354 



NOTES AND QUERIES. [2=* s. vi. us., ocr. so. '58. 



" Seneca's Head" in Exchange Allev, J. Round, 1711. 

 " Tlie Half Moon " in St. Paul's Churchyard, H. Cle- 

 ments, 1713. 

 " The Black Boy " in Fleet Street, A. Collins, 1713. 



W. H. Husk. 



"Cross Keys," in Paules Church-yavd, John Pvper, 

 1620. 



" Angell," in Popes-Head-Alley, John Sweeting, 1641. 



'•Gilded Lion," in Paul's Churchyard, P. Stephens, 

 1647. 



"Three Bibles," in Paul's Churchyard, neer the West- 

 end, T. Brewster, 1652. 



"The Bell," in Paul's Churchyard, 1659. 



"The George," in Fleet Street near Clifford's Inne, 

 Tho. Dring, 1653. 



" Black Beare," in Paul's Churchyard, 1636. 



" Black Bov," over against St. Dunstan's Church, Chr. 

 Wilkinson, 1671. 



"Three Pigeons," St. Paul'.s Churchyard, Humphrey 

 Robinson, 1660. 



" Three Pigeons," against the Royal Exchange in 

 Cornhill, Brabazon Aylraer, 1685. 



" The Sun," over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet 

 Street, 1685. 



" The Lute," in St. Paul's Churchyard, R. Wellington, 

 1699. 



" King's Head," in the Old Balej-, John Wright, 1657. 



Belatee Adime. 



DR. DIBDIN S " DOVER DIGGINGS. 



(2"'' S. y\. 188.) 



Some four or five weeks back an inquirer 

 ■wished for information respectinjr a said-to-be con- 

 templated " History of Dover," by the celebrated 

 Dr. Dibdin, the bibliopole ; and as no reply has 

 yet appeared in " N. & Q." (for which I also have 

 been anxiously waiting), I presume there is none 

 now to be expected ; and, therefore, in this dirth 

 and difficulty, I beg to state a few facts in regard 

 to this matter. 



The writer, in putting his Query, seems to take 

 it for granted that the Reverend Doctor was a 

 Dover "resident," and yet I can hardly think 

 such term ought to be here applied ; but, rathei', 

 that he was a mere visitor for a short period of 

 the autumn of 1836, or so: for of the exact year 

 I cannot now definitively tax my memory. 



While in Dover, as I then understood, he chiefly 

 made his home, if not wholly, at the fine mansion 

 of the Earl of Guildford, which is in the neigh- 

 bourhood ; and certainly had it put forth in the 

 two journals of the town, the Dover Telegraph 

 and Dover Chronicle, and otherwise, that a "His- 

 tory of Dover" was in preparation by him, and to 

 be published by subscription. And next, as a 

 still more convincing, because so very legible proof 

 of his intention, several lusty-nerved labourers 

 were employed by him to dig up a particular 

 piece of ground on what is known as the Western 

 Heights, and near to the edge of the cliff. There 

 were indications, as still traceable beneath the 



overgrowing sward, of some sort of burial foun- 

 dation ; and as the tradition is, as well as is stated 

 in some books, that King John, when at Dover, 

 signed the deed which put the Pope, through 

 Pandolph, his Nuncio, as chief arbiter in the rule 

 of England, this is assumed to be the very spot of 

 the transaction : the soil when so thrown up dis- 

 covering plainly enough the substratum rubble- 

 work of an ancient circular building of small size, 

 and having a straight passage way. 



But, then, to what purpose was such structure 

 applied, as a companion pharos to that on the 

 adjacent castle-crowned summit, here standing so 

 conspicuously lonely on the fearful-like verge of 

 such cliff? or for what other imaginable end? 

 Why, the presumption seems pretty reasonable, 

 as well from its site as its small size and peculiar 

 form, that the building had been an oratory or 

 chapel for the religious devotions of the Aimous 

 Knights Templars, — those who, on returning 

 from their pilgrimages to, or warrior exploits in, 

 the Holy Land, were here afforded the first means 

 of giving thanks to their God for such safe home- 

 coming, after an absence of the most perilous 

 venture through the far-away dominions of the 

 cruel heathenish Saracen ! 



The opening up of these ruins the Doctor cer- 

 tainly did do. So he dug, or ordered such dig- 

 ging ; and so had the satisfaction of proving that 

 there was a reality in the gossip of the old people 

 — that some peculiarly-purposed building had 

 once lifted its orbicular walls on that lofty cliff 

 verge, and probably did so for many, many decen- 

 nials of years, though now its whole story is for- 

 gotten. 



So far, then, the Doctor did, though nothing 

 farther was effected. No actual subscription list 

 was ever exposed on the tables of the chief lite- 

 rary resort of the town, the King's Arms Library, 

 as kept by Mr. Batchellor (himself an historian of 

 Dover). The Doctor, as 1 often heard hinted, 

 just doing as he did as a sort of pulse-feel ; and as 

 he might have found that the respond was rather 

 of the feebler description, so, after enjoying him- 

 self as energetically as possible at the agreeable 

 mansion of his noble host, away the Doctor went, 

 and nothing farther as to the projected " History." 

 And now, once more, a fresh earth-cover has 

 found a lodgment on those olden foundations, 

 and the thick grass that roots in that earth still 

 farther helps to the obliteration of all that the 

 Doctor had done by his Dover diggings. 



J. Dacres Devlin. 



Complutensian Polyglott Bible (•2'"» S. vi. 298.)— 

 The copy printed upon vellum, purchased at the 

 sale of Mr. Hibbert's library by Payne and Foss, 



