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He was translated to the see of Galloway in 1619, and was succeeded in Brechin by David Lindsay, son to the laird of Edzell.

POETICAL AND AMBIGUOUS SIGN-BOARDS.

UNTIL recently, in a narrow street here, called Pump Pail, was a remarkable baker's sign,

Home bake bread-Diners baked every day. This was however outdone by a baker, in an adjoining village, who had written up:

People's vitals baked here!

Though these candlesticks are now out of use, they are of considerable ornament to the churches, while the one at Montrose is both of interest and honour to the inhabitants, not only from the fact that it shows their townsman, Richard Clark, to have risen to the high rank of Vice-Admiral in the fleet, but that he served under Gustavus Adolphus, the Christian King of Sweden. That great prince, who freed Sweden from the thraldom of Russia, twice defeated Tilly, and joined in the Protestants' struggle against Austria, fell at Lützen in 1632, under which some acute wag had writtenin the twenty-first year of one of the most glorious and beneficial reigns that any monarch ever began. was backed in his noble enterprises by many of the Scottish nobility and gentry, who gained both renown and wealth by their conduct, and among these, it appears, was the donor of this elegant candlestick.

At a roadside cottage, I remember to have seen this announcement, Table bear-sold hear.

He

The surname of Clerk, or Clark, is common in most countries of Europe, and was assumed from the office of clerk. In Scotland it is observable, in 1180, or earlier; and in Montrose before 1357, in which year John Clerk, merchant and chief magistrate of that burgh, became an hostage for the ransom of David II.* From him descended William Clerk, who died in 1620, and whose son John went as a merchant to France, and returning to Scotland with an ample fortune, purchased the lands and barony of Pennycuik, in Edinburghshire, where the family still flourish. His wife was a daughter of Sir William Grey of Pittendrum, by whom he had a large family. John, the eldest, was knighted by King Charles II. in 1679; and it is worthy of remark, as showing how a particular talent in a family may lie dormant for several generations and then revive, as in that of John Clerk of Eldin, grandson of the first baronet, the nautical skill of the Vice-Admiral, was developed in his wellknown work entitled "Naval Tactics.' The author of that celebrated book, was father to the late facetious Lord Eldin.

Though the name of the Vice-Admiral does not appear in the genealogy of the Baronets of Pennycuik, there is reason to believe that he was an uncle, or brother, to the founder of that house. It would be gratifying to know the part that he sustained in the Swedish service, and whether, through his skill were gained any of those victories which added so much lustre to the name of Gustavus.

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His own bruin !

Croydon, Sept. 29.
THOMAS WEller.
Hood?
Our correspondent has mistaken the Bell for the Robin

ON the eastern side of Devonshire, or the western part of Somersetshire, I remember seeing when a boy, passing through a village, the following inscription:

Brandy, Beer, and Gin that's good,

All sold here, by JOHN ATTWOOD.

As second thoughts are best, mine host appears to have been of the same opinion, and on a board projecting from the original sign, was painted,

I've made my board a little wider,

To let 'e know that I, Zell's Syder!

Do any of your readers remember the locality referred to, or whether such a sign is now there; any notice of the fact would be to the writer a great gratification.

J. M.

Ar the Bear Inn in Devizes, the innkeeper's name in August, 1769, being WHATLEY, the following lines were found scratched on the wainscot of the principal

room

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THE SHAKESPEARE AND GREYHOUND.

IN 1776, near the Circus, in Bath, was a publichouse with the sign of "the Shakespeare and Greyhound," the singularity of the combination induced a Paul Pry of the time to ask mine host his reason for adopting such a sign. The host, a prudently-disposed Devonshire man, replied, "Why, I'll tell you, my house is pretty much frequented between the Play-actors, and Country-Gentlemen, and so as how it behoves me to be civil to both parties, I have put up this here Sign to give them a bit of one, and a bit of the other."

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Prior to 1685, the fellmongers purchased the hides of the slaughtered animals, having the horns and tails attached; to what uses the latter were applied the writer is not aware; but in the above year, the Edict of Nantes expatriated many thousands of Protestants from Fránce, most of whom sought refuge in England; and, as might be supposed, many from this intolerant persecution became objects of charity; when among other means of sustenance, they bought of the fellmongers the tails, from which when stewed was derived the highly nutritious oxtail soup, the excellence of which since then all foreigners concede to England.

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OUR Correspondent will possibly obtain all he requires from the following particulars:

September, 1764. They write from Dresden, that the Electoral Family have there lately had a grand Festival, on which occasion they were amused with a very extraordinary spectacle, called the Firing of the Bird. This spectacle, which had been discontinued since the death of the late Elector, King of Poland, consists of a large Bird,

having within it a young Fox, and other animals all burning with ire towards each other. The Bird-machine being forced open by the firing of a gun concealed in the belly, up start the confined animals, and, after scratching and almost suffocating each other in the passage, fall upon the Bird that is to be their prey; this brings them to a downright quarrel, that is terminated by the death of the two weakest, to the no small delight and satisfaction of the spectators.

