Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 | Page 7

they did not rather expect a pleasant soirée with Gentle Will, and naturally enough went off in a huff when they found themselves inveigled into a tea-party at Mrs. Hornby's.
Mr. Wilson, in the work above quoted, does condescend to notice Mrs. Hornby,--
"Who rented the butcher's shop under the chamber in which the poet was born, and kept the Shaksperian Album, an interesting record of the visitors to that shrine. Some of the subscribers having given vent to original stanzas suggested by the scene, those effusions," continues the lofty bookseller, "the female in question caused to be inscribed and printed in a small pamphlet, which she sells to strangers."
Not a word, you will see, about the poet's mantle having descended upon the shoulders of our Mary,--which was unpolite of him, seeing that both the tragedy and comedy had the precedence of his book by some years. Not having before me the later history of Shakspeare's house, I am unable to say whether our subject deserved more consideration and gallant treatment at the hands of MR. COLLIER, when he and his colleagues came into possession.
J. O.
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Minor Notes.
Shakspeare's Monument.--When I was a young man, some thirty or forty years ago, I visited the monument of Shakspeare, in the beautiful church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and there copied, from the Album which is kept for the names of visitors, the following lines:
"Stranger! to whom this monument is shown, Invoke the poet's curse upon Malone! Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste displays, And smears his tombstone, as he marr'd his plays. R. F. Oct. 2, 1810."
This has just now been brought to my mind by reading, in page 155. of the second volume of Moore's Journal, the following account of a conversation at Bowood:
"Talked of Malone--a dull man--his whitewashing the statue of Shakspeare, at Leamington or Stratford (?), and General Fitzpatrick's (Lord L.'s uncle) epigram on the subject--very good--
'And smears his statue as he mars his lays.'"
I cannot but observe that the doubt expressed in the Diary of Moore--whether Shakspeare's monument is "at Leamington or Stratford (?)"--is curious, and I conceive my version of the last line, besides being more correct, is also more pithy. It is incorrect, moreover, to call it a statue, as it is a three-quarters bust in a niche in the wall.
The extract from Moore's Diary, however, satisfactorily explains the initials "R. F.," which have hitherto puzzled me.
SENEX.
Archbishop Leighton and Pope: Curious Coincidence of Thought and Expression.--
"Were the true visage of sin seen at a full light, undressed and unpainted, it were impossible, while it so appeared, that any one soul could be in love with it, but would rather flee from it as hideous and abominable."--Leighton's Works, vol. i. p. 121.
Vice is a monster of such hideous mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen."--Pope.
JAMES CORNISH.
Grant of Slaves.--I send you a copy of a grant of a slave with his children, by William, the Lion King of Scotland, to the monks of Dunfermline, taken from the Cart. de Dunfermline, fol. 13., printed by the Bannatyne Club from a MS. in the Advocates' Library here, which you may, perhaps, think curious enough to insert in "N. & Q."
"De Servis.
"Willielmus Dei gracia Rex Scottorum. Omnibus probis hominibus tocius terre me, clericis et laicis, salutem: Sciant presentis et futuri me dedisse et concessisse et hac carta mea confirmasse, Deo et ecclesie Sancte Trinitatis de Dunfermlene et Abbati et Monachis ibidem, Deo servientibus in liberam et perpetuam elemosinam, Gillandream Macsuthen et ejus liberos et illos eis quietos clamasse, de me, et heredibus meis, in perpetuum. Testibus Waltero de Bid, Cancellario; Willielmo filio Alani, Dapifero; Roberto Aveneli Gillexio Rennerio, Willielmo Thoraldo, apud Strivelin."
G. H. S.
Edinburgh.
Sealing-wax.--The most careful persons will occasionally drop melting sealing-wax on their fingers. The first impulse of every one is to pull it off, which is followed by a blister. The proper course is to let the wax cool on the finger; the pain is much less, and there is no blister.
UNEDA.
Philadelphia.
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Queries.
WALMER CASTLE.
In Hasted's History of Kent, vol. iv. p. 172., folio edition, we have as follows:
"Walmer, probably so called quasi vallum maris, i. e. the wall or fortification made against the sea, was expressed to have been a member of the port of Sandwich time out of mind," &c.
Again, p. 165., note m, we find:
"Before these three castles were built, there were, between Deal and Walmer Castle, two eminences of earth, called 'The Great and Little Bulwark;' and another, between the north end of Deal and Sandwich Castle (all of which are now remaining): and there was probably one about the middle of the town, and others on the spots where the castles were erected. They had embrasures for guns, and together formed a defensive line of batteries along that part of the