gui §, No 3., Tan, 19. °56.] 
LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1856. 
Nates, 
POPIANA. 
Pope's Mother (1*' S. x. 479.) — Your corre- 
spondent M. D. asks where he can find an ac- 
count of the mother of Pope. I beg to refer him 
to that most admirable of all topographical works, 
South Yorkshire; The History and Topography of 
the Deanery of Doncaster, Sc., by Rev. Joseph 
Hunter, F.S.A., vol. ii. p. 292. If M.D- has the 
means of access to the book, he will thank me for 
bringing him acquainted with it, even if he has no 
special interest in the district itdescribes. But in 
case he should not have the means of readily re- 
ferring to it, I will give the substance of the in- 
formation it contains. 
Marrow House, in Worsborough Dale, two 
miles south of Barnsley, so called from a family 
of the same name formerly resident there, is said 
by tradition to be the birth-place of Edith, the 
mother of Pope. Certain it is that her baptism, 
together with that of three of her sisters, appears 
in the parish register of Worsborough ; and — 
“JT add the entries,” says Mr. Hunter, “as a contri- 
bution to the illustration of those still unillustrated lines: 
© Of generous blood, past shed in honour’s cause, 
While yet in Britain honour had applause, 
Both parents sprung.’ 
Only remarking that the addition of ‘Mr.’ would not 
have been at that period given to her father’s name, if he 
had not been regarded as something aboye the mere yeo- 
manry of the time : — 
£1642, June 18, Bap. Edith, daughter of Mr. William 
Turner, ” 
Mr. Hunter further refers to an account published 
in the Gentleman's Magazine at the time of her 
death, 1733, where she is said to be the last sur- 
vivor of the children of Mr. Turner, of York, 
Esq., by Thomasine Newton, his wife. Perhaps 
some of your readers may be able to state more 
respecting the family of Mr. Turner than the ac- 
complished author of South Yorkshire, or his pre- 
decessor Brovke, had been able to discover; and 
if that be the result, I shall not regret troubling 
you with this long note. C. H. 
Leeds. 
Dennis the Critic. — Southey has spoken fa- 
vourably of Dennis as a critic, and it must be ad- 
mitted that some of his remarks on Pope and 
Addison evince great shrewdness as well as learn- 
ing. He was, however, a coarse, violent, dogmatic 
littérateur, and with all his surliness a gross flat- 
terer when it suited his purpose. The following 
affords a specimen of his utter want of taste, and 
is also a sample of the sort of criticism which was 
heard at times in Will's Coffee-House. It is part 
of a letter addressed, June 14, 1720, to Henry 
Cromwell, Pope’s friend, “honest, batless Crom- 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
41 
well, with red breeches,” who went a-hunting in a 
tie-wig : 
“There was a great dispute at Coffee-House, 
between the wits there and the manager of the play-house 
[Booth ? ], who acts the part of Othello. The wits asked 
the player how he liked this expression in his own part, 
‘Excellent wretch!’ To which the latter answered, that 
he liked it so ill that he always left it out; upon which 
they immediately extolled it to the skies, and looked 
upon the player with great contempt. . Though that tra- 
gedian has no more judgment in tragedy than an ass in 
music, I am apt to believe that he was this once in the 
right. The terms ‘excellent wretch,’ being inconsistent 
and contradictory, make the meaning absurd, and the 
expression nonsense. This is my opinion at present; but 
I know not how long it will be so, because I have not as 
yet heard yours.” 
D. 
Pope threatened with a Flogging. — Mr. Peter 
Cunningham, in his edition of Johnson's Lives, by 
an unpublished letter from Broome to Fenton, 
May 3, 1729, confirms the story of Ambrose 
Philips having hung up a rod at Button’s Coffee- 
House, with which he threatened to chastise Pope. 
The following contemporary notice of this affair is 
curious : 
“ Aretin, the only author besides that of The Dunciad, 
within these three hundred years, that acquired a famous 
infamy by his pen, bragged of keeping many kings and 
princes tributary to him. But Aretin had the shape of a 
man, and might bear a beating; whereas our poet must 
of necessity expire under the very first blow; and he 
can, by the structure of his person, only be liable to one 
sort of correction, that of the rod; which some time ago 
Mr, Ambrose Philips, being abused by him, bought for 
his use, and stuck up at the bar of Button’s Coffee- 
House; and which he avoided by his usual practice, after 
every lampoon, of remaining a close prisoner at home. 
The same discipline was prepared for him last summer, 
which he escaped in the manner above-mentioned.” — A 
Letter to a Noble Lord, 1729; the author signs himself 
“Wil. Flogg.” 
Another of these Pope libels (“* The Martiniad”’) 
has the following amusing note : 
«“ A cricket is an animal famous for the smallness of his 
voice and legs, He is observed to creep into the chimneys 
of old houses, where there is much filth and nastiness, 
and where the walls are fu!l of holes. Hente men who 
get into families only to pick up scandal, and find out 
their flaws, are often assimilated to crickets.” rE 
Passage in Pope (1% 8. xi. 65.) —‘* The hero 
William and the martyr Charles,’ &c. With dif- 
fidence, enhanced by an impression that the sig- 
nature of your correspondent C. is but the initial 
letter in the name of the greatest living English 
critic, I offer the following explanation of the 
above passage in Pope's “ Epistle to Augustus.” 
Pope imagines Jonson shocked at the want of 
“ discerning spirit” shown by Charles in pension- 
ing so wretched a poet as Quarles, and Dennis 
as having a like feeling with regard to William’s 
patronage of Blackmore; and represents each 
