Chapter C: W. B

"I will give you as good an account as I can remember of our wise
& good Grandmother Hopton, who I think was one Hall's daughter of
Devonshire without title, & had an elder brother, without child,
who said to his younger brother's wife, who was then with child,
if she would come to his house, & lie in, he would give his estate
to it if a daughter, & if a son it should fare never the worse: so
she had my grandmother, & he bred her up & married her to Sir
Arthur Hopton of Somerset: who had 4000 a year, & she as much.

"By him she had 18 children; 10 daughters married; whose names
were: Lady Bacon, Lady Smith, Lady Morton, Lady Bannister, & Lady
Fettiplace; Bingham, Baskett, Cole, Thomas, & my Grandmother
Ernle; these daughters & their children have made a numerous
company of relations. The duke of Richmond & Lord Maynard married
our Aunt Bannister's daughters & heirs (one to Rogers, the other
to Bannister).[1] Fettiplace, which was also Lord Jones, his
daughter & heiress married Lord Lumley, now Scarbro.

[Footnote 1: ("The Lady Bannister's first husband was Mr. Rogers,
of Brenson (_hodie_ Bryanston) near Blandford, in Dorsetshire: by
him she had the Dutchess of Richmond, who was heiress to him: she
had another daughter of Sir Robt. Bannister, who married Lord
Mainard."--_Added in another Version._)]

"Cole's heir to Popham of Wilts: & Hungerford, & Warnford married
Jones, & some Mackworth, & Wyndham in Wales; some Morgan, &
Cammish, & Kern, with many others that I have forgot. The sons
were Mr Robt Hopton, Sir Thomas, Sir Arthur. Robt had one son,
w'ch was the Lord Hopton of great worth, who married the Lord
Lewen's widow, and had no child: so the estate went to the
daughters. But our Grandfather Hopton, having so good an estate,
thought he might live as high as he pleased, & not run out: but
one day he was going from home but c'd not, but told his Lady she
w'd be left in great trouble, for the great debts he had made on
his estate; & that he knew he should live but few days, & c'd not
die in peace, to think what affliction he should leave her in: so
she desired him to be no way concerned for his debts, for he owed
not a penny to any one. So he died of a gangrene in his toe in a
few days. Now she had set up an Iron-work, & paid all he owed,
unknown to him. And she married all her daughters to great
estates, & great families: her eldest, I think, to one Smith, who
was a younger son, & went factor to a merchant into Spain; he had
a very severe master & was very melancholy & walked one morning in
Spain intending to go & sell himself a galley-slave to the Turks:
but an old man met him, & asked him why he was so melancholy; bid
him cheer up himself, & not go about what he intended, for his
elder brother was dead, letters were coming to him to return home
to his estate; bid him consider & believe what he said, & that
when he went for England, the first house he entered, after this
landing, he would marry the gentleman's eldest daughter: which he
did. The Lady Hopton's way of living was very great: she had 100
in her family; all sorts of trades; and when good servants married
she kept the families, & bred them up to several trades. She rose
at six of the Clock herself: went to the Iron-work, & came in
about 9; went with all her family to prayers, & after dinner she &
her children & grand-children went to their several works with her
in the dining-room, where she spun the finest sheets that are.
Every year she had all her children & grandchildren met together
at her house; & before they went away, would know if any little or
great animosities were between any of them; if so, she would never
let them go, till they were reconciled."

NOTES ON NEWSPAPERS--THE TIMES.

