LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1914. CONTENTS.-No. 222. Advertiser, was proved as part of the case against him. He seems to have been in error, for we read that "his stolen goods, which were only some......enclosed in a letter, on 12 May were returned to him with all his other papers, which did not concern the prosecution, by Watson the [King's] Messenger."-Add. MS. 22,132, f. 86. NOTES:-John Wilkes and the Essay on Woman,' 241- REPLIES:- Railway Smoking - Carriages, 251 -"Men, Booksellers' Catalogues. Notes. "Instructions for our well beloved John Earl of Sandwich Our Embassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Most Catholick King Given at Our Sublime Court of St. Paul Covent Garden." It is endorsed by Blackmore and Watson the Messengers, and it must suffice to say that it is in matter and manner very characteristic of its profligate author (Guildhall MSS. 214/1). Walpole, indeed, supports Wilkes in the following oft-quoted passage, upon which most modern historians and biographers have based their assertions : "One of the copies had been seized among his papers by Philip Carteret Webb.......And now did Book-Lord Sandwich, who had hugged this mischief for months in his breast, lay open the precious poem before his brother Lords." JOHN WILKES AND THE ESSAY ON (See ante, pp. 121, 143, 162, 183, 203, 222.) "it has been publickly and often read many years True it is that the Ministry were prepared to stoop to the dirtiest tricks to compass Wilkes's ruin. Thus we find Halifax writing (to Webb ?) on 3 July, 1763, from Bushey Park (Guild. MSS. 214/3): : "SIR,.. The paper he [a certain " very honest person"] will show you, which you will understand better how to make a proper use of than I can tell you, he extracted from the brief which Mr. Wilkes's attorney or attorney's clerk showed him, but this must be kept a profound secret as the knowledge of it would ruin the attorney and my honest man. I desire you would see him and talk to him......that the Attorney and Sollicitor-General may be immediately informed how our enemies' batteries lay." But What this paper was I do not know. Conceivably Wilkes was fool enough to let the attorney see a proof of his parodies, which were printing at this very time. I think it unlikely, and I cannot conjecture what such a work would be doing in a law brief. Sandwich, however, only became a Minister on 6 September following. In the meantime Jennings, who did not enter Wilkes's service till June (he corrected his questioner in the Lords' who suggested May), On 27 Sept. Webb writes to Kidgell and Faden as to how they are to proceed : "I need not mention that care must be taken to have the MS. ([note this, E. R. W.]) and the proofs and an examination upon oath at the same time or before the money is paid and the security given. .......If he is desirous of preserving appearances, he may have the papers in his pockett and they may be seized." That there was anything humorous in 66 appearances being preserved by the forcible seizure of Mr. Curry's person by that pillar of public and private morality, the chaplain to the Earl of March, would not seem to have struck the Treasury solicitor. 66 The papers were handed over, and not for nearly another month does Sandwich appear on the scene. On 22 Oct. he writes to Webb for the papers containing the narrative of Mr. Wilkes's affair." He professes himself not at all acquainted with the matter, and begs to be excused asking a number of ignorant questions. On 10 Nov. he writes: "I must see the original papers of the Essay on W- before four o'clock." As late as 1 Nov. he had still no idea that Wilkes's and Kearsley's men could prove the patriot's writing, for we find him desiring a noble lord at Aylesbury to find out one or more people who could prove Mr. Wilkes's handwriting (Eg. MS. 2136, f. 85). In his letters to Webb he was, it might be plausibly contended, playing a part; but the letter to his noble friend is very difficult to reconcile with the view that he was on that date acquainted with the whole affair. What need to go to Aylesbury when Jennings and Curry were at hand? 66 the black proof before going to the “Red Lion," we may easily suppose that these worthless men were acting on their own initiative, and did not approach Sandwich through the solicitor until the whole matter was in order. On the other hand, if Wilkes's attorney's clerk had smuggled a proof of the Essay into the brief which he allowed the very honest emissary of Halifax to see, the explanation would appear to be this: Jennings first shows the proof to the clerk, who improperly puts it in the brief and shows it to the "other side," who take the Law Officers' opinion; whereupon the clerk is approached by the Treasury solicitor and told how he is to instruct Jennings to act. Then Jennings dutifully finds the black proof, and ingenuously repairs to the Red Lion" for his bit of supper with the precious proof wrapped around his pat of butter, opening with the verses on Bute. If so, Jennings must have been slightly in error in giving the month of his meeting with Farmer as June, since Halifax's letter bore date 3 July, 1763. 