Notes and Queries, Number 15, February 9, 1850Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 15, February 9, 1850
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
_Dyot Street, St. Giles's._--This street was inhabited, as late
as 1803, by Philip Dyot, Esq., a descendant of the gentleman from
whom it takes its name. In 1710 there was a certain "Mendicant's
Convivial Club" held at the "Welch's Head" in this street. The
origin of this club dated as far back as 1660, when its meetings
were held at the Three Crowns in the Poultry.
_Denmark Street, St. Giles's._--Originally built in 1689.
Zoffany, the celebrated painter, lived at No. 9. in this street. The
same house is also the scene of Bunbury's caricature, "The Sunday
Evening Concert:"--
"July 27. 1771.--Sir John Murray, late Secretary to the
Pretender, was on Thursday night carried off by a party
of strange men, from a house in _Denmark Street_, near
St. Giles's church, where he had lived some time."
--_MS. Diary quoted in Collet's Relics of Literature_, p. 306.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
* * * * *
QUERIES.
FOLK LORE.
_Metrical Charms_.--In the enumeration of the various branches
of that interesting subject, the "FOLK LORE OF ENGLAND," on which
communications were invited in the last number of "NOTES AND
QUERIES," there is an omission which I beg to point out, as it
refers to a subject which, I believe, deserves especial
investigation, and would amply repay any trouble or attention that
might be bestowed upon it. I allude to _Metrical Charms_, many
of which are still preserved, and, in spite of the corruptions they
have undergone in the course of centuries, would furnish curious and
valuable illustrations of the Mythological System on which they are
founded.
"Spirits of the flood and spirits of the hills found a
place in the mythology of Saxon England,"
says an able reviewer of Mr. Kemble's _Saxons in England_, in
_The Anthenæum_ (13th Jan. 1849); and he continues,
"The spells by which they were invoked, and the forms
by which their aid was compelled, linger, however, still
amongst us, although their names and powers have passed
into oblivion. In one of the Saxon spells which
Mr. Kemble has inserted in the Appendix, we at once
recognised a rhyme which we had heard an old woman
in our childhood use,--and in which many Saxon words
unintelligible to her were probably retained."
Who would not gladly recover this "old rhyme?"--I can say for
myself, that if these lines should ever meet the eye of the writer
of the passage I have quoted, I trust he will be induced to
communicate, in however fragmentary a shape, this curious addition
to our present scanty stories of mythological information.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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