NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 27., July 5. 



a corner, intending to print roses and stripes on the other 

 Bide, to paper attics with," &c. 



Is there any earlier mention of papering rooms 

 than this ? James Knowlbs. 



Cock-fighting, its Origin. — 



" Themistocles, marching against the Persians, beheld 

 two of these determined warriors in the heat of battle, 

 and thereupon pointed out to his Athenian soldiery their 

 indomitable courage. The Athenians were victorious; 

 and Themistocles gave order that an annual cock-fight 

 should be held in commemoration of the encounter they 

 had witnessed. No record, however, of the sport occurs 

 in this country (England) before the year 1121." — Free- 

 masons' Q. 31., July 1853, 



W. W. 



Malta. 



Epitaph on a Bell-ringer. — The following 

 epitaph, from the churchyard of Leeds, Kent, is 

 interesting, as recording, probably, the only in- 

 stance of the complete changes on eight bells 

 having been rung : 



" In memorv of James Barham, of this parish, who 

 departed this "life Jan. 14, 1818, aged 93 j^ears. Who, 

 from the year 1744 to the year 1804, rung in Kent and 

 elsewhere, 112 peals; not less than 6040 changes in each 

 peal, and called Bobs, &c., for most of the peals. And 

 April the 7th and 8th, 1761, assisted in ringing 40,320 

 Bob major in 27 hours." 



C. W. M. 



The New Era : a Prophecy. — Adam Czar- 

 torvski, once the minister and favourite of Alex- 

 ander T. of Russia, but later one of the leaders of 

 the Polish Revolution of 1831 (now eighty four 

 years of ase!), uttered the following enigmatic 

 • words at the last meeting of the Polish Historical 

 Society of Paris, April, 1856 : 



" It seems to me, at times, as if a curtain had fallen on 

 that concluded scene ( !), of which we were witnesses and 

 partly actors, and that now a new spectacle ( Widowhko) 

 Tsill begin, the prologue of which even, has not yet been 

 plaved off. Thus, resigned but active, let us await the 

 rising of the curtain." 



Strangelv, the same fine thought was uttered 

 by Walter Scott in bis concluding remarks on the 

 French Revolution {Life of Napoleon') : "But the 

 hand of fate was on the curtain, about to bring 

 the scene to light." J. Lotsky, Panslave. 



15. Gower Street, London. 



Old Notice of " Seven Dials," London. — 



" East of that is a deal of pleasant planting (the author 

 is deseribinsr the policies of Sir John Maxwell of Nether 

 Pollock in Renfrewshire") ; at your first entering there is 

 a cross avenue ; one of the avenues of the cross leads east 

 to another cross, from whence six avenues branches off 

 almost like the Seven Dial;?, London, where seven streets 

 branches off, viz. 1. Great Earl, 2. Little Earl Streets; 

 3. Great St. Andrew's, 4. Little St. Andrew's Streets; 

 6. Great White Lion, 6. Little White Lion Streets ; 7. and 

 last. Queen Street. The long cross stone which stood in 

 the middle centre was seven (feet) square at the top, and 

 a dial on each square } which stone I saw standing in the 



year 1770, but was down in the year 1777." — A History 

 of the Shire of Renfreiv, part ii. p. 190., by George Craw- 

 furd and William Semple, Paisle3\ 1782. 



Flambeaux. — The extinguishers for the links 

 carried by the attendants on the chairs of the 

 wealthy diners-out still remain in Grosvenor 

 Square. Probably they were last used for the 

 Dowager-Marchioness of Salisbury, who was 

 buried at Hatfield in 1835. She — 



" Always went to court in a sedan chair, and at night 

 her carriage was known by the flambeaux of the foot- 

 men." — Raikes's Diary, ii. 276. 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A, 



<th\xtxiti. 



SHAKSPEAKE AND BABNFIELD. 



Being at present busily engaged in the prepa- 

 ration and printing of my new edition of Shak- 

 speare's Plays and Poems, with a revisal of the 

 text and notes of my former impression of 1843 

 and 1844, I am very desirous of obtaining all the 

 information I can procure regarding Richard 

 Barnfield, who has had the honour, as it now ap- 

 pears, not of having poems by him imputed to 

 Shakspeare, but of having poems by Shakspeare 

 imputed to him. The general belief, for about 

 the last century, has been, that certain produc- 

 tions in verse, really by Barnfield, and published 

 by him in 1598, had been falsely attributed to our 

 great dramatist ; but not long since I wrote a 

 letter to The Athenaum, the effect of which, I 

 apprehend, would be to deprive Barnfield of the 

 pieces in question (inserted in The Passionate 

 Pilgrim, 1599), and to restore them to their 

 actual author, Shakspeare. 



The matter now seems to He in a nutshell : — 

 They were printed as Barnfield's in 1598 ; they 

 were printed as Shakspeare's in 1599 ; and when 

 Barnfield reprinted his productions in 1605, he 

 excluded those which had been printed in 1599 as 

 Shakspeare's. The inference seems to me in- 

 evitaMe, that they were by Shakspeare and not 

 by Barnfield. I formerly thought that Barnfield 

 had, in a manner, reclaimed his property in 1605 ; 

 but the very reverse is the fact : and those poems 

 in The Passionate Pilgrim, which are there as- 

 signed to Shakspeare, but which were formerly 

 supposed to be Barnfield's, may now, without 

 much hesitation, be taken from Barnfield and 

 given to Shakspeare. Hence we may perhaps 

 conclude that W. Jaggard, the publisher of The 

 Passionate Pugrim, was not quite as much of a 

 I rogue as was formerly imagined. 



It then becomes a question how Shakspeare's 

 poems, in The Passionate Pilgrim of 1599, came 

 to be published as Barnfield's in 1598. Bara- 