Foreigners, for our cock-fighting and other amusements, may style us barbarians, if they please, but with humble submission to their wiser heads, we apprehend, the amusement here noticed is fully as cruel, and at least ten times more ridiculous.

LINES INSCRIBED ON A GARDEN SEAT AT BELVOIR.

ONE cultivated spot behold, which spreads

It's flow'ry bosom to the noontide beam;

Where numerous rose-buds rear their blushing heads, And poppies gay, and fragrant violets teem. Far from the busy world's unceasing sound, Here has ELIZA fix'd her favour'd seat; Chaste emblem of the tranquil scene around, Pure as the flow'r that smiles beneath her feet! 1815. RUTLAND. Elizabeth, Duchess of Rutland, died Nov. 29, 1825.

ROYAL FURNISHING, TEMP. GEORGE THE SECOND. THAT we advance in sumptuousness, as regards our dwellings, both aristocratical and royal, may be proved by the orders for the transient fitting reception of Her Majesty, at the palace of Holyrood, on her way to Balmoral, compared with the following directions issued by the Lord Chamberlain, Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, grandson of King Charles the Second, in 1729. The Warrant, here literally copied, is curious for its orthography.

To His Grace, the Duke of Montague, Master of His Majesty's Great Wardrobe, and to his Deputy.

These are to signify unto your Grace, His Majesty's Pleasure, that you give orders for the following Particulars of Furniture, to be cleaned, repaired, and made up for His Majesty's Service at St. Jame's, etc.

MANY years since, I remember reading an old song on the frugality of the smoker, the concluding lines, were I thinkHe has his kitchen in a box,

His roast beef in a pipe.

Viz. In the Queen's Bed Chamber, the Chimneyglass to be new framed; and the glass new silvered. In the Dining Room, the glass to be repaired. In the Princess Royal and Princess Amelia's Appartments, the Crimson Damask Hangings, Window Curtains, Chaires and Stooles; a new top to the Great Glass, etc. A Wallnuttree Soffoy, and couering it with old Damask, to new Cover six Chaires, and one easy Chair with Crimson Camolet; Five Wallnuttree sashes, and a deal press Bedstead; to take down the plate Sconces and Chandeliers, to new mount and replace them, and to repair several other things in the Appart-printed in the Marrow of Complements, 1654 :

ments.

To take down Beds in several Appartments at Hampton Court, and pack them up with the Bedding.

For altering the Head-board and other parts of His Majesty's Bed in the Carolina Yatcht.

To cover three Stooles with Green Mohair for the Duke, at Kensington. To clean two pair of Hurateen Window Curtains, and an easy Chair, also three pieces of Hurateen for His Majesty's Service.

And for so doing, This shall be Your Grace's Warrant. Given under my hand, this 13th Day of Sept. 1729, in the Third Year of His Majesty's Reign. GRAFTON.

On the margin is an estimate signed by THO. DUMMER;* of the cost of all this mending, turning and cleaning, in three palaces and a yacht, and the charge (though not possibly so much as would now be paid for a sofa, and six chairs) seems to be quite enough—"The particulars of this Warrant will come to Four Hundred, Eighty-Four Pounds, or thereabout. Sept. 25, 1729." W. G.

SENDING TO COVENTRY EXPLAINED.-Clarendon reproaches with virulence our spirited ancestors for disloyalty to Charles the First. The day after the King left Birmingham on his march from Shrewsbury, in 1642, they seized his carriages, containing the royal plate and furniture, which for security they conveyed to Warwick Castle. They apprehended all messengers and suspected persons; frequently attacked and reduced small parties of the royalists, whom they sent prisoners to Coventry. Hence the proverbial expression in reference to a refractory person, "Send him to Coventry." J. W.

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I would gladly be reminded, where the words are to be
found, having made many unsuccessful attempts to dis-
friends.
cover them, not only personally, but by applications to
Oxford, Oct. 9.

R. B.

The words of the Song in "Praise of Tobacco," are thus

Much meat doth Gluttony procure,

To feed men fat like swine;
But he's a frugal man indeed,

That on a leaf can dine.

He needs no napkin for his hands,
His finger ends to wipe,
That bath his kitchen in a box,
His roast-meat in a pipe!

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WILLIS'S CURRENT NOTES.

No. XLVII.]

"Takes note of what is done-
By note, to give and to receive."-SHAKESPEARE.

BIRTH-PLACE OF DAVID HERD.