There were sold of _The Times_ of Tuesday, Feb. 10th, 1840, containing an account of the Royal nuptials, 30,000 copies, and the following curious calculations were afterwards made respecting this publication. The length of a column of _The Times_ is twenty-two inches. If every copy of _The Times_ then printed could be cut into forty-eight single columns, and if those forty-eight columns were tacked to each other, they would extend 494 miles and 1,593 yards. To give some idea of the extent of that distance, it may be sufficient to say that one of the wheels of the mail which runs from Falmouth to London, and again from London to Easingwold, a small town twelve miles beyond York, might run all the way on the letter-press so printed, except the last 167 yards. The same extent of letter-press would reach from London to Paris, and back again from Paris to Canterbury, and a little further. The 30,000 papers, if opened out and joined together, would cover a length of twenty-two miles and 1,280 yards; or, in other words, would reach from _The Times_ office, in Printing-house Square, to the entrance hall in Windsor Castle, leaving a few yards for stair carpets. It is recorded that 20,000 copies were in the hands of the newsmen at eight o'clock in the morning. Since 1840, the circulation of _The Times_ has greatly increased; and what was then deemed wonderful on an extraordinary occasion, is now exceeded daily by 8,000 copies--the present daily circulation being about 38,000 copies, which are worked by greatly improved machinery at the rate of between 8,000 to 10,000 per hour. On the 2nd of last May, _The Times_ containing an account of the opening of the Great Exhibition by the Queen, circulated to the enormous number of 52,000 copies, the largest number ever known of one daily newspaper publication. Nothing can illustrate more forcibly than these statements the great utility of the machinery employed in multiplying with so miraculous a rapidity such an immense number of copies. When we look at the great talent--the extensive arrangement--the vast amount of information on a variety of topics--the immense circulation--the rapidity with which it is thrown off, and the correctness of the details of _The Times_ paper--we are constrained to pronounce it the most marvellous political journal the world has ever seen. What would our forefathers have said to this wonderful broadsheet, which conveys information of the world's movements to the teeming population of the United Kingdom, and also to the people of other and distant climes.

H. M. BEALBY.

North Brixton.

FOLK LORE.

_Devonshire Superstitions._--Days of the week:

"Born on a Sunday, a gentleman;
Monday, fair in face;
Tuesday, full of grace;
Wednesday, sour and grum;
Thursday, welcome home;
Friday, free in giving;
Saturday, work hard for your living."

Tuesday and Wednesday are lucky days.

Thursday has one lucky hour, viz. the hour before the sun rises.

Friday is unlucky.

It is very unlucky to turn a featherbed on a Sunday; my housemaid says she would not turn my bed on a Sunday on any account.

"To sneeze on Monday hastens anger,
Tuesday, kiss a stranger,
Wednesday.
Thursday.

"To sneeze on Friday, give a gift.
Saturday, receive a gift.
Sunday, before you break your fast,
You'll see your true love before a week's past."

My informant cannot recollect the consequences of sneezing on Wednesday and Thursday.

"Sneeze on Sunday morning fasting,
You'll enjoy your own true love to everlasting."

If you sneeze on a Saturday night after the candle is lighted, you will next week see a stranger you never saw before.

A new moon seen over the right shoulder is lucky, over the left shoulder unlucky, and straight before prognosticates good luck to the end of the moon.

Hair and nails should always be cut during the waning of the moon.

Whatever you think of when you see a star shooting, you are sure to have.

When you first see the new moon in the new year, take your stocking off from one foot, and run to the next style; when you get there, between the great toe and the next, you will find a hair, which will be the colour of your lover's.

When you first see the new moon after mid-summer, go to a stile, turn your back to it, and say,--

"All hail, new moon, all hail to thee!
I prithee good moon, reveal to me
This night who shall my true love be:
Who he is, and what he wears,
And what he does all months and years."

_To see a Lover in a Dream._--Pluck yarrow from a young man's grave, saying as you do so--

"Yarrow, sweet yarrow, the first that I have found,
And in the name of Jesus I pluck it from the ground.
As Joseph loved sweet Mary, and took her for his dear,
So in a dream this night, I hope my true love will appear."

Sleep with the yarrow under the pillow.

J. M. (4)

* * * * *

Some time ago I was in the neighbourhood of Camelford (a small town in Cornwall), and inquiring the name of a church I saw in the distance, was told that its name was _Advent_, though it was generally called _Saint Teen_. Now _Teen_ in Cornish = to light. Can this name have been applied from any peculiar ceremonies observed here during Advent?

J. M. (4)

Minor Notes.

_Curious Inscription._--I obtained the following inscription from a person in the country, and you wish to make a "note" of it, it is perfectly at your service. The arrangement of the letters is curious.

