224 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[2nd s. VIII. Sept. 17. '59. 



Their names are, Henry Cole, Chaules Wentworth 

 DiLKE, JuN., George Drew, and Fra>'cis Fuller, with 

 one Mathew Digby VVyatt for Secretary ; five as obscure 

 individuals as could well be got together in one group — not 

 such even as j-ou might impress from the streets, but such 

 as could only be found out by poking into sundrj' holes 

 and corners after them, — people distinguished for nothing 

 whatever in the world, — people whom nobody knows, — 

 never heard of, either in their own country or out of it. 

 Persons, too, who if not the very same who falsely passed 

 themselves off as the representatives of the Society of 

 Arts, have been put forward to reap the benefits of the 

 fraud practised on the Crown, — the nominees of impos- 

 tors, if not impostors themselves! How is it possible 

 that such an ' Executive ' can inspire either respect or 

 confidence ? Or how is it to be expected that any great 

 party in the state would choose to identify themselves 

 with a pack of such characterless nobodies ? 



" We have purposely left out the name of ISIr. Eobert 

 Stephenson from the Executive batch, because it was 

 notoriously added at the last moment, for the sake of 

 garnish merely, and after an express intimation from 

 that gentleman that he could lend them his name only." * 



It is due to^the journal quoted to say that its 

 management is not now in the same hands as it 

 was at the time when the above was written. 



A. De Morgan. 



JOHN LILLY, DRAMATIST. 



This Elizabethan dramatist wrote nine plays, 

 reprinted by Blount in 1632, who in his dedica- 

 tion to Lord Lumley gives us a specimen of the 

 wit he admired in Lilly — " the Spring is at hand, 

 and therefore I present you a Lilly." Lilly was 

 a candidate for the post of Master of the Revels, 

 in which he was unsuccessful ; and after many 

 years of fruitless court attendance, was obliged to 

 petition the Queen for support in his old age. I 

 have stumbled on a letter from the late Dr. Philip 

 Bliss to Joseph Haslewood relating to this dra- 

 matist, which may be considered worthy of a niche 

 in your literary athenseum : — 



" Dear Haslewood. — Oldys, MS. Notes on 

 Langbaine, Cens. Lit., i. 161., says that there are 

 many copies of Lilly's Letters to the Queen (Eliza- 

 beth) extant in manuscript. These Letters show 

 that he expected the post of Master of the Revels, 

 Now where are these many copies ? Do you, 

 who are so skilled in dramatic biography, know 

 where to find one ? If so, tell me ; but don't 

 transcribe it, for I have it now under my roof, in 

 a contemporary manuscript, 



" Yours, almost worn out with proof- 

 reading and poverty, 



" Anthony a Wood, Jun." 



It is gratifying to learn from your last volume 

 (p. 514.) that an improved and enlarged edition, 

 by a competent editor, of the Athena Oxonienses 

 by Anthony a Wood, Sen. and Jun. is in prepara- 



* " Mr. Stephenson has since resigned, and has been re- 

 placed by Lieut.-Col. VV. Reid, R. E." 



tion. What the two Woods have accomplished 

 for Oxford, the two Coopers are now honourably 

 performing for Cambridge. May their united la- 

 bours be sustained and encouraged by the whole 

 literary brotherhood ! J. Yeowell. 



Diligences. — 



Minav ^nXsi, 



" ' So down thy hill, romantic Ashborne, glides, 

 The Derbj' dilly, carrying three insides.' 



"When the late Mr. O'Connell applied these celebrated 

 lines to the present Earl of Derby, he made the Dilly 

 carry six insides, which had the double advantage of de- 

 scribing the vehicle more accurately and of giving addi- 

 tional point to the joke." 



{Edinb. Revieio, No. 219. p. 118. July, 1858.) 



Public vehicles which carried six insides were 

 generally called stage coaches, stages, or coaches, 

 or had some specific name as the Rapid, Telegraph, 

 Defiance, &c. &c. But there was also a vehicle 

 whose generic name was Diligence, and which car- 

 ried three insides only. 



Ashbourne Hill is clearly visible from the 

 windows of Ashbourne Hall, where Canning was 

 a frequent visitor, and in his days was an object 

 of peculiar interest ; for, upon the arrival of the 

 mail at the top of the Hill, the guard, if he had 

 good news to tell, and our navy supplied him with 

 numerous occasions, discharged his blunderbuss to 

 summon all the quidnuncs of the place. 



The diligence of those days carried three in- 

 sides ; two sat with their faces towards the horses, 

 the third sat opposite upon a seat partly inserted 

 into a recess in the carriage, but projecting a 

 i little. Whether such a vehicle ran or rather 

 crawled between Derby and Ashbourne, I do not 

 recollect, but I do recollect riding in such a one, 

 somewhere between Warrington and Liverpool, 

 once on my way to school : its external appear- 

 ance I do not remember, but the internal discom- 

 forts have fixed its form in my memory, though 

 seventy years have elapsed since that memorable 

 journey. 



I should not have noticed the Edinburgh critic's 

 mistake, but that it seems to indicate that the 

 very existence of such a vehicle as a diligence had 

 passed out of mind. Edw. Hawkins. 



Synonymes. — The original edition of Bishop 

 (then Archdeacon) Nicolson's English Historical 

 Library, London, 1696, 8vo., has a preface which 

 was not reprinted. The last paragraph of this 

 preface Is worth preserving, not only for the con- 

 sideration of some living authors, but as marking 

 a time at which the demand for elegant synonymes 

 was strong : — 



" I have but one thing more to Apologize for ; and 

 that's the frequent Repetitions, the Reader will be apt 

 to observe, of the same Word, and (perhaps) Expression 

 and Phrase. I have repeated Occasions to take Notice 



