490 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Dec. 22. 1855. 



(street, lane, or court) to which the wren-boys 

 themselves belong, being inserted. The boys are 

 generally from ten to fifteen years of age. They 

 commence their visits at eight in the morning, and 

 generally conclude at two or three p. m. The 

 money received is spent the same evening in cakes, 

 apples, nuts, and such-like boyish treats. 



Samuel Hatman, Clk. 



Christmas Weather Proverb, — The prognosti- 

 cation of the following weather proverb, current 

 in Kent, is firmly believed : 



" Light Christmas, light wheatsheaf. 

 Dark Christmas, heavy wheatsheaf." 



Meaning, that if there be a full moon, as it is this 

 year, about Christmas Day, the next year will have 

 a light harvest. A clerical friend, to whom we 

 are indebted for this communication, adds, " Old 



W , now cutting my wood, tells me when he 



got from church yesterday, he pondered deeply 

 the text (not my text), 'Light Christmas, light 

 wheatsheaf,' and wondered whether he should be 

 able to fatten a pig, for he never knew the saying 

 to fail, in sixty years' experience." 



SWIFT, POPE, BENJAMIN MOTTE, AND MIDDLE TEM- 

 PLE GATE. 



Being a gate of some position, leading to one of 

 our principal seats of legal learning — a gate, never- 

 theless, against whose portals certain irreverent 

 laymen (not lawyers) have suggested should be 

 inscribed Dante's memorable lines, from the In- 

 ferno, " All hope abandon ye who enter here," I 

 have noticed, with some interest, the series of 

 letters which have appeared in the Gentleman's 

 Magazine for the several months of February, 

 March, July, September, and October of the 

 present year, addressed by Pope and Swift to 

 Mr. Benjamin Motte, bookseller, at the Middle 

 Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, London, with re- 

 ference, more particularly, to the forthcoming 

 Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, and Gulliver's 

 Travels. These letters range in date from 1726 

 to 1735, and are invariably addressed to Mr. 

 Motte, either at the Middle Temple Gate, or in a 

 few instances, by Pope, at Temple Bar, Fleet 

 Street, London ; in fact, the third volume of the 

 Miscellanies above mentioned, appeared in 1732, 

 with the imprinf, " London : printed by Benj. 

 Motte, at the Middle Temple Gate ; and Lawton 

 Gilliver, at Homer's Head, against St. Dunstan's 

 Church, in Fleet Street." Judge then of my sur- 

 prise at the communication of Mr, C. B. Wood- 

 man, dated Edgbaston, Birmingham, appearing in 

 your publication of the 10th instant, wherein, 

 amongst other matters, he says : 



"He is requested, for the information of your readers who 

 are interested in literary localities, to state that the house 

 No. 321.] 



from which issued the works of Swift, &c., is that occu- 

 pied by Mr. Painter, No. 27. Fleet Street ; he further 

 remarks, that in some old title-pages it is mentioned as 

 the Cross Keys, opposite St. Dunstan's Church. The 

 present shop-windows and entrance in Fleet Street were 

 introduced when the premises were afterwards devoted to 

 other purposes ; the original entrance was by a door in 

 the adjoining passage ; at the head of this passage still 

 stands the house, No. 26. which was formerly the private 

 residence. In this house, Pope, Swift, and the literati of 

 those days were accustomed to visit." 



From the fact of your own publication issuing 

 in the immediate locality, you will at once appre- 

 ciate the suggestion, when I point out how far 

 distant is No. 27. from Middle Temple Gate; 

 whilst opposing evidences, in defiance of Mh. 

 Woodman, go to prove, that from 1726, the date 

 of Swift's first letter to Motte, under the sig- 

 nature R. Sympson, with reference to Gulliver's 

 Travels, down to 1735, when their correspondence 

 finally ceased, Mr. Benjamin Motte lived at the 

 Middle Temple Gate. Three years afterwards, 

 as Me. Woodman points out in your columns, in 

 correction of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. 

 p. 213., Mr. Motte died. 



Having thus endeavoured to show that Motte, 

 at all events, did not reside at No. 27. Fleet 

 Street, but rather at the Middle Temple Gate, 

 let me next venture to correct the assertion of 

 Mb. Woodman, that No. 27. was the original 

 Cross Keys, in Fleet Street, as stated by him. 

 In doing so, I purposely refrain, as before, from 

 relying on any " grey-beard reminiscences " I may 

 be presumed to j)ossess, as a gate (to use legal 

 phraseology) " of many years' standing ; " because 

 it is a question in which, in a literary point of 

 view, I have a maternal interest. On reference, 

 then, to Cunningham's London, 1850, p. 188., I 

 find the Cross Keys described as being " between 

 the Temple Gates " (Inner and Middle), at the 

 house now numbered 16., and tenanted by Mr. 

 Groom, pastrycook ; here, it appears, lived Ber- 

 nard Lintot, at all events between the years 1717 

 and 1736, and here was published by him Pope's 

 translation of Homer. 



With regard to the whereabouts of the shop of 

 Benjamin Motte, at the Middle Temple Gate, has 

 it never occurred to Mr. Woodman, that long 

 ago there existed under ray very portals, a book- 

 seller's shop, — in later years, I lament to say, de- 

 graded from its literary estate to unworthy uses, 

 until, some thirty-five years since, when it had 

 been last tenanted by a tinman and brazier, it 

 was finally removed by the Society of the Middle 

 Temple to widen my approaches ? This shop, I 

 believe, I may safely conjecture was Benjamin 

 Motte' s, and, when signs were removed, was called 

 No. 6. Fleet Street. I am particular in mention- 

 ing this special number, to distinguish it from my 

 neighbour. No. 7., formerly the " Hand and Star," 

 the place of business of Richard Tottel, law 



