2^i S. VIII. Dec. 17. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



497 



after dark, and a donkey substituted. Sheltered by shades 

 of night the bargees came, and walked off with the don- 

 key, which they slaughtered, and partook of with much 

 satisfaction. The dire repast concluded, not before, one 

 of the party took up a foot of the supposed calf, and ex- 

 claimed, " He has got his shoon on ! " " Who ate the leg 

 of mutton?" " Who stole the goose ? " are libellous in- 

 sinuations addressed to the police.. All this is English, 

 and very English indeed ; but " Who ate the donke)' ? '* 

 is Spanish. When the French troops were escaping from 

 Spain after the battle of Vittoria, a party of stragglers 

 entered a Spanish village, and demanded rations. The 

 villagers, always hostile to the French, and now em- 

 boldened by the success of the British arms, slaughtered 

 a donkey, cut it up, and served it to their hated foes 

 (who were in a starving state and very glad to get it) as 

 veal. Next morning the French, pursuing their march to 

 the frontier, were waylaid by the villagers in a ravine, 

 and many of them cut oiF; the Spaniards, during the 

 murderous assault, shouting perpetually, " Who ate the 

 donkey?"], 



A Harrington. — In Ben Jonson's The Devil is 

 an Ass, Act II. Sc. 1., Meercraft says, — 



" Yes, Sir, it's cost to pennj' hal'penny farthing, 

 0' the back side, there you may see it, read ; 

 I will not bate a Harrington o' the sum." 



What is the meaning of the phrase " I will not 

 bate a Harrington ? " 



Colman, in his notes to the comedy, merely ob- 

 serves that the author's contemporaries used the 

 expression as he does, and for example quotes 

 from Sir Henry Wotton's Letters, " I have lost 

 four friends and not gotten the value of one 

 Harripgton;" but confesses his ignorance of the 

 original of it, Sandgate. 



[John Harington, created in 1603 Baron Harington of 

 Exton in the county of Rutland, obtained a patent on 

 terms highly discreditable to James I. for the issue of 

 these pieces, which were forced into circulation bj' the 

 King's proclamation, May 19,- 1613. Hence the derisive 

 name of " Harringtons." These tokens encountered the 

 contempt and scorn of all persons to Avhom they were 

 tendered, as being of the smallest possible value, and 

 were the objects of sarcastic allusion by dramatists, poets, 

 and wits. Drunken Barnaby (Part ill. p. 83. edit. 1820) 

 mentions this coin, on his arrival at the town of that 

 name : — 



" Thence to Harrington, be it spoken, 

 For namesake I gave a token 

 To a beggar that did crave it," &c. 



The currency of the tokens issued in the reign of 

 James I. was by proclamation, May 30, 1625, contirmed 

 by Charles I. ; and, on the decease of Ann Countess of 

 Harington, the patent was granted, July 11, 162G, to 

 Frances Duchess of Richmond, and to Sir Francis Crane, 

 Knight, who was the King's representative. Vide Beau- 

 foy's London Tradesmen's Tokens, p. 9. 2nd edit., and 

 Nares's Glossari/, s. v. ] 



The Flower Pot, Bishopsgate Street Within. — 

 I am curious to learn whether this is an historic 

 sign, i, e. whether it dates from " the counterfeit 

 association " to restore James II., for which Bishop 

 Sprat was taken up, and the Duke of Marl- 

 borough sent to the Tower, in 1692. The exist- 

 ence of the plot is treated by the Duchess of 



Marll?orough, in her Memoirs, with unequivocal 

 contempt, " Soon after the Princess' going to 

 Sion," she says, " a dreadful plot broke out, which 

 was said to be hid somewhere in a flower-pot, and 

 my Lord Marlborough was sent to the Tower." 

 It appears that the signatures to this paper of the 

 duke, the bishop, and others, were forged by two 

 men of infamous character, one of whose emissa- 

 ries found means to conceal the paper in Bishop 

 Sprat's house at Bromley in Kent, where- It was 

 found in a flower-pot by the king's messenger, 

 who thereupon secured the prelate. Now " the 

 very flower-pot " was, in Horace Walpole's time, 

 preserved at Matson, near Gloucester, the family 

 seat of the Selwyns, and the relic I dare say is 

 there still. But what I am anxious to learn is, 

 whether " the Flower Pot " sign at Bishopsgate 

 dates from this event. Bishopsgate is noted for 

 its old inns, and possibly " the Flower Pot " may 

 be one of them. John Times. 



Sloane Street. 



[The Flower Pot was formerly a s^-nibol of the An- 

 nunciation of the Blessed Virgin, as stated" b^' the editor 

 of Beaufoy's London Tradesmen's Tokens, pp. 1-11., 153. 

 2nd edit. He says, "A vase of flowers in the field, vulgo, 

 the Flower Pot, is derived from the earlier representations 

 of the Salutation of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Marj-, 

 in which either lilies were placed in his hand, or they 

 were set as an accessory in a vase. As Romanism de- 

 clined, the angel disappeared; and the lily-pot became a 

 vase of flowers; subsequently the Virgin was omitted,- 

 and there remained only the vase of flowers. Since, to 

 make things m.pre unmistakable, twodebonnair gentlemen, 

 with hat in hand, have superseded the floral elegancies of 

 the olden time, and the poetry of the art seems lost."] 



David Leivis. — Can you give me any informa- 

 tion regarding David Lewis, author of Philip of^ 

 Macedon, a tragedy, 8vo. 1727 ? The play is dedi- 

 cated to Pope, who seems to have thought highly • 

 of it. There is in 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1726—30, 

 Miscellaneous Poems by Several Hands, edited by 

 D. Lewis. R. Ingijs. 



[The author of Philip of Macedon, and the editor of 

 3Iiscellaneous Poems, we take to be the same person, as 

 both works were published by J. Watts. We cannot dis- 

 cover any biographical particulars of David Lewis, who 

 was favoured with the esteem and friendship of Alex,. 

 Pope. Whincop states that he was living in 1747. Pro- 

 bably he is the individual memorialised in the following 

 epitaph on a flat stone at Low Ley ton in Essex : " Sacred 

 to the memory of David Lewis, Esq., who died the 8th 

 day of April, 1760, aged seventy-seven years : a great 

 favourite of the Muses, as his many excellent pieces in 

 poetry sufficiently testify. 



' Inspired verse may on this marble live. 

 But can no honour to thy ashes give ! ' 



lie married Mar)', daughter of Xewdigate Owsley, Esq. 

 a merchant, whose monument is near this place in the 

 church."] 



Anne Cromwell: Mary More. — Can you give 

 me any account of the two following poetesses 

 and their works? 1st. Ann Cromwell, author of 



