dates," and "such details, though they may trouble the pedantry of our time, were despised by our bolder fathers." There was the probability that Marryat had met Maitland as well as Sir Alexander Ball, for he returned in 1813 to the Mediterranean station, where he had already served in 1806 and 1811-12. Maitland left Ceylon on 15 March, 1812.

Anyway, there is strong evidence that he was Midshipman Easy's patron. There is none that this was Sir Alexander Ball.

PENRY LEWIS.

JOHN WEBSTER A CONTRIBUTOR TO SIR THOMAS OVERBURY'S 'CHARACTERS.'

(See ante, p. 3.)

THESE are only the passages in which parallelism of phrase cannot be denied; many are the instances when distinct, though remote, similarity may be detected. Some of the Characters seem to be copied or enlarged from certain dramatis personæ in "The White Devil' or 'Duchess of Malfi' (the 'Distaster of the Time' from Flamineo and Bosola, or the Vainglorious Coward in Command' from Malatesti); while the persons of Leonora and Ariosto in 'The Devil's Law Case' were but the dramatic versions of the 'Vertuous Widdow' and the Reverend Judge' in the 1615 book.

Webster's authorship is not to be deduced solely from such parallelism, but every one of these Characters is found to be exactly achieved in the dramatist's peculiar manner; on the other hand, some passages in his dramas might have been lengthened into similar essays, as, for instance, Francesco's description of a cunning intruder into favour ('W.D.,' III. iii.), Bosola's account of a politician (D.M.,' III. ii.), or Appius Claudius's exposure of the knavish scrivener ('App.,' III. ii.). Does not the following passage own the true Websterian ring ?—

"With one suitor she shootes out another, as Boies doe Pellets in elderne Gunnes.* She commends to them a single life, as Horse-coursers doe their Jades, to put them away."- An Ordinary Widdow.'

And the conclusion of the 'Fair and Happy Milkmaid,' so sweetly praised by Izaak Walton, strikes the genuine poetical note which Charles Lamb recognized in Webster:

This simile is borrowed from Marston's 'Malcontent' (IV. ii.), a play to which Webster may have contributed some passages, and from which he took several phrases.

"All her care is, she may dye in the Springtime, to have store of flowers stuck upon her windingsheet.'

We have seen that most of the parallel passages occur in A Monumental Column (written after November, 1612) and The Duchess of Malfi' (acted before December, 1614). These two works had already been considered as belonging to the same period, on account of constant verbal references to Sidney's Arcadia'; it now seems probable that the composition of the Characters published in 1615 must have taken place very shortly after the production of the poem and tragedy.

That Webster thought of turning the results of his observations into Characters only after the first appearance of Overbury's Characters' (May, 1614) is probable; that the last among his essays were written in 1615, just before being sent to the press, is evident from a direct allusion to a book published in the same yea-an allusion which brought down on him such a shower of abuse that it may have prevented him from ever publicly acknowledging the authorship of his Characters.

Early in 1615 a book by John Stephens of Lincoln's Inn had been published, under the title of Satyrical Essays, Characters and Others,' in which a very bitter description of A Common Player' was included. The reader must be reminded that, three years earlier, Thomas Heywood had triumphantly disposed of the objections raised by Puritanical' prejudice against the Quality in his 'Apology for Actors; in 1615, however, the controversy had been revived with a ‘Refutation of the Apology' (by J. G.), and so foul was John Stephens's abuse that it called forth a sharp retort from a friend of the stage players. So, in the character of An Excellent Actor' (meant as a representation of Richard Burbage), the dignity of the profession was vindicated by Webster, while he made a direct allusion to Stephens in the following words :

"Therefore the imitating_Characterist was extreame idle in calling them Rogues. His Muse it seemes, with all his loud invocation, could not be wak't to light him a snuffe to read the Statute: for I would let his malicious ignorance understand, that rogues are not to be imploide as maine ornaments to his Maiesties Revels; but the itch of Pacolet, hath defil'd more innocent paper, the bestriding the Presse, or getting up on this wooden ever did Laxative physicke: yet is their inven

*The author of the 42 Characters of 1615 was well acquainted with Florio's Montaigne, whose influence over Webster was proved at full length by MR. CHARLES CRAWFORD.