"_Bene._
At. ht Hiss to
Ne LI esca Theri
Neg ---- Ray. C. Hanged.
F ..... Roma bvs. y. L.
if et oli .... Fele SS. C.
la. YB: year than. D.C.
La Ys ---- he Go ..... th
Erp ---- E. L F bvtn
ows H e'st
Urn E D T odv Sth
E R
Se ==== Lf.

"An old Record.
J. H. W......
Birch Hill, May, 1844."

R. H.

_Glass in Windows formerly not a Fixture._--In Brooke's _Abridgement_, tit. "Chatteles," it appears that in the 21st Hen. VII., A.D. 1505, it was held that though the frame-work of the windows belonged to the heir, the _glass_ was the property of the executors, and might therefore be removed by them, "_quar le meason est perfite sauns le glasse_." In A.D. 1599 Lord Coke informs us it was in the Common Pleas "resolved _per totam curiam_, that glass annexed to windows by nails, or in any other manner, could not be removed; for without glass it is no perfect house."

J. O. M.

_D'Israeli: Pope and Goldsmith._--Mr. D'Israeli congratulates himself with much satisfaction, in his _Essay on the Literary Character_, both in his Preface, p. xxix., and in the text, p. 187. vol. i., in having written _this_ immortal sentence:

"The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces."

--more particularly as it appears Lord Byron had "deeply _underscored_ it." Perhaps he was unaware that Pope, in a letter to Swift, Feb. 16, 1733, had said:

"A few loose things sometimes fall from men of wit by which
_censorious fools_ judge as ill of them as they possibly can, for
_their own comfort_."

And that Goldsmith says:

"The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are
themselves most foolish."--_Citizen of the World._

JAMES CORNISH.

Queries.

ON A SONG IN SCOTT'S PIRATE--"FIRE ON THE MAINTOP."

In the 231st number of that excellent New York periodical, _The Literary World_, published on the 5th of July, there is an article on "Steamboats and Steamboating in the South West," in which I find the following passage:--

"I mentioned the _refrain_ of the firemen. Now as a particular one
is almost invariably sung by Negroes when they have anything to do
with or about a fire; whether it be while working at a New Orleans
fire-engine, or crowding wood into the furnaces of a steamboat;
whether they desire to make an extra racket at leaving, or evince
their joy at returning to a port, it may be worth recording; and
here it is:

"'Fire on the quarter-deck,
Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck,
Fire down below!'

"The last line is given by all hands with great vim (_sic_) and
volume; and as for the chorus itself, you will never meet or pass
a boat, you will never behold the departure or arrival of one, and
you will never witness a New Orleans fire, without hearing it."

The writer says nothing about the origin of this Negro melody, and therefore he is, I presume, unaware of it. But many of your readers will at once recognise the spirited lines, which when once they are read in Walter Scott's _Pirate_, have somehow a strange pertinacity in ringing in one's ears, and creep into a nook of the memory, from which they ever and anon insist on emerging to the lips. The passage occurs at the end of the fifth chapter of the third volume, where the pirates recapture their runaway captain:--

"They gained their boat in safety, and jumped into it, carrying
along with them Cleveland, to whom circumstances seemed to offer
no other refuge, and pushed off for their vessel, singing in
chorus to their oars an _old ditty_, of which the natives of
Kirkwall could only hear the first stanza:

"'Thus said the Rover
To his gallant crew,
Up with the black flag,
Down with the blue!
Fire on the main-top,
Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck,
Fire down below!'"

So run the lines in the original edition, but in the revised one of the collected novels in forty-eight volumes, and in all the subsequent ones, the first two stand thus:

"Robin Rover
Said to his crew."

This alteration strikes one as anything but an improvement, and it has suggested a doubt, which I beg to apply to the numerous and well-informed body of your readers to solve. Are these lines the production of Walter Scott, as they are generally supposed to be; or are they really the fragment of an old ditty? The alteration at the commencement does not seem one that would have found favour in the eyes of an author, but rather the effect of a prompting of memory. I believe, indeed, the lines are inserted in the volume called _The Poetry of the Author of the Waverley Novels_ (which I saw some years ago, but cannot refer to at this moment), but that is not decisive.

There is a case in point, which is worth quoting on its own account. In _Peveril of the Peak_, in the celebrated scene of the interview between Buckingham and Fenella, where Fenella leaps from the window, and Buckingham hesitates to follow, there is this passage:

"From a neighbouring thicket of shrubs, amongst which his visitor
had disappeared, he heard her chant a verse of a comic song, then
much in fashion, concerning a despairing lover who had recourse to
a precipice.

"'But when he came near,
Beholding how steep
The sides did appear,
And the bottom how deep;
Though his suit was rejected
He sadly reflected,
That a lover forsaken
A new love may get;
But a neck that's once broken
Can never be set.'"

This verse, also, if I mistake not, appears in _The Poetry of the Author of Waverley_, and is certainly set down by almost every reader as the production of Sir Walter. But in the sixth volume of Anderson's _Poets of Great Britain_, at page 574. in the works of Walsh, occurs a song called "The Despairing Lover," in which we are told that--

"Distracted with care
For Phyllis the fair,
Since nothing could move her,
Poor Damon, her lover,
Resolves in despair
No longer to languish,
Nor bear so much anguish;
But, mad with his love,
To a precipice goes,
Where a leap from above
Would soon finish his woes.

"When in rage he came there,
Beholding how steep
The sides did appear,
And the bottom how deep,
His torments projecting,
And sadly reflecting
That a lover forsaken,"
&c. &c. &c.

In this instance it is shown that Sir Walter was not indebted for the comic song to his wonderful genius, but to his stupendous memory; and it is just possible that it may be so in the other, in which case one would be very glad to see the remainder of the "old ditty."

T. W.

Minor Queries.

56. _Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar?_--I have long been very curious to know whether Milton was an Anglo-Saxon scholar. He compiled a history of the Saxon period: had he the power of access to the original sources? Is there any ground for supposing that he had read our Saxon _Paradise Lost_; I mean the immortal poetry of Caedmon? If he really knew nothing of this ancient relic, then it may well be said, that the poems of Caedmon and of Milton afford the most striking known example of coincident poetic imagination.

I should be extremely obliged to any of your learned correspondents who would bring the faintest ray of evidence to bear upon this obscure question.

The similarity of the two poems has been noticed long ago, _e.g._ by Sir F. Palgrave in _The Archaeologia_, xxiv. I know not whether he was the first; I think Conybeare was beforehand with him.

J. E.

Oxford, Aug. 2. 1851.

57. _Tale of a Tub._--What is the origin of this popular phrase? It dates anterior to the time of Sir Thomas More, an anecdote in whose chancellorship thus illustrates it. An attorney in his court, named Tubb, gave an account in court of a cause in which he was concerned, which the Chancellor (who, with all his gentleness, loved a joke) thought so rambling and incoherent, that he said at the end of Tubb's speech, "This is _a tale of a Tubb_;" plainly showing that the phrase was then familiarly known.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

58. _Cleopatra's Needle._--When was the obelisk in Egypt first so called? Why was it so called? What is the most popular work on Egypt for a full description of it?

J. B. J.

Liverpool, July 28. 1851.

59. _Pair of Curols._--In a list of the rating of the incumbents of the diocese of Ely, A. D. 1609, towards the support of the army, preserved by Cole, several are returned for "a pair of curols."

"Mr. Denham for his vicarage of Cherry Hinton to find (jointly
with the Vicar of Impington and Caldecote) _a pair of Curols_ with
a pike furnished."

What is the meaning of the word "Curol," supposing Cole to have used it aright?

E. V.

60. _Cowper Law._--Lord Mahon, in his _History of England_, second edit. vol. ii. p. 66., in speaking of the death of the first Earl Cowper, after saying "His memory deserves high respect," &c., adds, "And though it seems that a by-word was current of 'Cowper law, to hang a man first and then judge him,' I believe that it proceeded from party resentment, rather than from any real fault;" and in a note refers to the evidence at Lord Wintoun's trial. Is not Lord Mahon mistaken in supposing that this saying refers to Lord Cowper? Should it not be "Cupar Law," meaning the town of that name? I see in Lord Wintoun's trial, where his lordship uses the expression, he adds, "as we used to say in our country." If my supposition is correct, can any of your correspondents say how the proverb arose?