66 On 31 Jan., 1769, we find from the Commons' Journal (cf. Cobbett, xv. 542, and Cavendish, i. 131, 138) the House voted that "Mr. Wilkes......failed in proving the accusation against P. C. Webb of suborning with the 'public money' Curry his servant to betray him and steal the Essay on Woman. Unfortunately, we have no report of the evidence on this inquiry; we only know that Sandwich and March were summoned to the House and gave their versions of what had happened. We have seen that Curry was bribed; but he seems to have been paid by Faden by money advanced out of his own pocket, and we learn from repeated and fruitless applications from Faden to Webb (Guild. MSS. 214/1) that the Treasury repudiated the obligation both as regards Curry and a sum of 80l. advanced to Kidgell to keep up his credit. In the second logomachy, therefore, the Ministry scored the victory. ERIC R. WATSON. RICHARD CORNWALLIS : CALYBUTT AND FINCHAM FAMILIES. RICHARD CORNWALLIS was born in 1569 at Coxford Priory, near East Rudham, Norfolk, and was the elder of the two sons of Henry Cornwallis (brother of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, as to whom see the 'D.N.B.,' and first cousin of Thomas Cornwallis, Groom Porter to Queen Elizabeth, who married the Lady Katharine, sister of Henry, second Earl of Southampton) and Anne, his second wife, daughter and coheir of Edgar Calybutt, serjeant-at-law. This lady had two sons by a former husband-one of whom was a priest-but their names are nowhere given. Richard was educated at home, and afterwards under Stephen Limbert at Norwich Grammar School, until at the age of 15 he was admitted as pensioner to the bachelors' table at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 27 Feb., 1584/5. He took the degree of B.A. in 1588-9, being second out of thirty-two in the list, and that of M.A. in 1592, and became Junior Fellow and Humanity Lecturer at Christmas, 1592, and Senior Fellow and Dean at Michaelmas, 1595. Soon afterwards he was reconciled to the Catholic Church " by the means and ministry" of his half-brother, and of Father John Gerard, S.J., and about this time his mother died and his father was also reconciled. Richard, thereupon, determined to go to Rome, but on landing at Flushing, then held by the English, he was arrested by the Governor, and imprisoned there for six weeks. On 24 April, 1596, the Privy Council issued "a warraunt to William Killigrewe, esquire, to paie unto William Judge, Provost Marshall of Flushinge, for his chardge in bringinge over from Flushinge hither to the Court one John Perse [i.e., Percy] a Jesuitt, Richard Cornwallys gentleman, and two gentlewomen prysoners, the somme of twelve poundes." (Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council,' xxv. 359). was On arriving in England, Richard imprisoned for another six weeks, and was deprived of his Fellowship, though this deprivation does not seem to have taken effect till Michaelmas, 1596. He entered the English College at Rome as an alumnus of Pope Clement VIII. 30 Nov., 1598, in the name of Richard Fincham. He may have chosen this name because Sir Charles Cornwallis, a younger son of Sir Thomas, and therefore Richard's first cousin, had married as his first wife Anne, sister and coheir of William Fincham of Fincham Hall, Norfolk, who died without issue 14 Elizabeth. (N.B. The 'D.N.B.' is in error in giving her name as Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Farnham of Fincham.) There is, however, an earlier connexion, not indeed between the Fincham and Cornwallis families, but between the Finchams and the Calybutts, William Fincham's grandfather John Fincham having had a sister who was married to a Calybutt. This John Fincham married as his second wife Ela, daughter of Gregory Edgar, and it is possible that his sister Mrs. Calybutt was the mother of Richard Cornwallis's maternal | grandfather. The pedigrees in the Harleian Society's Visitations of Norfolk' do not throw any light on the question. Richard Cornwallis took the usual college oaths on 28 Feb., 1599, and signed as Richard Fincham. He was ordained priest on the following 5 June, but was not sent into England till 4 May, 1601. When Sir Charles Cornwallis was appointed British Ambassador to Spain in 1605, Richard accompanied him, and died at the British Embassy there about October, 1606. The chief sources for the above account are Blomefield's 'Norfolk,' vii. 155, 349-50; Foley's 'Records of the English Province S.J.,' i. 181–3; and Venn's Gonville and Caius College,' i. 123-4. It is perhaps worth noting that there was a William Calybutt of Coxford, who left three daughters and coheirs: (1) Anne, married to Thomas Gardener of Coxford; (2) Elizabeth, married to Henry Walpole; and (3) Katharine, wife of John Walpole of Houghton, and mother of Father Edward Walpole, S.J. This William Calybutt of Coxford was probably the third son of Francis Calybutt of Castle Acre. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. BIRMINGHAM STATUES AND MEMORIALS. (See ante, p. 202.) 