This downright abuse incensed John Stephens so highly that, before the year was out, a second impression of his book was issued, with an angry To the Reader' aimed at his detractor, in addition to which a friend of Stephens's, J. Cocke, wrote a long epistle in prose and verse, intended to expose the meanness of the actors' friend. Cocke availed himself of this opportunity to claim the authorship of three of the Characters printed in the same volume with those of that unknown botcher. Stephens, truth to say, asserted that he had meant no insult to the London com

panies, but that his description dealt solely with strolling players. Whatever his adversary may have thought of this explanation, he seems to have chosen promptly to pretermit the controversy, as the offensive lines were deleted† from the ensuing edition of the Characters,' the penultimate essay A Purveyor of Tobacco ') at the same time being omitted, never to be reprinted in the many subsequent editions of the collection.

By identifying Stephens's adversary with John Webster, we can partly account for the bitterness of Henry Fitzgeffrey's attack -on Webster in his 'Notes from Blackfriars' (1617—not 1620, as Dyce printed it), for anong the commendatory verses contributed by the satirist's friends some are signed John Stephens; so the invidious feelings of this set of barristers against the stage - players' champion had not subsided two years after the offence, and we may consider The Devil's Law-Case,' in which the foul proceedings of Contilupo and Sanitonella are exposed and branded, as the dramatist's final retort on his enemies.

·

BON A. F. BOURGEOIS.

Unusquisque turpis et inscius et ventosus," says Stephens, "malevolæ ac rudis suæ calumniæ fretus, alieni nominis ruina... ....my poor detractor, who is like the slow-worm, venomous but blind.' Cocke calls his adversary an obscure vagrant," and adds:....all was penn'd Them to protect from shame, who thee defend From want,

an allusion to the author's connexion with the stage.

† Prof. Morley, in his Character Writing in the Seventeenth Century' (London, 1891), mentioned that Stephens was probably attacked by an unknown adversary, but failed to detect the allusion to the sixth edition of the Characters,' and did not notice the deletion of the offensive paragraph and of the Purveyor of Tobacco.'

somewhat ancient references of my own (the second excepted) through happening on the following in Mr. Clement Shorter's recent fascinating volume 'The Brontës and their Circle' (p. 188):—

inscription:-
"The tomb at Scarborough bears the following
Here Lie the Remains of
Anne Brontë,
Daughter of the Rev. P. Brontë,
Incumbent of Haworth, Yorkshire.
She Died, Aged 28, May 2-, 1849.
The inscription on the stone is incorrect. Anne
Brontë died, aged twenty-nine, May 28th, 1849.”

There are two inaccuracies here: the lines

66

of the inscription are wrongly divided, May 2-." Inand the 8 is omitted in significant errors of transcription they may be, but call for correction all the same. In September, 1897, I copied the inscription, and inserted it in the article at the first

reference thus:

"SANDWICH SPOILS 29 IN 1457.-Hall's Chronicle records an incident in the history of this ancient port in the above year, when Sir Piers Bressy, a great ruler in Normandy and a lusty captain, was coasting along the Kentish shore on mischief bent. Having received information from his spies that Sandwich was neither peopled nor fortified, and that its chief rulers had departed on account of a "pestilenciale plague," he landed his troops, occupied the town and port, and secured some booty, but had to withdraw before night set in. According to our chronicler, the enemy did not get much for his trouble, although "French authors make of a little much."

