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NOTES:-Canning's Mother and the Stage, 183 The King's Ships, 185-" You and I" for "You and Me," 187-Changing London-Smuggling Seventeenth and eighteenth century text-books at Harvard, 188.

QUERIES:- Arms of Lyme Regis-Rule VIII of the Papal Chancery-Thunder Folk-lore-Adamnan's Vita St. Columbae' Chesterfield's Letters Heraldry: draped arms-Old flower-name: Fluellin-Society for the Diffusion of useful knowledge, 189-Rapkin's plan of Birmingham-Chatterton set to music-Birthplace of John Howard -Solicitors of Bath: Messrs. Edwards, 1800; Messrs. Mant, c. 1830-" to Gralloch "-Green of Beverley-Savile Family, 190-Pelling Family -Warren: Groome: Carter-Thomas Campbell on the age of the Earth-Le Roi Soleil-Author wanted, 191.

REPLIES:-Bourbon Dukes of Parma, 191-Memorial Chapel at Waterloo: Alexander Hay-Free Warren, 192-Grosvenor Basin and Canal-The

Site of the Churchyard of Gray's Elegy, 193Tan and St. Anne-Inventories of Parish Registers-Dedications in honour of St. Anne, 194

Eric Gill-Prince Frederick of Wales: death by

a cricket-ball-Margaret of Thuringia-Portraits by James Lonsdale-Rev. David Lloyd, Vicar of Llanbister, 195-Cows as guides Strips of land by roadsides in Yorkshire-Milkmen in poetryWhinfield or Wingfield Family, 196.

THE LIBRARY: 'Anglo-Irish Literature, 12001582'' A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales '-' Essays in Criticism.'

NOTES & QUERIES.

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THIS WEEK:

Canning's Mother and the Stage
Arms of Lyme Regis
Anglo-Irish Literature

N

OTES AND QUERIES is published

183

189

196

Friday, at 20, High Street, High Wycombe, Bucks (Telephone: Wycombe 306). Subscriptions (£2 2s. a year, U.S.A. $10.23, including postage, two half-yearly indexes and two cloth binding cases, or £1 15s. 4d. a year, U.S.A. $8.61 without binding cases) should be sent to the Manager. The London Office is at 14, Burleigh Street, W.C.2 (Telephone: Temple Bar 7576), where the current issue is on sale. Orders for back numbers, indexes and bound volumes should be sent either to London or to Wycombe; letters for the Editor to the London Office.

Memorabilia.

THIS month's Antiquity is something of a star number. We have, to begin with, Mr. Collingwood's essay on 'Town and Country in Roman Britain,' followed by the Editor's discussion of 'The Giant of Černe and other Hill-figures.' Mr. W. G. Collingwood discourses on 'Arthur's Battles'; Mr. Ch. Virolleaud on 'The Syrian Town of Katna and the Kingdom of Mitanni,' and Mr. W. A. Heurtley on 'Pre-historic Macedonia.' An article by Mrs. Dorothy M. Liddell, entitled 'New Light on an Old Problem,' will perhaps prove most striking of all to the general reader. It is a carefully worked out and abundantly illustrated suggestion that decorations found on pottery of the "West Kennet" type may be impressions on the clay for which bones of small

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birds and mammals served as tools. finding of a small bird-bone with fragments of this pottery started this idea, to which experiments with plasticene and various little bones have given form and probability. The whole certainly presents a most tempting

tures both of specimens, and of stages in their production, conveyance and erection. Mr. Hutton concludes by noting that these megaliths are not connected with sun-worship, and invites us to consider whether complete confidence can be placed in the commonly accepted theory that the megaliths of Great Britain and Brittany have to do with a sun-cult. Of minor topics, among a good number, we may mention the fine air-photographs, especially that of the Acropolis at Athens; the discovery last June, from the air, of another "

an and a pleasant note, with two pictures, on primitive solid-wheeled carts.

woodhenge" near Norwich;

Another discovery, report of which arrived too late for detailed treatment, is that of a new script in Syria.

THE Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph tells of the approaching inauguration in the rue des Bernardins of a gramophone museum-a museum of the human voice-which will contain about 6,000 records. M. Hubert Pernot, professor at the Sorbonne, and M. Brunot Ferdinand, are the gentlemen through whose efforts this has been brought to pass. Among the records are some of French and foreign dialects and popular songs; and specimens of speeches of M. Poincaré, René Viviani and Paul Deroulède. Marshal Foch could never be persuaded to speak before the recordingmachine; nor, so far, has M. Clémenceau consented to do so. Cardinal Luçon's voice -we are told-relates the bombarding of Rheims Cathedral and his experiences in the worst days of the war.

LOOKING through last week's Cinema, we came upon several matters which may interest those of our readers who do not see it. It reports on the recent records made of Zoo noises that they are successful. Microphones were placed in the different enclosures in the Gardens, and the sounds were regis

solution to one of the prettiest of Neo-lithic tered on wax by a cable connecting with the

problems. Another prehistoric problem, that of the first formation of roads-which it has been sought to solve by supposing that man followed in the trails of wild animalsis dealt with from the point of view of direct observation and experience, as against generalization and romantic imagination, by Mr. Frank Roe, who takes buffalo and the roads and trails of Western America as his basis. Mr. J. H. Hutton contributes an important and magnificently illustrated article on Assam Megaliths.' Megaliths are still erected in Assam, and we have pic

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mobile recording set of "His Master's Voice." The sounds were procured by means of some stimulation on the part of keepers : lions' roars; sea-lions' bark; trumpetings of elephants; calls and chatterings of monkeys and baboons. More notable than those, record was obtained of a rattlesnake's rattle and the lowing of a camel.

The most interesting subject touched on in the number is that of the function which lighting may perform in the decoration of a building. Instead of elaborate ornamentation and coats of paint the new suggestion is that the cinema should be of plain design but so ingeniously lighted that both atmosphere (which implies illusion of space) and colour are thereby imparted. It is obvious that colour given by light will have the advantage not merely of being always fresh, but also of being readily changeable. Experts advise grey as the actual colouring of the surfaces to be illuminated. An adjunct which should often produce happy effects is fluorescence, whereby a surface is so treated that on having an invisible ray turned upon it it becomes luminous. The development of this idea not only opens up-as any one may see-vast possibilities of variety, but is of interest from what we may call the interior æsthetic point of view as a minor instance of a certain tendency towards abstraction which seems to be growing stronger and stronger in art.

THERE is a pleasant article in the Journal

Italy, it is interesting to note, produce their best walnuts from grafted trees, as does California, but in Asia the walnut-trees raised from nuts.

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In September on the Farm' Mr. J. R. Bond discusses the question whence the moisture is obtained, which, in seasons drought, causes root-crops to thrive. Capillary action from a saturated layer in the subsoil used to be the explanation; Mr. Bond, however, believes that root fibres penetrate to much greater depths than most people realise, and obtain their moisture thereby, unless the soil offers obstruction to deep rooting. An important corollary to this doctrine is the need to do the necessary deep ploughing for roots months before the sowing, since an immediate effect of ploughing is to cause loss of moisture from soil and sub-soil.

of the Ministry of Agriculture about Two Hundred Years Ago.

English walnuts. It is chiefly a question of

propagating by seedlings from chosen nuts. From the Weekly Medley. By a Society of In 1924, and subsequently, endeavours have Gentlemen. Saturday, September 13, 1729.

been made each year to locate the walnut

trees in England which are yielding nuts of really good quality, such as are produced in abundance in California, Persia and France. During that year, which was scant in sunshine, the fruit was not good enough for purposes of propagation. The following year, though better, again did not produce individual nuts with all the required qualities in combination. Worcestershire, Surrey and Norfolk are mentioned as counties where are trees that are promising. One of the best was a 200-year-old in Worcestershire, whose yearly average of nuts, and they of good quality, is 8 cwt., with 15 cwt. as maximum yield. In 1926 the walnut-trees flowered well, but late frosts and high winds ruined the crop, and in the two following years, again, no nuts of such special goodness as would be useful for propagation came under

LONDON, September 13.

On Monday the 1st Instant, at about 10 at Night died at Carmarthen in South Wales, Sir Richard Steele, Knt., well known by his many eminent Writings. He formerly ferv'd in Parliament for the Boroughs of Wendover, Stockbridge, and Boroughbrigg, and paffed through feveral eminent Stations; as a Commiffioner of the forfeited Estates, Mafter of the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane, &c. He married the only Child and Heiress of John Scurlock of the Town of Carmarthen, Esq; by whom he had Iffue two Daughters, who are unmarried.

A Copper Mine hath been lately difcover'd at Wooller near Chillingham Castle, the Seat of the E. of Tankerville in North

examination. The co-operation of the Royal umberland: His Lordship hath brought a

Horticultural Society has now been invited by the Ministry, and the Society is to hold a Walnut Show on Nov. 19. By this means it is hoped to discover more trees of " merit," as the writer puts it, and discover, it may be, a best tree. Scion wood has been procured from extra good foreign trees, and seedlings have been planted from some of the finest foreign walnut-trees, and will be tried out, but there is reasonable fear that varieties good in their own country may prove unsuitable for growing in England. France and

Piece of the Oar to Town for Advice.

The fame Day [Last Sunday morning] the Rev. Mr. Thomas Harrifon, late Teacher of a Baptist Congregation in Little Wild-street, receiv'd Epifcopal Ordination.

On Tuesday last the Queen, Prince of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family, breakfasted in Duck Island in St. James's Park.

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marriage on 11 Feb., 1783, by licence,

Literary and Historical Richard Hunn and Mary Ann Canning, both

Notes.

