2"J S. N" 33., Aua IG. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



133 



and annotations by Perizonius. Another edition was 

 published at Utrecht, 1795, with the additions of Everard 

 Scheid; and a third at Leipsic in 1793—1804, with the 

 notes of Perizonius, and those of Charles Lewis Bauer. 

 See a notice of him in Kose's Biog. Dictionary.'] 



" The Shepherd of Banbury." — I am most 

 anxious to ascei'tain where I can find any account 

 of " The Shepherd of Banbury." It is a book or 

 personage learned on the subject of the weather, 

 and he or it is quoted as a first authority on the 

 point by many in the midland districts. 



Murphy. 



[This work is entitled The Shepherd of Banhiry's 

 Rules to judge of the Changes of Weather, grounded on 

 Forty Years' Experience, Sj-c. By John Claridge, Shep- 

 lierd, 8vo., 1744 ; and reprinted in 1827. It is a worlc of 

 sjreat popularity among the poor, and is attributed to 

 Dr. John Campbell, author of A Political Survey of 

 Britain. It is mostly a compilation from A Rational 

 Account of the Weather, by John Pointer, Rector of Slap- 

 ton, in Northamptonshire.] 



Names of the Days of the Week. — Ancient 

 deeds are frequently dated the day of the week on 

 which they were executed, e. g. Die Jovis, Die 

 Mercurii, &c. Will you, or any of your corre- 

 spondents, be so good as to give me the name of 

 heathen deity, &c., to which each day was dedi- 

 cated ? B. 



[The following are the names of the heathen deities; 

 Dies Solis ... Sunday. 



- Monday. 



- Tuesday. 



Dies Lunae 

 Dies Martis 



Dies Mercurii .... Wednesday. 



Dies Jovis .... Thursday. 



Dies A''eneris ... Friday. 



Dies Saturni ... Saturday. 



In some ancient deeds we find the equivalent terms Dies 

 Dominica for Sunday, and Dies Subhati for Saturday. ] 



THE LATE BEV. BOBEBT MONTGOMEBY. 



(2"^ S. i. 293. 321. 400, 521 ; ii. 78.) 



The question respecting the name of this gen- 

 tleman still remains a quibble. There is no doubt 

 that he was christened " Montgomery," and I ap- 

 prehend that the Weston where he was christened 

 is the pretty little village of that name, now al- 

 most forming part of Bath, which was the scene 

 of annual poetic fetes in the Johnsonian and 

 flourishing days of Aqua Solis. But the point 

 sought is, whether or not his father bore the said 

 surname. I knew, and well, both Robert and his 

 father. He, Robert, was the natural son of Mr, 

 Gomery, the clown, a most gentlemanly and very 

 well-informed man, and, decidedly, homme a 

 bonnes fortunes^ by a lady who kept a school at 

 Bath, and who, subsequently, removed from that 



city and married a respectable schoolmaster. One 

 of the best traits in Robert was his afTeetion for 

 this mother, and amply she deserved it of him ; 

 she gave him an excellent education, and brought 

 him up carefully and religiously. Now, I have a 

 suspicion (rather, an impression that I once saw 

 him perform under the name) that Mr, Gomery 

 occasionally in his career prefixed to his name the 

 aristocratic "Mont." He was exceedingly am- 

 bitious to sink the clown in the actor ; and, when 

 engaged solely in the latter capacity, became, I 

 suspect, Montgomery, I have little doubt, more- 

 over, that when in his younger days recommend- 

 ing himself to " a gentle belle," he would hint that 

 such was his name of right. Still, it may be 

 that, as Robert assured me soon after his father 

 had introduced him to me as, to use his own 

 words, a would-be Byron, his father was son or 

 grandson of the General Montgomery of the Ame- 

 rican war ; he may have been a legal, may have 

 been a natural, descendant of the general. 



Were Grimaldi alive, he could most likely have 

 settled the question. As it is, not improbably Mr. 

 T. Matthews, the leading clown of our more imme- 

 diate day, may be able to cut the Gordian knot. 

 Should there be surviving any sons or daughters 

 (there is, I fancy, a daughter, Mrs, J, Bennett, 

 living in Exeter, at least there was three years 

 since) of the late Mr. Richard Hughes, proprietor 

 of Sadler's Wells Theatre in the days of Evelina, 

 they would be the parties most likely to know the 

 truth ; since Mr. Gomery was in boyhood a com- 

 panion of Grimaldi, who, according to Mr. Dick- 

 ens's biography of the modern Momus, came out 

 at the Wells under Mr. Hughes's management, 

 when about six years old, and, I fancy, first ap- 

 peared there himself. Like our great pantomim- 

 ist, Mr. Gomery was an ardent entomologist ; and 

 I have known him make long excursions and 

 " watch o' nights," not to rob the king's exchequer, 

 but to surprise Tiger-moth, or Queen Imperial, 

 or Sphynx, et id genus omne. 



Mr. Gomery, as I have remarked, was a well- 

 informed man ; indeed from his tact, good-breed- 

 ing, and general knowledge, he might not only 

 have passed muster in any society, but from his 

 entertaining and aptly-applied fund of anecdote 

 would have been esteemed a most desirable and 

 entertaining companion. And he deserves a pass- 

 ing word in "N. & Q." by way of hint to the 

 future historian of the stage^ His clown was sui 

 generis, a thing of art ; not clown in the Grimaldi 

 sense of the word, the broadly humorous ; or 

 in the Bradbury, i. e. the acrobatic and neck- 

 venturing, but a blending of English clown and 

 Gallic Pierrot — quaint, easy, and presenting a 

 something which I must term the oriental element, 

 combining a sort of pictorial diablerie with the 

 farcical : for want of a better term to express his 

 pantomime, he was, indeed, ordinarily known 