DAVID HERD, who is characterised by Sir Walter Scott, as the editor of "the first classical collection of Scottish Songs," printed at Edinburgh in 1774, is said by Chambers, and other biographers, to have been born in the parish of St. Cyrus, in Kincardineshire, an erroneous assertion reiterated by all subsequent writers. He was born at Balmakelly, in the adjoining parish of Mary-Kirk, in the olden time named Aberluthnot,* where his father was a crofter, or small farmer. The following extract from the baptismal register of MaryKirk, while it affords satisfactory evidence of the place

of his birth, also discloses the name of his mother.

Oct. 23, 1732. This day was baptized David Herd, lawful son to John Herd and Margaret Low, in Balmakelly, before these witnesses, David and William Herds, both in Balmakelly.

The Inquisitiones Speciales, Kincardine, no. 88, shew that some time before and subsequent to 1655, a portion of the lands of Balmakelly, were the property of a person surnamed Low, and though no extant record is known of David Herd being by his mother's affinity related to the landowners of his native county, there is nothing advanced to the contrary. The parties named in the retour of service to the lands of Little and Nether Balmakellan, etc., may have been of his mother's ancestry, and while the fact may be deemed of but little moment, the circumstance, if possible, of establishing the descent of Herd's mother from the Lows of Balmakelly, etc. is not devoid of interest.

David Herd died at Edinburgh in 1810, and was buried in the Greyfriar's church-yard, where a stone was placed to his memory. Born in 1732, his age was but seventy-eight, but in the new edition of Monteith's Theater of Mortality, Glasgow, 1834, Appendix, p. 283, the inscription from the stone is there printed, and the age, in error, stated eighty-six. Brechin.

A. JERVISE.

John Monteith, in the reign of King Robert the First, had the Five merk lands of Balmakelly in exchange for certain lands in Argyleshire. Robertson's Index, p. 23. Aberluthnot, the old name of the parish of Mary-Kirk, was from a want of local knowledge, designated in the Inquisitions above quoted, Aberbrothick.

Balmakelly lies to the south, within a few minutes walk of the Mary-Kirk railway station.

VOL. IV.

[NOVEMBER, 1854.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU'S CORRESPONDence. THE works of Pope and his contemporaries are now exciting so much interest, and their literary squabbles becoming developed, it may be well to point out a sinvol. ii, p. 162, where alluding to the Letters of Lady gular passage in the Margravine of Anspach's Memoirs, Mary Wortley Montagu, which the Margravine considered to have been chiefly composed by men, addsLady Bute, daughter of Lady Mary told her, that Mr. Walpole and two other wits, friends of his, joined in a trio, to divert themselves at the expense of the English public, by composing those letters.

Oak House, Pendleton.

F. R. A.

The allusion is here to the three small volume edition printed in 1763, so scandalous indeed is that publication to the memory of Lady Montagu, that it has been announced in booksellers' catalogues, as "the FIRST EDITION, with the suppressed passages." It was the fashion among persons of high character to fabricate and disseminate themselves by another route, or was the emanation of a falsehood with no unsparing hand; but when it approached more talently gifted hand, as in the instance of the Rowleian Manuscripts by the luckless Chatterton, they could then be branded with infamy, and the hapless adventurer neglected and contemned, pass to the grave unheeded, the breadless and inexperienced victim of that delusion which placed a mistaken reliance on aristocratic patronage. The distinction obtained by the fabrication of the Athenian Letters, by the Hardwicke family and their friends, all considerable for it lured Walpole to the establishing his private press at their eminence in literature and station in society; while Strawberry Hill, seems also to have induced the idea of himself and associates clubbing their ideas for its emanations. Yet the writers of the Athenian Letters did not hesitate to become fabricators of other papers, than those which passed under the above title. They not only concocted Gazettes of the days of Imperial Roine, but they produced "the earliest English Newspaper ever printed." The English Mercurie, 1588, of which several printed specimens are found in a volume of the Birch Manuscripts, in the British Museum, which deceived George Chalmers, of Shakespeare forgery notoriety, and many other magnates in literature; were the fabrications of the writers of the Athenian Letters, and printed at the Hardwicke private press. Dr. Birch being one of the writers. These were then looked on as innocuous pastimes by persons pre-eminent for the social virtues, but they have served as ignes fatui to mislead persons of but slight caution; they have served in the change of manners to cast reproach upon characters as honourable in every respect with those of the writers, and in respect to the Popean fictions, to bewilder and bewray the historical course of literary facts.-ED.

N

LITERARY REMUNERATION.

IN December, 1835, a number of original Contracts between the Dodsleys and various authors, editors, and translators, were sold by Mr. Evans, in Pall Mall, and the following notices are from memoranda taken at the time by the writer.

January 16, 1741, WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, subsequently poet laureate, received ten guineas in full, for a poem entitled, The Dangers of Writing Verse. WILLIAM GUTHRIE, the historian, contracted to translate Riccoboni on the Theatres, compile the index, and all complete, for ten pounds, sixteen shillings.

