Dec. 18. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



577 



} 



ludicrous way : for instance, Bois bruU (burnt 

 wood) Bottom is called Boh-a-Ruley' s Bottom. 



Meredosia, the pretty name of a town upon the 

 Illinois river, comes from Marais d'Ogee (Ogee's 

 Marsh). Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



Ciirious Epitaph. — In the churchyard of St. 

 Edmund's, at Salisbury, is the following epitaph, 

 written by a Swedenborgian of the name of Maton, 

 •on his children : 



" Innocence embellishes divinely complete 

 To prescience co-egent now sublimely great 

 In the benign, perfcjcting, vivifying state. 

 So heav'nly guardian occupy the skies 

 The pre-existent God, omnipotent, all-wise ; 

 He shall surpassingly immortalise thy theme 

 And permanent thy bliss, celestial supreme. 

 When gracious repulgene bids the grave resign, 

 The Creator's nursing protection be thine ; 

 Then each perspiring ether shall joyfully rise 

 Transcendently good, supereminently wise." 



E. G. B. 



An Old Soldier. — Some of yovir correspondents, 

 "who have made inquiries about General Wolfe, 

 and such as are discussing the question, to what 

 age people now attain, may be edified by the fol- 

 lowing paragraph cut from an American paper : 



" A Relic of the Past. — The census of Canada deve- 

 lopes the fact that a man, named Abraham Miller, now 

 living among the Indians, in Grey Township, Simcoe 

 county, and assimilated to them in manners and habits, 

 is 115 years of age. He was in Wolfe's army, before 

 Quebec, 95 years ago." 



Philadelphia. \ 



eatiertejS. 



"letter to DAVID GAEEICK." 



You lately advertised for A Letter to David 

 Oarrick, by David Williams, published, you said, 

 between 1770 and 1773 : subsequently the .date 

 was fixed at 1772. The advertiser, I suspect, 

 was in doubt: so am I. In the "Memoir of David 

 Williams," signed "B.D.," which appeared in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine, 1816, it is said that Wil- 

 liams first made his appearance as an author by 

 A Letter to David Garrick, published in 1770. 

 Chalmers merely extracts this Memoir, and Watt 

 follows Chalmers as a matter of course. All these 

 authorities, therefore, are but one ; and I would 

 answer that, as far as my observation extends, 

 there was no letter to D. G. published in 1770. 



We come then to A Letter to David Garrick, 

 published by Bladon, 1772. This answers very 

 well to the description of the letter of 1770 given 

 by B. D., and is described in British Museum 

 Catalogue as written by " David Williams, accord- 



ing to MS. note of J. P. Kemble." I presume, 

 therefore, that the date in Memoir is an error. la 

 confirmation, I may mention that there is a strange 

 letter in the Garrick Cor7'espondence, dated Oct. 2, 

 1772 (vol. i. p. 487.), from an unknown corre- 

 spondent, wherein the writer informs Garrick that 

 the Letter published by Bladon is written by " a 

 young man who is making himself known as a first- 

 rate genius. . . His name is Williams ; he is inti- 

 mate at Captain Pye's : Goldsmith knows him, and 

 I have seen him go into Johnson's, but perhaps it 

 was for music." The curious fact, in reference to 

 this private letter, is that it is signed " D. W — s," 

 as if David Williams were himself the writer. 

 Williams, as his whole life proves, though specula- 

 tive and visionary, was a man of the highest per- 

 sonal honour. It is not, therefore, to be believed that 

 he wrote this private letter ; and I cannot conceive 

 what was the motive of the writer. I, however, 

 leave this point to be elucidated by your correspon- 

 dents. As to Bladon's published letter, there is no 

 reason why D. W. might not have written it, except 

 that the writer's idol is Mrs. Cibber : and she speaks 

 critically of her performance in many characters. 

 Now Williams was educated and brought up in 

 Somersetshire and Devonshire, and I cannot find 

 evidence that he visited London before 1767 or 

 1768 ; whereas Mrs. Cibber performed in the pro- 

 vinces but rarely in her later years, from extreme 

 ill-health, and died in 1766. 



Can any of your readers clear up these diffi- 

 culties ; — tell us who was the writer of Bladon's 

 pamphlet ; give us any information about the early 

 life of Williams — that is not to be found in the 

 Memoir in Gentleman's Magazine ? L. D. G. 



" Ok ! spare my English subjects." — King 

 James II. is said to have made use of the above 

 exclamation at the battle of the Boyne, when he 

 beheld his Irish dragoons cutting down an English, 

 regiment. Can you inform me upon what au- 

 thority does this saying rest ? T. O'G. 



Dublin. 



Single- Speech Hamilton — Home. — What was 

 the reason Hamilton made his grand efforts of 

 oratory so rarely ? He spoke more than once, 

 however, and that nickname hardly suits him. 

 Horace Walpole, in a letter dated 1755, speaks of 

 his first speech. Six months afterwards the man 

 of Strawberry writes, " Young Hamilton has 

 spoken and shone again." Where did Hamilton 

 get those fine ideas that astonished the people so ? 

 I want to know whether his tutor and secretary, 

 Edmund Burke, might not have had a hand in 

 these spasmodic sporadic harangues. In 1765 it 

 is known that Hamilton entered into some sort of 

 an engagement with Dr. Johnson, to be furnished 



