2nd s. No 27., July 5. »56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



wben the song first appeared, had the general re- 

 putation of being the person for whom it was de- 

 signed. The Rev. Thomas Maurice published 

 Richmond Hill, a poem, in which, under the name 

 of Mira, he introduces a Miss Cropp as the Lass 

 of Richmond Hill, who committed suicide for her 

 lover on the 22nd April, 1782 ; but this has been 

 regarded merely as poetic fiction with regard to 

 the song. Another account we have, in Personal 

 Sketches of his own Times, by Sir Jonah Barring- 

 ton, vol. ii. pp. 47 — 52. ; in this it is stated Mr. 

 Leonard MacNally wrote the song on a Miss 

 Janson, daughter of Mr. Janson, a rich attorney 

 of Bedford Row, Bloomsbury, who had a country- 

 house on Richmond Hill. There were great ob- 

 stacles to his marrying her, but perhaps from 

 making the lady the theme of his poetry, and 

 being also the author of Robin Hood, a comic 

 opera of great merit, he ultimately obtained her 

 hand. But notwithstanding all these authorities, 

 I am inclined to think the song was not intended 

 for any particular person, but written by Mr. 

 Wm. Upton, author of Poems on several Oc- 

 casions, 8vo., 1788, and A Collection of Songs 

 sung at Vauxhall, and who was the poet of Vaux- 

 hall Gardens 1788—1789. I believe it first ap- 

 peared in the Public Advertiser oi'M.onAiiy, Aug. 3, 

 1789, where it is stated to be a favourite song 

 sung by Mr. Incledon at Vauxhall, and composed 

 by Mr. Jas. Hook (the father of Theodore). It is 

 said Incledon sang the song in such a fascinating 

 manner, that it led to a superior and permanent 

 engagement at Covent Garden Theatre, as, after 

 the season of 1789, he never again appeared at 

 Vauxhall. *. 



Richmond. 



"grenvillb papers:" george iii.'s letter to 



LORD temple, correction OF. 



In the Grenville Memoirs of the Cabinets of 

 George III. is a remarkable letter from the king 

 to Lord Temple, written on the occasion of his 

 "surrender" to the coalition ministry of Epx and 

 Lord North ; which, like everything else of his 

 private correspondence published, is highly cha- 

 racteristic of the firm unaffected character of the 

 man, and of that remarkable power of letter- 

 writing in a pure English unpretending style, 

 which completely refutes the aspersions thrown by 

 adverse or disappointed politicians upon his un- 

 derstanding and education. 



In this letter there is, however, one trace of 

 that haste in writing, which the king notoriously 

 had in speaking, and which sometimes made it 

 difficult for those he addressed to follow or under- 

 stand him. The editor of the Grenville Papers 

 undertakes to correct the obscurity, but has done 

 so, as I think, clumsily, and without effect. 



The sentence, as printed verbatim from the 

 original, is this : 



" The seven cabinet councillors named by the Coalition 

 shall kiss hands tomorrow ; and then form their arrange • 

 ments ; as the former negociation theij did not condescend to 

 open to many of their intentions." 



The obscurity is in the clause printed in Italics, 

 and the editor, in a foot-note, corrects it thus : 



" As (in) the former negociation they did not conde- 

 scend to open to(o) many of their intentions." 



It appears to me that this emendation is partly 

 incorrect ; I would re-write the sentence thus : 



" As (m) the former negociation, they did not conde- 

 scend to open to m(e) any of their intentions." 



This would reduce the king's mistake to the 

 omission of an in, and the running of me, any, 

 into many ; while it is at once more intelligible, 

 and more expressive of that sense of offended 

 dignity at the treatment he experienced at the 

 hands of the Coalition, which pervades every line 

 of the letter. 



This indignation has, as seems to me, in another 

 sentence led the king into a form of expression 

 which rather oversteps the bounds of correctness ; 

 he calls his " besiegers " — 



" The most unprincipled coalition the annals of this or 

 any other nation can equal." 



I may be wrong in my criticism, and should bow 

 to correction, but this sentence seems somewhat 

 to conform (as I humbly submit.) to that mode of 

 expressing intensity, in which Sir Boyle Roche, in 

 the Irish parliament on some occasion of national 

 calamity, affirmed that, — 



" Singh misfortunes never come alone, and the greatest 

 of all possible misfortunes is generally followed by a much 

 greater." 



A. B. R. 



Belmont. 



Alitor fiatti. 

 Papering Rooms. — Herman Schinkel, M.A., 

 citizen and printer of Delft, belonging to the 

 Reformed Religion, was apprehended, a.d. 1568, 

 on a charge of printing and publishing books ini- 

 mical to the Catholic faith ; for which he was 

 sentenced to death, and suffered in July following. 

 In his examination (as detailed by him in his last 

 and farewell letter to his wife), being interrogated 

 as to certain ballads alleged by his accusers to 

 have been printed at his press, he said they were 

 printed by his servant in his absence. And — 



" Want ick quam t'huys, eer dat sy gelevert waren, ende 

 doe en woude ick niet gedoogen, dat mense leveren sonde, 

 maarick schichtese in een Noeck, om roosen en stricken 

 op d'andere zijde te drucken, daer men Solders mede 

 bekleet," &c. 



" When he came home, and found they were not de- 

 livered, he refused to deliver them, and threw them into 



