12 S. V. Nov., 1919. J
NOTES AND QUERIES.
303T-
Mrs. Brassey, relict of Nathaniel Brassey,
Lombard Street, Oct. 10, 1786. The first is
an extract from The Historical Register for
May, 1737, which says :
"Nathaniel Brassey, Esq., formerly a banker in Lombard iStreet, and father of Nathaniel Brassey, Esq., of Lombard Street, Member of Parliament for Hertford. He died possessed of a large estate." Now if this statement is accurate the M.P. was son of Nathaniel (not John) Brassey, and if the manor of Roxford was bought in 1699, by John Brassey, then a generation has been skipped in the pedigree, as the M.P. would seem to have been John's grandson. I have a MS. note that Nathaniel Brassey, a London banker, of Roxford, Herts, was a defeated candidate for St. Albans in March, 1730, but sat for Hertford in four Parliaments from 1734 to 1761 ; was made a Commissioner of Lieutenancy for the City of London, June 21, 1740; and died, Sept. 29, 1765, aged 68. It was his eldest son who died Sept. 14, 1782. I have not yet ascertained the name of the wife of the M.P. In the
- List of the Bankers in London ' given in
The St. James's Register for 1765, the firm is given as Brassey, Lee & Son, The Acorn, Lombard Street. W. R. WILLIAMS.
- TOM JONES' (12 S. v. 268). In
- Memoirs of My Life and Writings ' (Edward
Gibbon) the third paragraph from the beginning in ' Autobiography of Edward Gibbon as Originally Edited by Lord Sheffield ' has :
" The nobility of the Spencers has been illus- trated and enriched by the trophies of Marl- borough ; but I exhort them to consider the ' Fairy Queen' as the most precious jewel of their coronet. Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who draw their origin from the Counts of Habsburg, the lineal descendants of Eltrico, in the seventh century, Duke nf Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the family of Habsburg : the former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicester- shire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage ; the latter, the Emperors of Germany, and Kings of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the old, and invaded the treasures of the new world. The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England : but the romance of ' Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial, and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria."
Thackeray in his lecture on ' Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding ' writes :
" The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down with him [Fielding]. But a greater scholar than Johnson could afford to admire that astonish- ing genius of Harry Fielding ; and we all know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, and which remains a towering monument to the great novelist's memory
" There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this -
great judge. To have your name mentioned by
Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of
St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire
and behold it."
To the best of my knowledge the Habs- burgs and the Fieldings are not related. I never could find any evidence of any con- nexion. Lord Denbigh and his family spell the name Feilding. The novelist said that he was the first of the family who could spell correctly. THOS. WHITE.
Junior Reform Club, Liverpool.
The " splendid but sufficiently quoted eulogy of Gibbon " appeared in 1795 near the beginning of his ' Memoirs ' which were " carefully selected and put together " by Lord Sheffield from the six different sketches left by the historian.
The pedigree that was the occasion, of Gibbon's prarie is now discredited.
EDWARD BENSLY.
[MR. ARCHIBALD SPARKE and MR. C. B ; WHEELER aho thanked for replies.]
TOBACCO PIPES (12 S. v. 210). I used to have one of these triple pipes (three bowls and three stems, but one mouthpiece) which had been made in Hexham, Northumberland, some time in the first quarter of the nine- teenth century (1801-25). I got it from a relative who belonged to that town, but beyond being a curiosity I could learn no more about it. Unfortunately it was broken during " spring cleaning " a few years ago. J. W. FAWCETT.
Consett, co. Durham.
"As DEAD AS A DOOR-NAIL" (12 S. V. 266).
Probably the first or rudimentary knocker was a round stone at the end of a short strip of hide. When the metal knocker on a hinge was invented it would not be long before the iron began to knock a hole in the door, so a nail with a large flat or mushroom, head would be driven into the door at the point of percussion, the resonance of the blow being also much increased. " What ! Is the old king dead ? " exclaims Falstaff in ' Henry IV.,' to which the reply is " As nail in door." And what deader, seeing that it is being everlastingly knocked on the head !
" Dead as mutton," again : a sheep may be alive or dead, but what can be deader than mutton 1
" Dead as a herring " is said to be because a herring's gills are so delicate that it dies the instant it is taken out of the water. Only last month I asked a sea-fishing friend if this was so, and he asserted that the
