306
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. OCT. 12, 1901.
THE CHEW AR. The name of a little alley
in the town of Buckingham is The Chewar.
I should be glad if any of your readers could
throw any light upon it for me.
G. C. RICHARDS.
Stowe, Buckingham.
[You will probably find this in any Oxfordshire word-book. We have been familiar with the word in Oxfordshire villages for years to describe a narrow passage between houses.]
"YOU MIGHT RIDE TO RoMFORD ON IT."
When a youngster I often heard my old
grandmother make this remark a propos any lunt carving or other knife which failed to come up to expectations. Has any reader of ' N. & Q.' ever heard the expression, and is it still used ? CECIL CLARKE.
The Cabin, Shoreham, Sussex.
"NANG NAILS" : "NTJBBOCKS." In the West Riding deformed and peculiar toe and finger nails are frequently called "nang nails," and corns and warts are frequently called " nubbocks." Do these words appear in any dictionary or glossary 1 H. J. B.
[Nangnail is no doubt a form of anqnail. See 'H.E.D./s.v. 'Agnail.']
KIPLING'S 'VAMPIRE.' Where can I find the text of this little poem of Kipling's ? I think it appeared in several of the daily papers some three or four years ago.
G. H. J.
[Mr. F. L. Knowles's 'Kipling Primer' states that the poem was written to accompany a picture by Philip Burne-Jones in the New Gallery, and that the lines were printed in the Daily Mail in April, 1897. They were also given in the Academy recently with a parody.]
FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.
(9 th S. viii. 224.)
I HAVE no doubt my friend MR. HEBB is right in assuming that the epigram he quotes, ending
Colas vivoit, Colas est mort, suggested the idea of the lines on Prince Frederick, and he probably has had in his mind the remark of Hervey that " the Queen herself said about this time, of her son's correspondence with Lord Chesterfield. that let the appearance of confidence be ever so strong she would answer for it that each of them knew the other too well to love or trust one another " Hervey s ' Memoirs,' ii. 54.
Still I cannot bring myself to think that the lines were composed by Chesterfield, who had no object in making himself a persona
ingrata at Court by sneering at the prince's
father and brother. Wright, the editor of
the 1840 edition of Walpole's 'Letters,' says
in a note which is reproduced in Cunning-
ham's edition, ii. 247 :
" The elegy alluded to [by Walpole] was probably the effusion of some Jacobite royalist. That faction could not forgive the Duke of Cumberland his excesses or successes in Scotland ; and, not con- tented with branding the parliamentary govern- ment of the country as usurpation, indulged in frequent unfeeling and scurrilous personalities on every branch of the reigning family."
I consider this attribution is also open to doubt, and personally I think the lines are much more likely to have emanated from Grub Street than from Court. We are not likely to discover the name of the author. W. F. PRIDEAUX.
I have during many years sought in vain for the name of the author of these lines ; but although I have failed to trace the actual composer or adapter, I submit that I have been so far successful as to discover the germ, if not the root, of the contemptuous idea conveyed by the epigram. I fancy, but I have not the work at hand to refer to, that the lines in French used by Chesterfield are from a not over-refined compilation entitled ' Les Epigrammes de Jean Ogier Gombauld,' Paris, 1658. However, half a century later we find the same theme applied to a common convict, one John Hall, a chimneysweep (otherwise lyrically commemorated in coarse ballad literature), who was executed (with fellow-sufferers) at Tyburn on Tuesday, 16, or Wednesday, 17 December, 1707,* for the crime of burglary. In a catchpenny pam- phlet or chap-book, published seven years afterwards, entitled ' The Memoirs of the Right Villainous John Hall ' (Musgrave Tracts, 1418, b. 31), we find the lines : EPITAPH.
Here lyes Hall's Clay
Thus swept away
If Bolt or Keyf
Oblig'd his Stay
At Judgment Day
He'd make Essay
To get away ;
Be 't as it may,
I'd better say
Here lyes Jack Hall
And that is All !
This tract was published in 1714. Then, seven years after the publication of
- Both dates are contemporaneously given ; vide
Luttrell and the Rev. Paul Lorraine.
t Illustrative of the usual pronunciation of ey and ea at that time ; cf. Pope's
Here sits Great Anna, whom three Realms obey,
And sometimes counsel takes and sometimes tea.
