2"d S. VII. April 2. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



275 



was heard in Westminster Hall on 16th of No- 

 vember, 1538 : fifteen hundred years, therefore, 

 anterior to that date, would take us back to a 

 time when the footprints of Our Lord were yet 

 fresh upon the earth, and His words had scarce 

 died away on the ears of the Apostles. Conse- 

 quently there is this dilemma for the historian : 

 either transubstantiation was taught by the Apos- 

 tles, and Lambert was condemned for denying 

 Apostolic doctrine ; or transubstantiation was not 

 taught by the Apostles, and then Mr. Froude 

 has made a statement untrue in fact. That he 

 does not intend the former conclusion is manifest 

 from the whole tenour of his History ; it appears 

 not, therefore, very clearly how he can escape the 

 other horn of the dilemma. Aechd. Weib. 



Or-D MOTHER LOUSE, OF LOUSE HALL, OXFOKD. 



In The Student, or the Oxford and Cambridge 

 Monthly Miscellany (a periodical published at 

 Oxford in 1750-1, and to which Dr. Johnson, 

 Thomas Warton, Christopher Smart, Bonnel 

 Thornton, and Colman, were contributors), there is 

 a pleasant paper on " several Public Buildings in 

 Oxford never before described" (vol. ii. p. 372.), 

 in which the writer supplements the accounts of 

 previous topographers, and says : — 



" It is well known, that before colleges were establish'd, 

 our members were scatter'd about and lodg'd at private 

 houses: at length, places were set apart for their recep- 

 tion, and dignified by the names of hospitia, or halls, or 

 (in the modern dialect) inns, or tippling-houses. We 

 must not, therefore, be surpris'd to find several remaining, 

 which retain the anticnt occupation, not only in the body 

 but in the skirts of the town ; such as Fox-hall, Lemon- 

 hall, Feather-hall, Stump-hall, Cabbage-hall, Caterpillar- 

 hall, &^c., §-c., §-c. But there is one that deserves particular 

 notice, situated N.N.E., a little way out of the town, 

 known by the name oi Kidney -hall; which has long been 

 a very noted seminary." 



To this list must be added Louse-hall, of which, 

 and its mistress, " Old Mother Louse," I will here 

 set down the following notes : — 



Anthony a Wood, in his Life, under date pf 

 July 14, 1673, speaks of the abuse heaped upon 

 him by Mr. Shirley, the I'errce filius of Trinity 

 College, who, among other things, had called him 

 a " Vir caducus, that intended to put the pictures 

 of mother Louse, and mother George, two old 

 wives, into my book." In a note upon this pas- 

 sage. Dr. Bliss observes : — 



" The best accounts we can procure of these two ma- 

 trons, at this distance of time, are as follow : — The 

 former was the mistress of a little ale-house situated at 

 the further end of a row of tenements at the bottom of 

 Headington Hill, near the lane leading to Marston, now, 

 not unaptly, called Harpsichord Row. The ingenious 

 author of the Biographical History of England, in de- 

 scribing a print (by Loggan) of this noted female, in- 

 forms us that she was probably the last woman in England 

 that wore a ruff. She gave a name to her habitation, 



which it retained for manj'^ years, and was called Louse 

 Hall. None of our modern antiquarians, not even the in- 

 quisitive author of The Companion to the Guide, have 

 attempted to investigate the Founders of our antient 

 academical hostels. In the Biographical History above- 

 mentioned, we are told that Cabbage Hall (situated di- 

 rectly opposite the London road on Headington Hill) was 

 founded by a taylor. Caterpillar-hall, the name of the 

 house higher up the hill, was no doubt a complimentary 

 appellation, intimating to posterity that, on account of 

 its better commons, it had drawn away a great number 

 of students from its inferior society, or, in other words, 

 that the caterpillar had eat up the cabbage." 



The print by Loggan represents Mother Louse 

 wearing her ruff, high conical hat, and apron. It 

 is a half-length figure seen in profile. The face 

 betokens shrewd intelligence, and her features are 

 of that familiar form termed " nutcracker." She 

 bears iji either hand a pot of ale ; and in the back- 

 ground is a small cottage, probably intended for 

 Louse Hall. Underneath the print is her coat of 

 arms (three lice passant, with a jug for a crest,) 

 surrounded by these lines : — 



" You laugh now, Goodman Two-shoes, but at what? 

 My grove, my mansion-house, or my dun hat : 

 Is it for that my loving chin and snout 

 Are met, because my teeth are fallen out? 

 Is it at me, or at my ruff you titter? 

 Your Grandmother, you rogue, ne'er wore a fitter. 

 Is it at forehead's wrinkle, or cheek's furrow, 

 Or at my mouth, so like a coney -borrough, 

 Or at those orient ej'es, that ne'er shed tear 

 But when the excisemen come, that's twice a j'ear. 

 Kiss me, and tell nie true, and when they fail. 

 Thou shalt have larger pots, and stronger ale." 



Who was the Oxford man, I wonder, who was 

 old Mother Louse's laureate ? Neither Thomas 

 Warton, nor his compeers, seem to have sung her 

 glories and sustained her fame. Perhaps, by 

 their time, it had somewhat died out; and The 

 Oxford Sausage was content to hand down to pos- 

 terity the names of her successors in catering for 

 the inner wants of Oxford undergraduates — Nell 

 Batchelor, Mother Baggs, and Mrs. Dorothy 

 Spreadbury. The old ale-wives had gone out of 

 fashion, and their names are not to be found 

 either in The Oxford Sausage, or The Cambridge 

 Tart. They had passed away with Mother Dam- 

 nable — with "Elynor Rumming, the famous ale- 

 wife of England" (of whom poet-laureate Skelton 

 sang) — with Falstaff's Mistress Quickly, the 

 shadowy hostess of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap 

 — with Mistress Jane Rouse, the veritable hostess 

 of the same — and with old Mother Louse and her 

 ruff. 



But of this famous Oxford ale-wife a parti- 

 cular account has been preserved in a rare Latin 

 pamphlet-poem of twenty-six pages, entitled "Ox' 

 onium Poema, authore F. V. ex ^de Christi, 

 Oxon., Typis W. Hall, Impensis Ric. Davis, 1667." 

 In my copy of this poem, the author's initials are 

 explained by the following inscription in a con- 

 temporary handwriting : " Fran. Vernon to his 