One of these writers, I find, was the author of the Chronicle of Charles VII. of France, a book often attributed to Alain Chartier, under whose name it is entered in the British Museum Catalogue. The day's proceedings are described with some detail,

but under the wrong year-1458. event happened on 28 Aug., on a Sunday, which agrees with the correct year-1457. According to the French chronicler, his countrymen landed "à deux lieues" from Sandwich, "et cheminèrent iusques à un bouleuert remparé nouuellement, duquel les fossez estoient plain d'eaue." This new "bulwark of brick to be built at Fishers' gate in 1457 is mentioned in Boys's History of Sandwich' (Canterbury, 1792), p. 674. L. L. K. "THE CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND.'-This parody in its various forms was before the public for over a century. Towards its bibliography I contribute a few examples from what was part of William Hone's collection of parodies :

The Chronicle of the Kings of England from William the Norman to the Death of George III., &c. 1821.-Fairburn's re-issue with chart chronology of the reign of George III.

A

Notwithstanding this, the payment of cock-penny was not abolished there until 1867. Cock-fighting was no doubt given up, and throwing at cocks took its place. The cock-penny was paid in probably all the old grammar schools until quite a recent date. In Lancaster it was given up in 1824, a capitation grant being given to the master and usher in lieu thereof.

In some schools in the seventeenth century,. instead of throwing with sticks, the use of the bow and arrow was introduced. I am able to give two instances of this.

James Clegg, a Nonconformist minister and Doctor of Medicine, in his Diary records that, whilst he was at the Rochdale Grammar School in 1686, on Shrove Tuesday,

The New Book of Chronicles; delineating in excentrical sketches of the Times a variety of modern Characters of the Great, and Small Vulgar London. (1789 ?)

a

The Chronicle of Abomilech, King of the Isles. Translated from Latin Manuscript written in the year 1220 by William of Salisbury. London, 1820.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

SHROVETIDE THROWING AT THE COCK.— Cockfighting and shooting at the cock are forms of (so-called) English sport of great antiquity, but the custom so long practised in the old grammar schools of allowing the boys to throw sticks at a live cock on Shrove Tuesday is of comparatively more recent origin. We find no evidence that such a custom obtained in the pre-Reformation schools, if we except the statement made by Hone (Every Day Book,' i. 126) that the scholars of Ramena in 1355 presented a petition to the schoolmaster for a cock he owed them upon Shrove Tuesday to throw sticks at." As he gives no authority for this, and does not even say where Ramena is situated, it cannot be accepted as proof. Sir Thomas Moore, writing in the sixteenth century, speaks with pride of the skill which, as a schoolboy, he had "in casting a cok-stele." The word "stele" is to-day used in Lancashire for the handle of a household brush.

By the foundation charter of the Manchester Grammar School, dated 1 April, 16 Hen. VIII. (1525), it is provided that the

Being anxious to see the sport, he put his head too far forward, and received the arrow on his temple; and he adds: “The wound at first was said to be mortal."

The Rev. Henry Newcome sent his children to the Manchester Grammar School, and in his Autobiography' (Chet. Soc., xvi. 147, 162), under the date of Tuesday, 31 Jan., 1665, writes:

"The children shot at school for their cocks this day, and I was moved with fear about them. I had cause, for Daniel's [his son] hat on his head was shot through with an arrow ; and again on Shrove Tuesday (13 Feb., 1666):

"It was their shooting day at the cocks. We prayed that God would keep our children from doing or receiving any hurt."

This form of sport died hard. The editor of The Gentleman's Magazine in 1753 issued a caveat against

"the wretched custom of throwing or shooting at cocks, a custom that initiates the youth into cruelty and vice."

It would be interesting to know in what schools the "throwing continued longest. in practice.

As early as 1430 the public exhibition of this description of sport was in ill repute. In a poem of this date, How the Good Wive taught hir Doughter' (E.E. Text Soc., xxxii. 40), the mother's advice is :

·

Go not to wrastelinge, ne to schotinge at cok, As it were a strumpet or a gigglelot.

HENRY FISHWICK.

