232
NOTES AND QUERIES. us s. i. MA*, is, me.
Is THE ONLY CHILD EVEB FAMOUS ? (12 S.
i. 127.) I think so. The paucity of famous
people among the millions of men and
women born, and the rarity of only children,
as compared with those who are blessed
with brothers and sisters, tend to make the
celebrity of the sole issue inconspicuous ;
but I shall be surprised if * N. & Q.' cannot
collect many examples to give an affirmative
answer to MB. LANDFEAR LUCAS'S query.
May John Ruskin and Edmund Gosse be
numbered with them ? There are degrees.
ST. SWITHIN.
Often, I should think. A few instances occur to me, viz. : St. John the Baptist, Sir Isaac Newton, John Ruskin, Henry VII., James I. and VI., William III., the reigning King of Italy, and apparently Charles the Bold of Burgundy ; and Anne of Britanny, twice Queen of France. To these may be added taking no account of half-brothers or sisters Lord Byron, Henry VI. and Edward VI. of England, Queen Victoria (and Princess Charlotte). Were Dante, Chaucer, Hadrian, and Constantino the Great only children ? A. R. BAYLEY.
There are at least a few instances in modern times of the only child in a family achieving fame. The following Victorians who were the only children of their parents occur to me : John Ruskin, R. L. Stevenson, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, and W. M. Thackeray.
ARCHIBALD SPABKE.
POBTSMOUTH : SOUTHWICK (12 S. i. 49).
Very little is known relating to the priories and churches mentioned in the above query.
St. Mary Colewort formerly stood on the site of the present Colewort Barracks, which were built about 1694. St. Mary's Church, a chapel of ease to St. Thomas's (Portsmouth Parish Church), was built on a part of the Colewort or cabbage garden which adjoined the ancient building of St. Mary's, and was opened for worship in 1839. It is now closed. Henry Slight in his ' Chronicles of Ports- mouth ' says :
" The ruins of the conventual pile were extant in 1692, and used in the reconstruction of St. Thomas's Church. An old stone cross found amongst the ruins was placed on the summit of the [then] new vestry."
St. Lawrence. I have failed to find any reference to this church in any local records or history relating to the town, except that made in ' The Victoria History of the Counties of England,' vol. iii. p. 165, where t states that four bells are said to have been
brought from the old church of St. Lawrence
at Portsmouth to the Church of St. James,
Southwick.
St. Andrew. This chapel is mentioned by R. East in his * Extracts from the Portsmouth Records,' under the heading of ' Grant of Lands by Queen Elizabeth.' The only in- dication of its locality on Portsea Island is in the names of the existing roads, &c. : St. Andrew's Road, Priory Inn, Priory Villas, and Blackfriars Road. The grant simply states that it was situated in the common fields of Frodington Manor. These fields- are all now built upon and form part of South sea.
St. Mary Magdalen. A wayside chapel for pilgrims (just without the fortifications of Old Portsmouth, which were demolished some years ago), situated on land near the present Guardians' Offices. It is stated that traces of this chapel existed in 1800.
Little Gatcombe. Lake Allen in his 'History of Portsmouth' (1817) states:
" On the right of the London Boad, near Hilsea, is Gatcombe house, the residence of Sir Lucius Curtis : this edifice is supposed formerly^ to have been a monastery ; several human skulls have been dug up here at different periods, which tend to corroborate the assertion ; how- ever, there are no historical traces whatever known of it, except that by an inquisition taken in the second year of the reign of Henry VIII. it appears that John Bremshot, Esq., died in the eighth year of the reign of Edward IV. (1470),. seized with the Manor of Bremshot in the Isle of Wight, certain lands called Little Gatcombe, and twenty-two acres of land hi the Island^of Portsea, in the county of Southampton." Adjoining Hilsea Barracks is the Military (corrugated iron) Church, in which there is an old stone stoup said to have been brought from Little Gatcombe Priory F. K. P.
' ANECDOTES OF MONKEYS ' (12 S. i. 166). The full title of this book was 4 Apology addressed to the Travellers' Club ; or,. Anecdotes of Monkeys,' London, 1825. The author was Sir Walter Scott's friend William Stewart Rose (1775-1843):
" Mr. Rose was at this time meditating his enter- taming little jeu cTeaprit, entitled ' Anecdotes, of Monkeys.' " Lockhart's ' Scott,' chap. lix. Note.
" This is a little jeu d' esprit, from its wit and size very fit to read, but on the latter, perhaps ^ on both, of these accounts, an inconvenient subject for a review ; for to dissect it is like carving a lark, and to make extracts is positive plunder. It treats of sailor monkeys, their wives and bears ; of Scotch monkeys, and chattering monkeys, of Mr. Joseph Hume ; of associated monkeys, of domestic monkeys, &c." Extract from article- in The Quarterly Review (no date given), reprinted in ' Biographical Sketches ' by Nassau W. Senior, London, 1803.
