from any house but his own. The new Life of Hone,' however (by F. W. Hackwood, Unwin, 1912), states that a memorandum exists to the effect that Hone was approached for an estimate of cheap printing for Cobbett's Weekly Political Regis ter. Nothing came of this, but it seems to point to business relations between them. One of Cobbett's objections to his own 'Life' was that Hone was selling it too cheaply at 4d., instead of 2s. 6d.

Further, John Britton, who knew most things concerning the literary history of the first half of the nineteenth century, apparently knew no reason to doubt its

66

will do a little more justice to Johnson's work, and
put the present editor's in its proper place, as far
as they like below his great predecessor's."
When it is remembered that Johnson's
Preface to his Dictionary forms a striking
example of Johnsonian style, it is not sur-
prising that The Reader's review was de-
scribed at the time as one of the most
astonishing bits of criticism which have
ever adorned a modern journal." Needless
to say, the "second notice" never appeared,
and the number in which this marvellous
review was printed was the last issue of
The Reader. The journal had an existence
of five years. Its first editor was Prof.

are from 'The Ballad of Babe Christabel,' title-page runs :by Gerald Massey, born 1828.

law, ecclesiastics of all degrees, feudal lords and their vassals, tradesfolk, artisans, and a great array of women-pass before our eyes in a motley throng. It is tempting to transcribe, not so much documents of high political importance, as a sheaf of the numerous passages which give sudden, vivid glimpses of curious turns in the ordinary life of the day. We will content ourselves with but two.

On 14 Feb., 1268: "Whereas the king is informed on trustworthy testimony that John son of Aylric atte Brok of Meullinges, while still a little boy lying in his cradle.... lost his ear by the bite of a ravenous sow for whose attack the way lay open by the carelessness of his nurse, and not by any fault of his own; he testifies this for the said John lest sinister suspicion be had of him hereafter on this account.'

On 13 Feb., 1269: "Whereas the gallows upon which thieves and other persons condemned in the town of Gippeswyc are hanged at Wyvelesdon without the said town of Gippeswyc, are situated opposite the manor of William de Thornbegg.... to the very great nuisance of the said William and his household dwelling in the said manor; grant to him and his heirs that the said gallows shall be removed from the said place for ever and set up elsewhere in some place within the liberty of Gippeswyc, where they can be set up without nuisance to him and his heirs and the said manor."

Spurgeon's Mysticism in English Literature, despite its acknowledged indebtedness to recent much-discussed works, has a refreshing note of originality about it. We may here and there dissent from a dictum of hers, and there is a certain inadequacy, which seems more than mere want of space, in her account of " devotional and religious mystics," but, on the whole, as a summary illustration of one aspect of English literature, we like the work much. The writer is at her best in her introductory chapter and when treating of Wordsworth and Blake.

The introductory and the concluding chapter of Mr. Sydney Eden's Ancient Stained and Painted Glass, dealing with the fragmentary and diminished state in which what remains of ancient glass has. come down to us, and with the methods by which these remains might be better preserved, we should like to recommend to the attention of all authorities who have the fate of these treasures in their hands. Between them is a concise but satisfactory history of the manufacture and useof stained and painted glass, and its relation toother architectural decoration from 1050 to the end of the seventeenth century.

Dr. Johns in Ancient Babylonia gives us a really wonderful summary of a long and com-plicated history. It is, of necessity, chiefly a serried array of statements of fact, but we know of no popular book on this subject so closely packed with matter as this, nor one to be recommended before this, for any one desirous of attacking a rather tough but fascinating study.

THE six little volumes of "The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature now before us keep well up to the standard of their predecessors. A particularly attractive one is The Imprint is always interesting, and the part Dr. Craigie's Icelandic Sagas. Icelandic learning for June 17 contains an account of the pioneers: one of the conquests of the latter half of of photogravure by Mr. Donald Cameron - Swan.. the nineteenth century-still carries with it It was Thomas Wedgwood, son of the potter, something of the freshness of discovery, and who first produced fugitive "profiles by the loses none of this in Dr. Craigie's hands. agency of light" on sensitized paper, and Talbot, More than most literatures it needs explica- following in his footsteps, endeavoured to add tion, a disentangling of parts, and tracing up the quality of permanence to the receptive of elements to their origin; and the scholar surface while further increasing its sensitiveness. who deals with it has also to enable his readers, The application of Swan's carbon process to by giving them some measure of ulterior under- the Talbot method of photo-etching was made standing, to discount the general inadequacy of some years later by Karl Klic, and this combinatranslations. All this is here satisfactorily tion resulted in one of the most practical and accomplished.-Good also is Mr. Allen Mawer's successful methods of photographic engraving, Vikings-a work, again rendered possible by now widely known under the comprehensive name the labours of scholars during the last fifty years. of "Photogravure." All matters relating to Of the many secondary civilizations-in nearly photography are of special interest to us, as every case longer-lived and more extensive than N. & Q. was the first journal to open its pages to had once been suspected-which modern research the record of photographic discovery. Now we has brought to light, none should interest English can treasure portraits of our friends, knowing them people more than that of the Vikings. It not to be permanent. Our founder was not so fortuonly bears directly upon part of our own develop-nate, and on the 11th of October, 1879, appeared in ment it is informed also with a spirit now alien our pages a pathetic appeal from him, lamenting from, now closely akin to, our own-in both the fading portraits of his old friends, and asking aspects fascinating to the imagination and the Photographic Society to make a small return instructive. for the services rendered to photography in its early days by N. & Q.' and discover some simple mode of printing photographs to ensure their not fading.

Mr. Hamilton Thompson's English Monas teries compresses within 142 small pages a surprising amount of detailed information. Read as carefully and thoroughly as it has been written, this short book would give the student a very clear and well-filled picture of the life in the religious houses of England before the Reformation. The different characteristics, position, and use of the buildings of the various orders take up the greater part of the book, but there is added a good chapter on the discipline and daily life of the religious.-Dr. Caroline

Among the other contents of The Imprint are a 'Plea for Reform of Printing, by "Typoclastes," and 'Old Books and their Printers, by Mr. J. Arthur Hill. Mr. Everard Meynell writes on 'Signs and Posters,' and complains that not a single sign in Bond Street is admirable. Oxford Street is a still less likely place; and in the City you may wander a whole day under the swinging notices of the trades without finding anything to please you.