WILLIAM SYDENHAM, M.D.--Dr. William Sydenham, eldest son of Thomas Sydenham, M.D. (1624-89), the English Hippocrates, was born in London about the year 1659 or 1660 (the record of his baptism has yet to be traced). He was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, "ad secundam mensam," 18 Feb., 1674, "annosque habens 15." He married Henrietta Maria Banister of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, at the parish church of St. James, Duke's Place, Aldgate, London, 19 June, 1684, and by her had issue eight or ten children, six of whom were baptized at St. James's, Piccadilly, January, 1685/6-October, 1704. She was buried at St. James's, Piccadilly, as Mrs. Maria Sydenham, 31 Dec., 1741.

Dr. Sydenham was living in Soho, 1706–9; in 1716 he was at Kingston-on-Thames, and in 1719-29 at Richmond, Surrey. He died 10 April, 1738, and was buried seven days later at St. James's, Piccadilly. His will, as of St. Ann's, Westminster, dated 12 Sept., 1731, proved 17 June, 1738, by his son John, the widow renouncing, is filed in the P.C.C., but not registered. He owned estates at Allexton, Leicestershire, and at Yardley and Clothall, Herts.

This note will supplement the brief account of him in 'D.Ñ.B.,' lv. 250.

DANIEL HIPWELL.

84, St. John's Wood Terrace, N.W. FENIMORE COOPER: A COINCIDENCE.MR. J. A. JACOBS of Sandwich sends the following:

me

"I find among the Wingham registers, circa 1750, Fennimore Cooper. I have been wondering if the above was a coincidence, or if the American

novelist was a connexion."

The late Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore informed me that Fenimore Cooper derived the name from his mother, a daughter of Richard Fenimore of Burlington County, New Jersey, and that a family of Fennimores were settled at Christchurch, Philadelphia, as early as 1749. R. J. FYNMORE. Sandgate.

VANISHING CITY LANDMARKS: RECTORY HOUSE OF ST. MICHAEL, CORNHILL. (See 11 S. vii. 247; viii. 446.)-The following from The City Press of 13 June will be read with interest :

"There has been some delay in the rebuilding of the Rectory House of St. Michael, Cornhill, by reason of the dispute in the building trade. The new structure, like its predecessor, will be of red brick, with stone facings, and it is now about halfcompleted. Meanwhile, a temporary iron building in the graveyard is used as the Vestry Room......The tenants of the old Rectory House-Messrs. Parker,

Garrett & Co., solicitors ...... have arranged to take a lease of the main portion of the new Rectory connection it may be of interest to state that they House as soon as it is completed, and in this entered into occupation of the old Rectory House in September, 1863. That building was erected soon after the Great Fire of London. Its successor, while covering the same quantity of ground, will be one storey higher, and altogether more adapted to modern requirements. As before, provision will be made on the ground floor for a Vestry Room for the parish of St. Michael, Cornhill, which will also be used for the Cornhill Wardmotes."

Many must regret the disappearance of this picturesque old Rectory.

CECIL CLARKE.

2nd Pyrgus. Ay, but somebody must cry Murder," then, in a small voice.

Tucca. Your fellow-sharer there shall do 't; cry, sirrah, cry.

1 Pyr. Murder, murder.

2 Pyr. Who calls out murder? lady, was it you? Histrio. O admirable good, I protest. Poetaster,' III. i.

It seems to have been generally assumed that Jonson is here parodying the famous scene of the murder of Horatio in 'The Spanish Tragedy.'

Prof. Boas (Thomas Kyd,' p. 400) and Prof. Penniman (Poetaster,' Belles-Lettres edition, p. 225) both state that the passage is aimed at Kyd's play. The assumption is not unnatural, seeing that the lines of the player's speech immediately following are borrowed from an earlier scene of The Spanish Tragedy.' Kyd's Bel-imperia does, indeed, cry Murder, murder"; but her cry is followed by the entrance of Hieronimo with the famous speech, "What out-cries pluck me from my naked bed....Who calls Hieronimo ?" &c.

66

It is not Kyd, but Chapman, who is the The lines are Subject of Jonson's ridicule. from The Blinde Begger of Alexandria. Count Hermes murders Doricles, and Aspasia exclaims :

: