430 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"<i S. IX. June 2. 'GO- 



THE WIT OF LANE. 



(2 nd S. ix. 385.) 



Bridget Henley was the only daughter of Lord 

 Northington, the swearing Lord Chancellor, who 

 died in 1772. Bridget's brother, the second and 

 last lord, died in 1786, when the title became 

 extinct. Bridget inherited the wit, coarseness, 

 and love of jocularity which distinguished her 

 celebrated father. Her mother, however, was a 

 remarkably stupid woman. A sample of her ig- 

 norance is to be found in her telling George III. 

 that Lord Northington's house (The Grange) was 

 built by " Indigo Jones." As tjie King replied 

 1 that "he thought so, by the style," the chancellor 

 used to say that " he did not know which was the 

 greater fool, his Majesty or my Lady." Bridget 

 married into a family which, like her own, num- 

 bers but two peers. The first Lord Bingley 

 (created in 1713) left an only^child, one daughter, 

 Hariet, who married the Tory George Lane. This 

 gentleman was created Baron Bingley in 1762. 

 Bridget Henley married their only son, George 

 Fox Lane, who died before his father, and then 

 the Bingley title became extinct. The late George 

 Lane Fox, of Bramham Park, Yorkshire, once 

 told me that the ecstatic lady listening to the 

 great Italian singer in Hogarth's " Modern Con- 

 versazione " (Marriage a la Mode) was a portrait 

 of Bridget Lane ; and that the sleeping squire be- 

 hind her was a portrait of her husband. George 

 III. and Queen Charlotte delighted in the jokes 

 and smart sayings of Bridget, who was ever wel- 

 come at Court as a sort of licensed court-jester. 

 When Walpole was sneering at Goldsmith's She 

 Sloops to Conquer as low, he spoke of the heroine 

 having " no more modesty than Lady Bridget, 

 and the author's wit as much manque as the 

 lady's." The fine gentleman of Strawberry Hill 

 affected to be shocked at the double entendres of 

 poor Bridget, — an affectation perfectly hypocri- 

 tical on the part of a man whose manuscript 

 common-place book, which I was the other day 

 looking through for the first time, is a collection 

 of all the licentious stories then current in society, 

 written out with great care and elegance. 



In 1773, Walpole announced to Lord Nune- 

 ham the approaching marriage of " Bridget Lane 

 and Mr. Tall-Match." The latter was John Tolle- 

 mache of the Boyal Navy, fourth son of the third 

 Earl Dysert. Bridget Tollemache resided now at 

 Ham, and Walpole's ill-feeling towards her ; s ex- 

 hibited in a letter to Lady Ossory (August, 1782), 

 in which he bewails the paucity of news in his 

 letters, notwithstanding his " neighbourhood is 

 enriched by some invention, as Lady Cecilia John- 

 stone's at Petersham, and Lady Bridget Tolle- 

 mache's at Ham Common." That. locality was 

 then a gay place, and private plays were enacted 

 there, the visitors to which returned home under 



the escort of servants with blunderbusses, who, 

 " when drawn up after the play," says Walpole, 

 " you would have thought it had been a midnight 

 review of conspirators on a heath." The kindness 

 of the lively Bridget to Walpole's "Waldegrave 

 niece " does not seem to have kindly affected 

 Walpole himself. The second marriage of the 

 once bold-witted lady ended unhappily. John 

 Tollemache, her husband, was killed by Lord 

 Muncaster in a duel near New York, and their 

 only son, Lionel Robert, of the Guards, was slain 

 in 1794, at the storming of Valenciennes. 



Walpole alludes to the once sprightly and au- 

 dacious Bridget very often, but only once with 

 an air of approval. In a letter to Lady Ossory 

 (August, 1777), he says : — 



"Lord Suffolk is certainly to marry Lady Aylesford's 

 daughter, Lady Charlotte. She cannot complain of being 

 made a nurse, for he could have no other reason for mar- 

 rying her, she is so plain ; and I suppose he knows she is 

 good or sensible. I said so to Lady Bridget Tollemache, 

 and she replied, ' How does one know whether a homely 

 young woman is good or not, before she is married ? ' She 

 is in the right." 



These small memoranda touching Bridget Hen- 

 ley, Lane, Tollemache, will perhaps furnish W. D. 

 with the " something more " he naturally desires 

 to know about one of the great ladies of her day. 



John Doban. 



TAP DRESSING. 



(2 nd S. ix. 345.) 



In 1855, while passing an evening hour at a gar- 

 den-gate in the village of Baslow, a youth arrived 

 bearing on his arm a very large basket, well gar- 

 nished with flowers of divers kinds and colours ; an 

 increase of which he solicited by a selection from 

 my friend's garden — such as had already been 

 granted him by others in the village. Upon in- 

 quiring, with the thirstiness of an antiquary, the 

 meaning of this goodly basket of flowers, I was 

 informed that young Corydon was collecting them 

 for the Pilsley " Well," or " Tap " dressing. When 

 all was ready, I visited Pilsley to join in the fes- 

 tival, and found that it answered exactly to an 

 account in a letter written to me by a brother in 

 1851, describing the "Well" dressing which he 

 witnessed at the above-named place. It was as 

 follows : — 



" After tea, we all went up to Pilsley to witness a 



'"Village Festival,' or 'Wake,' as it is called In. 



the morning a procession passed thro' Baslow on its way 

 to Pilsley. It consisted of nine carts and waggons of all 

 shapes and sizes, containing the boys and girls of Eyam 

 School, with their dads and mams, uncles and aunts, 

 brothers and sisters, cousins and friends ; a few flags, and 

 headed by some stout fellows armed with cornopeans and 

 trombones, blowing discordant sounds, and 'making day 

 hideous.' They march round the village where the ' well- 

 flowering ' takes place, carrying their flags, and headed 

 by their bands. In the afternoon we saw them come 



