2»* S. IX. Mar. 3. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



163 



learn when or where the remainder of the collec- 

 tion was sold, or indeed whether it ever was sold 

 at all. If it has been sold, I should be glad to 

 know whether the Catalogue is to be procured any- 

 where, and at what price ? N. J. A. 



JonN Farrington. — I have in my possession 

 a quarto MS. entitled " Critical and Moral Dis- 

 sertations on divers Passages of Scripture, col- 

 lected and translated from Forreign Journals. 

 By John Farrington of Clapham, aged 76, 1756. 

 Vol. i." I wish to know who was this John Far- 

 rington * ; and also if any collector happens to have 

 among his MSS. the other volume or volumes of 

 this work. Itiiuriel. 



Pig-talls and Powder. — When were pig- 

 tails abolished in the army and navy ? AVas there 

 any " official " in The Gazette announcing the 

 same ? When was hair-powder discontinued in 

 the army ? If any of your old readers will jog 

 their memories and answer these questions they 

 will much oblige Centurion. 



The Lady's and Gentleman's Skulls. — In an 

 old manuscript book, eighty years old, containing 

 scraps of poetry, unfortunately without, references, 

 I find two pieces of twenty-six lines each, one 

 headed 



" The iMdy's Skull. 

 " Blush not, yc fair, to own me — but be wise, 

 Nor turn from sad Mortality your eyes," &c. 



The other 



" The Gentleman's Skull. 

 " Why start? the case is 3'ours, or will be soon ; 

 Some years perhaps — perhaps another moon," &c. 



I should be exceedingly glad to know the name 

 of i he author, or the source from which they were 

 taken. Perhaps a magazine of the period. 



J. II. W. 



Bishop Gibson's Wife. — Can any of your 

 readers inform me what was the maiden name of 

 the wife of Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London? 

 Her sister, I believe, was a Mrs. Bettes worth, wife 

 of the Dean of Arches, which may afford an addi- 

 tional clue. Aulios. 



Trinity Corporation. — Wanted some account 

 of this institution at Deptford, either through 

 "N. & Q.," or direct to A. J. Dunkjn. 



Hartford, Kent. 



I'higiiton Pavilion. — I have a series of care- 

 fully-executed outline etchings of interior views 

 of apartments in the Brighton Pavilion, as they 

 existed in the time of George IV. Size of the 

 prints twelve inches by nine. What work did 

 these illustrate ? and were the plates left in this 

 outline state or subsequently tinted ? W. W. 



[• John Farrington, merchant, died at Clapham, on 

 16th May, 1760, aged eighty.— Ed.] 



Grub Street. — When did Grub Street first 

 acquire its literary notoriety ? I find it alluded 

 to in 1672. B. H. C. 



[The earlier denizens of this renowned literary locality 

 appear to have been more usefully employed than some of 

 their degenerate successors. Here, before the discovery 

 of printing, lived those ingenious persons, called text- 

 writers, who wrote all sorts of books then in use, namely, 

 A. B. C. with the Paternoster, Ave, Crede, Grace, &c, 

 and retailed by stationers at the corners of streets. It 

 was in Grub Street that John Foxe the martyrologist 

 wrote his Acts and Monuments. Here too resided honest 

 John Speed, tailor and historian, the father of twelve 

 sons and six daughters; and here too lived that biblio- 

 graphical worthy Master Richard Smith, whose amusing 

 Obituary was edited by Sir Henry Ellis for the Camden 

 Society — "a person," says Antony Wood, "infinitely 

 curious in, and inquisitive" after books." From this re- 

 nowned and philosophic spot, celebrated as the Lyceum or 

 the Academic Grove, issued many of the earliest of our 

 English lyrics, and most of our miniature histories, the 

 tendency of which was to elevate and surprise the people. 

 This favoured avenue gave birth to those flying-sheets 

 and volatile pages dispersed by such characters as Shak- 

 speare's Autolycus, who does not more truly represent an 

 individual, than a species common in ancient times. Of 

 course we of the present day complacently congratulate 

 ourselves on the march of intellect; but" let us not, at 

 the same time, despise those early Grubeau sages, who 

 first published for the edification of their brethren 

 those ingenious and youth-inspiring works, Jack the 

 Giant Killer, Reynard the Fox, the Ti r isc Men of Gotham, 

 Tom Hicathrift, and a hundred others. It is true that 

 Swift, in later times, favoured us with some homely 

 "Advice to the Grub Street Verse Writers;" but it has 

 been significantly hinted that the witty Dean is under 

 more obligation to these renowned worthies than the 

 world is probably aware of; for had it not been for the 

 Giant Killer and Tom Thumb, it is believed we should 

 never have heard either of the Brobdignagiansor Lillipu- 

 tians. 



During the Commonwealth era a larger number than 

 usual of seditious and libellous pamphlets and papers, 

 tending to exasperate the people-, and increase the con- 

 fusion in which the nation was involved, were surrep- 

 titiously printed. The authors of them were, for the most 

 part, men whose indigent circumstances compelled them 

 to live in the most obscure parts of the town. Grub 

 Street, then abounding with mean and old houses let out 

 in lodgings, afforded a fitting retreat for persons of this 

 description. In ridicule of the host of bad writers which 

 subsequently infested this republic of letters, the term 

 was first used by Andrew Marvell in his witty and sar- 

 castic work, The Rehearsal Transprosed, 1672: 



" He, honest man, was deep gone in Grub Street and 

 polemical divinity." 



'' Oh, these are your Nonconformist tricks ; oh, you 

 have learnt this of the Puritans in Grub Street." 



Swift, as is well known, was delighted with this local 

 appellation, e. g. " I have this morninjr sent out another 

 pure Grub." — " Grub Street has bul ten days to run, 

 then an Act of Parliament takes place that ruins it, by 

 taxing every sheet a halfpenny." — "Do j'ou know that 

 Grub Street is dead and gone, last week? No more 

 ghosts or murders now for love or money." — Journal, to 

 Stella, July 9, 1712, et passim. 



About 1830, the name of Grub Street was changed into 

 that of Milton Street, not after the great poet (says 

 Elmcs), as some have asserted, but from a respectable 



