352
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIIL oc.. 26, 1901.
Pity, kind gentlefolks, friends of humanity !
Cold blows the wind, and the night 's coming on :
Give me some food, for my mother, in charity !
Give me some food, and I then will be gone.
Call me not Lazy-bones, beggar, and Bold-enough !
Turn me not helpless and cold in the snow ;
Two little brothers I have ; when they re old
enough, They too shall work for the gifts you bestow, &c.
Ccetera desunt, but recoverable.
J. W. EBSWORTH.
'The Beggar's Petition,' beginning "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man," occurs in an old chap-book edition of Dr. Watts's ' Divine and Moral Songs for Children,' which I re- cently acquired. My tattered little copy has no title-page, but was printed at Coventry, probably about a hundred years ago. It is the last piece in the collection, and may have been added to Watts's merely as being in keeping therewith, though there is nothing to show that it is not his. I shall be much interested in learning (if it be not by Isaac Watts) the date of its composition, one stanza being, as I have pointed out in another place, so very suggestive of Gray's 'Elegy.' The stanza in question runs :
My tender wife, sweet soother of my care, Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell, ling'ring fell, a victim to despair, And left the world to wretchedness and me.
WALTER JERROLD. Hampton-on-Thames.
' The Beggar's Petition ' will be readily found, under the title of ' Over the Mountain and over the Moor,' in 'The Song-Book,' edited by John Hullah, and published by Macmillan & Co. JOHN KIRBY.
"MAHOGANY" (9 th S. viii. 201). In Litch- field's 'Illustrated History of Furniture' (1892) we read (p. 195) :
" Mahogany may be said to have come into general use subsequent to 1720, and its introduction is asserted to have been due to the tenacity of purpose of a Dr. Gibson, whose wife wanted a candle-box, an article of common domestic use of the time. The Doctor, who had laid by in the garden of his house in King Street, Covent Garden, some planks sent to him by his brother, a West Indian captain, asked the joiner to use a part of this wood for the purpose : it was found too tough and hard for the tools of the period, but the Doctor was not to be thwarted, and insisted on harder- tempered tools being found, and the task completed ; the result was the production of a candle-box which was ad- mired by every one. He then ordered a bureau of the same material, and, when it was finished, invited his friends to see the new work. Amongst others, the Duchess of Buckingham begged a small piece of the precious wood, and it soon became the fashion. On account of its toughness and peculiarity of grain it was capable of treatment impossible with oak, and the high polish it took by oil and rubbing (not
French polish, a later invention) caused it to come
into great request. The term ' putting one's knees
under a friend's mahogany' probably dates from
about this time."
HARRY HEMS.
" BELAMOTJR," PLANT-NAME (9 th S. viii. 264). I am afraid it is impossible to add anything of value to what the 'H.E.D.' says under this head. It is quite likely that Spenser invented the name ; it is, at any rate, not to be found in Gerard or Lyte or any other old writer to whom I have access. Gerard gives the name Speculum veneris, or " ladies glasse,"
says tms uutcn name is reaiiy given DO wnat
we call the Canterbury bell. Gerard's Venus's
looking-glass is a blue flower, and Spenser
can therefore scarcely have meant this, but
the white Canterbury bell would serve him
for a simile well enough. Some white bell-
flower we may safely suppose him to have
meant. C. C. B.
TOMBLAND (9 th S. viii. 245). Perhaps the French knight mentioned by your corre- spondent was named after Tombelaine, an island lying off the coast of Ille-et-Vilaine, hard by St. Michel au Peril de la Mer. I have known two gaunt latter-day English- men called Tomlin who may have been his descendants. There is a legend which would fain persuade us that the local appellation signifies the tomb of He^Jene. Helene watched the young warrior depart to follow the Conqueror (to be) to England, and fell dead when the vessel disappeared. The monks buried her on the spot, and "every year on the anniversary of her death a white dove comes and hovers over the rock " (see ' Highways and Byways in Normandy,' by Percy Dearmer, pp. 130, 131).
ST. SWITHIN.
Full information will be found in Rev. W. Hudson's valuable work ' How Norwich grew into Shape,' published by Goose, Norwich. Mr. Hudson traces the name to the Danish " Tom - lond," the first syllable meaning "open" or "vacant." It is impossible to look at the map of the city in Angle and Danish times without perceiving that the lines of communication from all the districts peopled before the Norman Conquest con- verged on Tombland. It was the centre of Saxon Norwich, the point to which the inhabitants of the different districts resorted for traffic or trade, and also where the bur- gesses met to manage their affairs. A name survived for a long time which may ex- plain the latter statement: the church of
