S4 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. xo 64, Jan. 10. '57. 



" Gaudy things enough to tempt ye ; 5 



Showy oiitsides, insides empty ; 

 Bubbles, Trades, mechanic Arts ; 

 Coaches, Wheelbarrows, and Carts. 



" Warrants, Bailiffs, Bills unpaid ; 

 Lords of Laundresses afraid ; 10 



Rogues that nightly rob and shoot Men ; 

 Hangmen, Aldermen, and Footmen. 



" Lawyers, Poets, Priests, Physicians; 

 Noble, simple, all conditions; 

 Worth, beneath a threadbare cover; 15 



Villainy, bedaub'd all over. 



" Women, black, red, fair, and gray ; 



Prudes, and such as never pray ; 



Handsome, ugly, noisy, still ; 



Some that will not, some that will. 20 



" Many a Beau without a shilling ; 



Many a Widow not unwilling : 



Many a Bargain, if you strike it. 



This is London ! how d'ye like it ? " 



Bancks's Poems, 1738, i. 337. 



The principal variations in the copy printed in 

 1" S. vii. 258., arethe second line — 



" Streets cramm'd full in ev'ry weather ; " 

 The fourth — 



" Sinners sad, and saints religious," — 

 removing the allusion to the city gates and the 

 bridge. When the verses were first written, the 

 gates of London were still standing, and there 

 was only one bridge. The seventh line, containing 

 an allusion to the South-Sea and its concomi- 

 tant " bubbles," was very much spoilt by conver- 

 sion into — 



" Baubles, trades, mechanics, arts." 



The sixteenth line is expressed in phraseology 

 which now requires a gloss — 



" Villainy, bedaub'd all over." 



Not bedaubed in the pillory, as it deserved, but 

 bedaubed with gold lace, which was then the 

 fashion, and which was frequently stigmatised by 

 that expression. The term " prudes," in line 18, 

 was then also a favourite one : in the altered ver- 

 sion, the line is by no means improved into — 

 " Women that can play and pay." 



The author of these verses was Mr. John 

 Bancks, one of the earliest contributors to the 

 poetical department of the Gentleman' s Magazine ; 

 and whose Works were printed by subscription in 

 two volumes 8vo. Pope subscribed for two sets 

 of the book, with this couplet : 



" May these put money in your purse. 

 For, I assure you, I've read worse. 



" A. P.' 



See further of Bancks in the second chapter of 

 the " Autobiography of Sylvanus Urban," in the 

 Gentleman s Magazine for August last, p. 139. 



J. G. N1CH01.S. 



DEATH OF CLARENCE. 



(2°'^ S. ii. 221.) 



The curious account of the death of this prince 

 is again discussed in "N. & Q.," and notwith- 

 standing the lapse of centuries, the affair remains 

 in doubt and uncertainty, and is, as justly stated 

 by Mk. Gairdner, received with considerable 

 scepticism. It seems to be a tradition adopted, 

 like many others, without reflection or any at- 

 tention to detail. 



To drown the prince in a butt of malmsey 

 wine implies necessarily that wine was kept In 

 open butts, or that one was made for the occasion. 

 In wine countries wine is sometimes placed In 

 open butts for certain purposes, but for so doing 

 there was no necessity in England. 



But why malmsey? any other wine, or even 

 water, would have served the purpose. The 

 general Inference would be that malmsey wine 

 was kept in open butts, and that the prince was 

 thrown Into one of them. Again, it must be ob- 

 served that butts or pipes are not of dimensions 

 sufficiently large for the purpose Intended, being 

 seldom larger In England (not being a wine 

 country) than four feet in length. 



It cannot be supposed that the prince was put 

 into a pipe or butt of wine already full ; for this, 

 one head must necessarily have been removed, 

 and this could not have been done, the wine re- 

 maining ; was he then, quietly submitting, put 

 into the cask, into which, being closed up, the wine 

 for drowning him was to be poured at the 

 bung-hole ? 



Let the matter be considered In detail, with all 

 concomitant circumstances, and It may fairly be 

 doubted whether the occurrence so often related 

 ever took place, and whether the expression may 

 not have somg other meaning now lost to us, or 

 whether it may not be altogether figurative. 



It Is true that Shakspeare makes the First Mur- 

 derer propose to break the prince's head, and 

 then throw him into the " malmsey butt " in the 

 next room — not the butt of malmsey wlne-r- and 

 at last, when stabbing him, he says, " If that will 

 not serve, I'll drown you in the malmsey butt 

 within ; " the drowning being in both cases not 

 the primary, but the conditional, course. Finally, 

 " I'll go hide the body In some hole till the Duke 

 gives order for his burial ; " and then exit with the 

 body. It is not from Shakspeare, then, that we 

 learn the prince was drowned in a butt of malmsey 

 wine. 



The temperate and interesting suggestions of 

 Mr. Gairdner have induced me to offer these 

 remarks ; but as to the prince being put into a 

 butt " of" or •' for " malmsey, and then committed 

 to the deep, it must be observed that a butt of 

 wine, even without a human body. If thrown Into 

 the sea, will not readily sink, and consequently, it 



