2°'' S. X. July 21. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



41 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 11. 18G0. 



N<>. 238.— CONTENTS. 



NOTES : — Cambridge Memorabilia: Mansel, Mathias, and 

 Farmer, 41 — Dr. Sam. Collins, Provost of King's Coll.; 

 Samuel Collins, Vicar of Braintree, and Three Contempo- 

 rary Physicians of that Name, 43 — Poems by Burns and 

 Lockhart, 43 — The Dyvour's Habit, /6. — Who was the 

 Discoverer of Staten Land and Lemaire's Passage, 4i. 



Minor Notes : — Harlot — Powderham Church, Devon — 

 Bodleian Catalogue — Early Fly-leaf Scribbling, 44. 



QUERIES:— "The Rolliad," 45— Forest of St. Leonard. 

 Sussex— Kyryrayry or Kermery "Work — Israelitish Cos- 

 tume — Eoyal Archers : Queen's Body Guard of Scotland 



— Signs at Monksheath, Cheshire, and Langtree, near 

 Wigan — John Keyse Shervvin, Engraver — Lady Frances 

 Brandon — Robert Redmayne — Fragment of an Old Ro- 

 mance — The Oxford Act — " Aunt Sally " — Hervey 

 Family — The Rev. Chas. Pembroke — High-heeled Shoes 



— Civic Huntmg — Paddlewheels — Legendary Painting, 

 45. 



Qttekies with Answees : — Sir William Dugdale's Col- 

 lections—Bishop Grosteste"on Husbandry " — Bridling- 

 ton— Reading School- Joannes Britannicus — Fairmaids 

 and Alewives — Bunny, 47. 



REPLIES: —The Flambard Brass and its supposed want 

 of Evangelical Teaching, 49 — Shakspeare Music, 53 — 

 Stolen Brass — Bath Family — The German Church in 

 London — Christopher Lord Hatton — Irish Knights — 

 "Mors Mortis Morti" — Solent, Swale, and Solway Firth 



— Rutherford Family — Ohphant — Baptismal Names — 

 Powell's "Official Handbook to Bray," &c. — Church 

 Towers — Centenarianism — Elegy on Frederick, Prince of 

 Wales —Toads found in Stone, &c., 54. 



CAMBRIDGE MEMORABILIA. 



MANSEL, MATHIAS, AND FARMER. 



The friendship subsisting betv^een Dr. Mansel 

 (afterwards Bishop of Bristol) and Mr. Mathias, 

 commenced during their academical studies at 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. While a Bachelor of 

 Arts, Mansel had rendered himself at once famous 

 and formidable by his satirical writings, and no 

 doubt contributed some of the wit and humour in 

 those earlier productions of his friend, which, like 

 pointed arrows, were now being shot by an unseen 

 hand from the office of Thomas Becket in the 

 Strand. Our young Menippus had already " run 

 a muck" on the character and writings of Dr. 

 Richard Watson in his Heroic Epistle and Heroic 

 Address ; and it is now generally believed that he 

 was indebted to his friend Mansel for many of the 

 diverting notes in his subsequent celebrated pro- 

 duction. The Pursuits of Literature, first pub- 

 lished in 1794. 



The following amusing epistle from Dr. Mansel 

 was forwarded to Mathias soon after the latter 

 had published his Runic Odes, imitated from the 

 Norse Tongue, in the Manner of Mr, Gray. Lond. 

 4to, 1781: — 



« Oct. 12, 1782. 



" Without all controversy, great is j'our magnanimity 

 of patience, and manifold are the trials to which I put it. 

 I shall not begin to make long excuses for my not writ- 



ing, neither shall I fetch apologies for my silence from 

 that which you observed for a competent time before your 

 last letter. You so seldom err in this point, and I so 

 often, that mere shame and common modesty restrain me 

 from casting anything of this nature in your teeth. 



" Bears, lions, boves, sues, grues, kings, queens, heroes, 

 Turks, and raggamuffins at Stirbitch*, have engrossed 

 more of my time than I fear beseems a clerk. But con- 

 sider, you that ramble about London, and have all the 

 metropolis before you, to what a small nook of the year 

 our luxuries are confined, and that we can revel in the 

 bower of bliss only for one short noon at farthest. Mor- 

 ris, Hodson, Lawson, and those who see the world, have 

 all that world to bound about in ; they can collect sweets 

 from every clime, and bring back their thighs laden with 

 the honied store. While we, delving in dreary cells, do 

 little else than contract strata upon strata of rust, while 

 hot one hand of friendly nyhiph is stretched out to wipe 

 it off. 



" You have heard of our Emmanuel jubilee no doubt. 

 All I can say is, that I was not invited : so do not ask me 

 any particulars thereof. One circumstance, however, is 

 droll enough. During the very midst of the celebration 

 of the jubilee, that is, while they were at the noon of 

 eating, proposals were circulated round the table for 

 having an engraving of the Master [Dr. Richard Far- 

 mer] struck off as soon as possible. That circumstance 

 gave rise to the following little wagging : — 



" Laugh and be Fat. 

 " At feasts of yore, the sumptuous lord, 

 To please the pamper'd guest, 

 Plac'd drolls and antics at his board, 

 Whose business was to jest. 



" Farmee, of antiquarian flower, 

 At Mildmay's f late repast. 

 To cheer the hospitable hour, 

 Renew'd the good old taste. 



" To make men laugh as well as eat, 

 The merry Master knew. 

 Was doubling the luxurious treat, 

 And heartier welcome too, 



" As to the eating part, of that 

 Good plenty was at hand, 

 Twelve bucks in larder, firm and fat. 

 From good Lord Westmoreland. 



" Melons and pines from Steevens came, 

 (Steevens, himself a feast!) 

 Huge hampers of outlandish game. 

 And turtles ready drest. 



" To crown the whole with one good laugh. 

 The Master, merry elf, 

 Hands round proposals to engrave 

 A likeness of himself. J 



* At this time the theatricals of Stirbitch fair had 

 powerful patronage in the combination room of Em- 

 manuel, where the routine of performance was regularly 

 settled, and where the charms of the bottle were early 

 deserted for the pleasures of the sock and buskin. In the 

 boxes of this little theatre the Master of Emmanuel (" O 

 rare Richard Farmer," quoth Dr. Dibdin) was the Arbiter 

 Elegantiarum, and presided with as much dignity and 

 unaffected ease as within the walls of his own college. 

 He was regularly surrounded by a large party of con- 

 genial friends and able critics, among whom Isaac Reed 

 and George Steevens were constantly to be found. 



t Sir Walter Mildmay was the founder of Emmanuel 

 College, A.D. 1584. 



X An excellent portrait, engraved by T. Hodgetts, of 