EDWARD YOUNG, D.D., on January 26, 1744-5, for the sixth part of his Night Thoughts, called the Infidel Reclaimed, received fifty guineas; and on November 24, 1753, received a further sum of fifty guineas, which with one hundred and ten guineas already received, was in full discharge of the five first parts or nights of a poem entitled Night Thoughts. Dr. Young assigned on Feb. 19, 1755, his Centaur not Fabulous, with the plate used as a frontispiece, for two hundred pounds, which Robert Dodsley was to pay six months after date.

JOHN WESLEY, the founder of the Methodists, and who constantly carried in his breast a crucifix, acknowledged to having pirated in his Collection of Poems the copy-right of some portions of Dr. Young's Night Thoughts, and some productions of Mrs. Rowe; for these he consented to make restitution, by agreeing on February 8, 1744, to pay fifty pounds.

Dr. S. JOHNSON, the lexicographer, assigned his translation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, on Nov. 28, 1748, for fifty guineas; the author reserving to himself the right of printing an edition. This document sold for seven guineas. Johnson's autograph Account of his Tour in France, 1775, which Malone presented to James Boswell, July 21, 1787, and produced at Boswell, the Shakespeare editor's sale, ten guineas, was here sold for twenty pounds.

January 11, 1749, ROBERT PALTOCK, of Clement's Inn, assigned to Dodsley the manuscript of the Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornishman; for the first edition, twenty guineas, twelve copies of the book, and the cuts, or copper plates engraved for the prints. Dodsley printed but that edition, and popular as the book has ever been, all the circumstances as to the author were unknown, till the appearance of this con

tract.

COLLEY CIBBER, the hero of Pope's Dunciad, assigned his memorable Apology for fifty guineas, March 24, 1750. Dodsley's edition was in two duodecimo volumes, printed in 1756. Cibber, then poet laureate, died in 1757. SUSANNAH CIBBER, the wife of his ill-fated son Theophilus, sold the copyright of her Comedy, The Oracle, in One Act, for thirty guineas, April 1, 1752; and on March 24, 1753, the inimitable KITTY CLIVE disposed of her Rehearsal, or Bays in Petticoats, for twenty guineas.

THOMAS WARTON, January 21, 1752, agreed to translate the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius for eighty pounds; and at a subsequent date, his brother, Dr. JOSEPH WARTON, assigned for two hundred pounds his Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope, in two volumes, octavo.

WILLIAM MELMOTH, April 30, 1755, received for his translation of Cicero's Familiar Letters six hundred pounds, and for his Lælius one hundred pounds.HAMPTON this year received for his translation of Polybius, two hundred and fifty guineas.

Mason, the biographer of Gray, has erroneously asserted the poet never received any emolument for his writings. THOMAS GRAY on June 29, 1757, assigned his Two Odes, the Power of Poetry, and the Bard, for forty guineas, reserving the right to reprint them in any edition of his works. Gray's assignment sold for eight guineas.

Burke's early history as an author was long involved in much obscurity, arising from the mystery he had himself thrown over his movements. His first published production was entitled, Natural Society Vindicated, and was written in Lord Bolingbroke's style, to evince his aptitude at the manner deemed difficult of that celebrated statesman. The receipt of six pounds, professed to be "for the use of the Author of Natural Society Vindicated;" five hundred copies were to be printed of the first edition; if it reached a second edition, the author was to receive six guineas more. As Burke has nowhere alluded to his History of the European Settlements in America, and omitted it himself in the collected edition of his works, it became a controverted point as to who was the author, but which doubt was here elucidated, by his assignment of the work to Dodsley, January 5, 1757.

Burke, on February 18, following, assigned his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful for twenty guineas; and if a third edition, ten guineas more. Mr. Young purchased this document for five pounds.

April 24, 1758, Burke contracted with Dodsley to write the Annual Register; or, a Retrospect of Men and Things, in the manner of Millar's Kalendar, in octavo, each volume for every year, not to contain less than thirty sheets, nor more than thirty-four, for one hundred pounds per volume, and to have all books and pamphlets found him; Dodsley, if dissatisfied, was to give three months notice. This contract produced six guineas. Apparently Burke's connection with the Annual Register ceased with the volume for 1762, as with these papers was a receipt in full for fifty guineas for that year. Dodsley's Annual Register, 1768, and onwards, was conducted by Thomas English, and the receipts shewed he was paid 140l. per volume. Burke's receipt, dated May 26, 1791, proved he received from James Dodsley, as the profits of his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published as a thin five shilling volume in octavo, ONE THOUSAND FOUNDS! No author ever received so much on the sale of any similar work! On Nov. 25, in the same year, Walker King received for

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