CANNING'S MOTHER AND THE

STAGE.

THE discovery, in the cumulative marriage index of the Society of Genealogists, of the date and place of the marriage of Canning's mother to Richard Hunn, was announced at cliv. 211. I recently paid a visit to Exeter, and examined the marriage register of St. Paul's Church, which records the

of that parish. One of the two witnesses was apparently the parish clerk, his name recurring frequently. The signature "м. A. Canning" is in the handwriting long familiar to me in several books belonging to my wife, a descendant of the marriage. No description of either party is given in the church register.1 At the Exeter Diocesan Registry I examined the bridegroom's allegation, worded as follows:

Richard Hunn of the parish of St. Paul in the City of Exeter maketh oath that he this deponent and Mary Ann Canning of the same parish widow with whom he prays licence to be

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ending in complicated flourish of interlaced loops, which supports the statement of John Bernard, the actor, that he had received a good education, and could wield his pen with nearly as great facility as his measure-he was, according to the same authority, a silk mercer at Plymouth. 2 His father, Samuel Hunn, was an alderman of Plymouth and for many years master cooper of His Majesty's Victualling Office there. The family came from Calstock, some 15 miles to the north, just over the Cornish border, where and at Stokeclimsland, some 10 miles further north, it can be traced back into the sixteenth century.

The University College and City Library at Exeter has a well-preserved file of the Exeter Flying Post, and a search through this cast some light upon a period of five years of Mrs. Canning's life about which little has hitherto been known, and showed that at the time of her marriage to Richard Hunn, and during the previous winter of 1781-2, she was playing at Exeter Theatre under the management of Mr. Hughes, and was still known as Mrs. Reddish. In the middle of December, 1781 'The School for Scandal' was produced at Exeter, with Mrs. Reddish as Lady Sneerwell. Mr. Hughes was Sir Peter Teazle, and Lady Teazle was played by Mrs. Ward. At the beginning of 1782 the tragedy 'Editha '3 was produced, when Mrs. Reddish played the title role, and also spoke the epilogue. From Exeter, at the beginning of March, 1782, Mrs. Reddish wrote to her son George, then at a private school near Winchester, promising him copy of his father's poems.7 Three weeks after Mrs. Canning's marriage at Exeter to Richard Hunn, the Flying Post of Thursday, 6 March, 1783, announced at the theatre there:

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For the benefit of Mrs. Hunn. On Friday, 7th March, 1783. A tragedy written by Shakespeare and not acted here for several years, called Cymbeline, King of Britain," the character of Posthumus by a gentleman (being his first appearance on any stage). An occasional prologue to be spoken by Mrs. Jefferson, and an occasional address by Mrs. Hunn. Between the play and the farce the favourite interlude of "The Recruiting Sergeant." To which will be added the farce (not acted here

for many years past) called "The Register Office" (with an additional scene). The part of Clio (with epilogue) by Miss Reddish, a child of five years of age.

The identity of the gentleman who made his début as Posthumus cannot be determined: it may possibly have been Richard Hunn, who afterwards joined the company.

If it was, he was in a double sense taking the part played by Reddish, whose portrait in the character of Posthumus, his last character, hangs in the Garrick Club, and of whom a contemporary critic16 had written in 1774: Reddish while living played Posthumus well

Of his posthumous character no one can tell.

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A fortnight later, on March 24, 1783, the part of Lubin in 'The Quaker' was played by a gentleman of the City for his amusement," whose last performance, however, was announced a few days later.

The announcements in the Flying Post appeared only on occasional Thursdays, and did not give the whole week's programme; consequently I have been unable to trace the appearance of Mr. Hunn as Mark Antony, when, according to Bernard4 (who got the story from Whitfield), his slender legs ("though a well-made, handsome man from his hip upward") attracted the sarcasm of his enemies at his first appearance and led to a tumult in the theatre which his wife with difficulty quelled. The statement of one chronicler that Hunn "essayed the boards at Exeter and was damned" must be qualified by the fact that his stage career (as will be shown) lasted for at least a year and a quarter, from the beginning of October, 1784, to the middle of January, 1786, when apparently Hughes's company finished their season there. Mrs. Hunn during the next few years must have been occupied with what Robert Bell5 refers to as "fresh claims upon her maternal solicitude."

The following advertisement by the managers of Exeter Theatre appeared in the Flying Post of 10 March, 1785 :

The several shameful indecencies which have lately been committed in the gallery, by throwing large stones and bricks, &c., into the pit and on the stage, and particularly on Friday last, when a young man was dreadfully cut in the face, and others hurt, has induced the managers, as they conceive it their duty to the public, to use every means in their power to discover the person who threw the

same.

And in order to prevent such dangerous

attempts in future they are resolved to place people for the purpose of finding out those concerned in such practices, who will never after, on any terms, be permitted to enter the

house.8

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