Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/119

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10 s. x. AUG. i, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


95


" ANGEL " OF AN INN (10 S. ix. 488 ; x. 14, 55). Probably the best-known passage in literature where a room in an inn is called the " Angel " is to be found in ' She Stoops to Conquer,' Act III. Miss Hardcastle, in reply to her maid, who doubts her being able to personate a barmaid successfully, here says :

" Never fear me. I think I have got the true bar cant. Did your honour call? Attend the Lion there. Pipes and tobacco for the Angel. The Lamb ha.s been outrageous this half -hour."

T. F. D.

[MR. R. L. MORETON also refers to * She Stoops to Conqiier.']

HENRY ELLISON (10 S. x. 8) has already been the subject of some notice in ' N. & Q.' See 2 S. xi. 248 ; 5 S. vii. 508 ; viii. 51 ; 7 S. xii. 268, 333. He was born 12 Aug., 1811, and was the third son of Richard Ellison, Esq., M.P. for Lincoln, Recorder of Lincoln, Lieut. -Col. Royal N. Lincoln Militia, of Sudbroke Holme, Lincolnshire ; Hampton, Middlesex ; Bagolt, Flintshire ; and 26, Great George Street, Westminster, who died 7 July, 1827, aged 73. Like his elder brothers Richard and John, he was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, being admitted to the school 7 Oct., 1824, and matriculating at Oxford 23 Oct., 1828. He published ' Madmoments, or First Verse- attempts by a Bornnatural,' at Malta in 1833, having been admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 22 January in that year. A second edition of ' Madmoments ' was pub- lished in London in 2 vols. in 1839. In his Preface (as Dr. John Brown points out, 'Horse Subsecivae,' " The Universal Library " ed., p. 168) he explains the title " Bornnatural " as meaning " one who inherits the natural sentiments and tastes to which he was born, still artunsullied and customfree " ; but it may also have a reference to the fact that the register of St. George's, Hanover Square, under date 14 Dec., 1814, contains this entry :

" Richard Ellison, Esq., of Hampton, co. Midd x and Jane Maxwell (now Ellison) of this parish (the parties having been heretofore married to each other), remarried in this church by license."

In 1839 a book of Ellison's called ' Touches on the Harp of Nature ' was published in London, where in 1844 appeared " The Poetry of Real Life. A new edition. First Series." Did a second series appear in 1850 ? In 1874 or 1875 he published in London, under the pseudonym Henry Brown, 'Stones from the Quarry ; or, Moods of Mind.'

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.


My friend MR. PAGE has kindly drawn my attention to an error of mine in my query. He reminds me that three of Ellison's sonnets are included in Sharp's ' Sonnets of this Century.' When I penned my question, I could not find Sharp's book.

M. L. R. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney.

Mr. D. M. Main, in his fine ' Treasury of English Sonnets,' 1880, printed one of Henry Ellison's sonnets ' The Dayseye ' from his eccentrically entitled ' Mad- moments, or First Verseattempts by a Bornnatural.' Ellison being then still living, Mr. Main wrote :

" Why is the ' Harp of Nature ' silent? It must have yet many strings

Untouched that God intended Man to hear.

Mr. Ellison's little books, especially the earliest

are now among bibliographical rarities ; yet, as the beloved author of 'Rab and his Friends' said of them many years ago, notwithstanding the eccen- tricities and whimsicalities with which they abound, they are 'as full of poetry as is an " impassioned grape" of its noble liquor.' "

G. L. APPEKSON.

Mr. Sharp, in his note on Ellison, says :

"I am glad to be able to give these three very

fairly representative sonnets. Other fine examples

will be found in Mr. Main's ' CCC. English

Sonnets.' "

In Mr. D. M. Main's edition of 1886 I find only ' The Daisy ' ascribed to Ellison, whose dates are given as 1810 ?-1880.

A. R. BAYLEY.

Mr. Miles devotes thirty-eight pages of the tenth volume of ' The Poets and the Poetry of the Century ' to Ellison a good deal more, I venture to think, than he de- serves, even in such a collection.

C. C. B.

See Westminster Review for April, 1875.

C. D.

WOLSTON (10 S. vii. 129). Augustus became an attorney in 1817, and practised at 8, Furnival's Inn, E.C., down to 1861.

Thomas was a son of John Wolston, Esq., of Tornewton House, Torbryan, Devon (who died at Tornewton House 18 Aug., 1833, aged 82), and Catherine his wife (who died at the residence of the Rev. Christopher Wolston, M.A., Torbryan Rectory, 6 Dec., 1844, also aged 82). A good account of the Rev. Thomas Wolston will be found in Venn's ' Gonville and Caius College,' ii. 165, to which I would merely add that his wife, Mary Anne, died at Exeter 14 Jan., 1853.