66 FOR over forty-five years Nelson (17581805) remained the only public statue the riverless town possessed, and J. G. Kohl, a German traveller, noting the fact in Septem ber, 1842, expressed surprise that a community of 200,000 living specimens of humanity "should own only one marble man among them." He contrasted the place in this respect with Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Hull, Dublin, and Edinburgh, remarking also that Birmingham and Leeds appear to me, among all the large towns of England, to be the two most destitute of taste, ornament, and enjoyment." Kohl's "marble man, none the less, is of bronze. 66 The news of the victory of the Nile was received in Birmingham with ringing of bells, firing of guns, and illumination of buildings. The 29th of November, 1798, was a day of general thanksgiving, and collections were made in churches and other places of public resort for relatives 66 of the fallen. Nelson himself visited and it is interesting to note that the last Birmingham for a few days in August-known baiting on the outskirts of BirmSeptember, 1802; he was accompanied by ingham is believed to have been in 1811, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and the subsequently to the erection of the statue. party, who had come on the invitation of It faces the restored ancient parish church the High and Low Bailiffs, stayed at Styles's of St. Martin, and is near the sites of the Hotel, afterwards the Royal Hotel of Dicken- long ago demolished "Old Cross " and sian celebrity. They visited the theatre on Shambles shown in Bradford's map of two occasions, being drawn through the MDCCL. The Admiral's left arm rests on streets by the populace; there were torch- an anchor, and a portion of a ship's prow is light processions, and at a public banquet introduced into the design, with a facsimile Lady Hamilton condescendingly gratified of the flagstaff truck of L'Orient, fished up those present with several appropriate by Sir Samuel Hood after the Battle of the and charming songs. The manufactories Nile. Dejected Birmingham is also reprevisited included Edgington's stained-glass sented, murally crowned and accompanied workshop at Handsworth and the Mint, by genii (or children) mourning their loss. where applicable medals " were struck off The whole is enclosed by iron "palisadoes in the presence of the visitors. Mr. Matthew of boarding-pikes connected by a cable, with Boulton, by reason of illness, received his a cannon erect at each of the four corners, distinguished callers in his bedchamber, and surmounted by clusters of pikes supporting their final departure for Warwick Castle was ships' lanterns. The original lanterns have made after a most enjoyable stay in the town. made way for less picturesque illuminators, On 7 Nov., 1805, the coming of the news but from a drawing of the Bull Ring in 1819, of Nelson's death cast a profound gloom by William Hollins, we may get an idea of over the district, and on the 23rd a public what they looked like. The drawing is a meeting was held to consider a proposal for valuable record of the appearance of the the erection of "a monument, statue, or Bull Ring in coaching days, and shows a pillar," to "the saviour of the silver-coasted coach (one of eleven) starting from the isle." The artist William Hollins sug- Nelson Hotel," previously the "Dog Inn," gested a Grecian fluted pillar 100 ft. high, near the entrance to the present Market Hall. with an internal staircase, and bearing on The townspeople were naturally proud of the plinth sculptures in high and low relief, their Nelson statue, and a Mr. Joseph to stand in some prominent position sur- Farror, auctioneer, of High Street, left a rounded by public edifices architecturally weekly bequest of 6d. to meet the cost of in keeping with it. Among the sites con- cleaning the statue and its appurtenances, sidered in connexion with this idea (unfortu- making with it suitable provision for the nately abandoned) was that formerly occu- carrying out of his wishes from rent accruing pied by the "Welch Cross" at the lower end from some house property in Bradford of Bull Street, and another, the Old Square Street. (then the New Square), the town's stateliest central open space, unhappily destroyed at the time of the Chamberlain improvements of the mid-eighties of the last century. After controversy and much vain talk a model by Sir Richard Westmacott, R.A., was approved on 13 June, 1806, and the statue was inaugurated on 24 Oct., 1809, the Jubilee year of George III. On the face of the pedestal is the inscription : THIS STATUE ADMIRAL BY THE : 66 Thus did dejected Birmingham honour the memory of Nelson. As for Emma Hamilton, the fair songstress of the local episodes of 1802, who, having been arrested for debt and consigned to the King's Bench Prison in the summer of 1813, died in poverty two years later at Calais-Birmingham, the dejected and fickle, like all the rest of the world, left the lady to her fate. Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) visited Birmingham on the invitation of Mr. William Chance, the High Bailiff, on 23 Sept., 1830, along with Lady Peel, the Duke of Wellington, and other members of a house-party at Drayton Manor. The political leaders met with somewhat chill receptions when appearing in public, and on several occasions Possibly the smallest public statue of groans were freely mingled with the people's Nelson in England, it stands in the Bull cheers. At a banquet Sir Robert won ap Ring-associated in the public mind with plause by remarking that, as a private the old-time sport" of bull-baiting – of bull-baiting-gentleman residing within the district " INHABITANTS OF BIRMINGHAM A.D. M.DCCC.IX. 66 66 of the Reform Bill, retiring from Parliament in January, 1840, and dying at Malvern. The Freedom of the City of London was one of the many honours conferred upon him. Newhall Hill, the scene of most of the Union's great meetings, is now built over, and the actual site of the platform was subsequently occupied by a Unitarian chapel surrounded by mean streets. WILMOT CORFIELD. (To be continued.) which acknowledged with pride "this great town as its metropolis, he could not but feel interested in all that concerned its welfare. The great town many years later honoured Peel's memory by erecting a statue to him (its second public statue after an interval of over forty-five years since its first was set up) at the junction of Paradise Street, Ann Street, and New Street, at a cost of about 2,000 guineas-the work of Peter Hollins. This was unveiled on 27 Aug., 1855, during the mayoralty of Mr. John Palmer, having been cast by Messrs. Elkington & Mason out of more than 3 tons THE PIED PIPER ONCE MORE.-Correof metal. The railings originally surround-spondence on this topic began so long ago ing it bore clusters of ears of wheat, emble- as 1872 in ' N. & Q.,' eliciting much of interest matical of the repeal of the Corn Laws. in connexion with the antiquity of the More than twenty years afterwards (about legend, and the frequent mention of it in the time of the building of the Council English or other sources. No very special House) the position of the statue was erudition is required for the disinterring of slightly altered, consequent upon street such references as those in Burton's 'Anachanges in the neighbourhood of the Town tomy' and the Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ.' But Hall and Colmore Row (previously Ann Browning did not need to travel far afield Street), and the earlier railings made way to discover a very complete, simple, and for others of a less decorative character. humorous version of the story. The first Gloomy and grand, Sir Robert none the chapter of Prosper Mérimée's Chronique less adds a touch of old-world dignity to du Règne de Charles IX.' (1829) gives, in surroundings reminiscent of lost archi- its author's characteristically incisive prose, tectural opportunities, the sombre subject an account of the tale, which coincides in of Birmingham's most easily answered definite particulars with Browning's renderconundrum : Why is the Town Hall like ing (c. 1842). I shall mention but two. The an orange? "Because it has Peel out-piper leads the children into a cavern in the side." A model of the statue stood for many years in a long-ago dismantled pavilion at Aston Hall, and it is, I think, recognizable in a photograph now before me of the interior of the Kent Street swimming-bath building, to which apparently it was most inappropriately transferred. 66 side of Koppenberg (Koppelberg) Hill; and Mérimée winds up his narrative with a reference to a settlement of German-speaking aliens in Transylvania who have preserved their native speech, though surrounded by a population whose language is a barbarous gibberish. Both versions, too, are conveyed in a tone which is describable solely with the help of the French adjective P. T. L. During the twenty years culminating in 1832 the local agitation for the fuller political enfranchisement of the town involved Birm-narquois. ingham in a long series of spirited controversies and more or less dangerous excite 66 66 66 66 66 ments. The Birmingham Political Union fo the Protection of Public Rights (the forerunner of many similar Unions" in England) was formed, and ran a successful course to ultimate victory. In 1819 the reformers" had elected Sir Charles Wolseley as their Parliamentary representative, but without lawful authority"; and in course of time Thomas Attwood (1783-1856), a local banker, who had been High Bailiff, emerged into prominence as the accepted leader of the movement, to become known as the "Father of Political Unions." With Joshua Scholefield, he became one of the first (two) members for Birmingham on 12 Dec., 1832, after the passing " "FROM THIS ENORMOUS STATE," KING LEAR,' II. ii. 163–8 (Cambridge) : : And shall find time Fortune, good night smile once more; turn thy So the Cambridge' editors print; and a glance at the textual notes on the passage shows the hopeless failure of the emendations there proposed. The very obvious correction of" shall" to she'll (in which I have been anticipated by Daniel) is the only one at all worthy of acceptance. 1. The adoption of she'll for "shall," is imperative. Kent is speaking of Cordelia |