Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/504

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496


NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. JUNE 21, 1913:.


According to Wheatley and Cunning- ham's ' London Past and Present,' this Row ran from Goswell Street, Clerken- well, opposite Old Street, to St. John Street, and was so named from the houses facing the northern portion of the Charterhouse grounds, which being planted with shrubs and laid out in walks, overshadowed by trees, was called "Wilderness." In 1878 it Was incorporated with that portion of the new road from Oxford Street to Old Street called Clerkenwell Road, of which it forms the northern half. " The Cherry Tree Inn," with its once noted tea-gardens, stood in Wilderness Row as late as about

1825. WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

Wilderness Row still exists. It is a winding thoroughfare running from Old Street, Goswell Road, to St. John Street, East Smithfield, in the direction of Blooms- bury. It is, as it has always been, the centre of the " Clerkenwell trade, "i.e., of the watch, clock, jewellery, and refiners' businesses.

M. L. R. BBESLAR.

South Hackney.

Wilderness Row is on the north side of Clerkenwell Road at its eastern extremity. It still survives unofficially as a place-name, and the Wilderness Works are familiar to watchmakers throughout the land. Origin- ally the Pardon Churchyard covered this site, the wall extending to Great Sutton Street, and the name is presumably de- rived from the tradition of this " no man's land." Vide Cromwell's ' Clerkenwell,' p. 115. The name probably came to be applied about 1800 (it occurs in Lockie's * Topo- graphy,' 1810), when the site was first built on.

Wilderness Row, Chelsea, was a terrace of houses at the Pimlico end of Queen's Road. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

There was a " Wilderness " in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, in 1732 and 1761. and a Wilderness Row in Chelsea in the latter year, according to ' London and its En- virons,' London, 1761.

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS, F.S.A.Scot.

[MR. J. PARSON and MR. T. SHEPHERD also thanked for replies.]

WRECK OF THE JANE, DUCHESS OF GOR- DON (11 S. vii. 447). If there is no written record or newspaper report containing the names of the passengers by this ship from Madras or Colombo to London, it will be, perhaps, impossible to find out if General


Hay Macdowall was on board or not. -Cer- tainly this was the ship which sailed from Madras, and had Madras people as pas- sengers. If the other ships were not from Madras, the probability is that the General was on the Jane, Duchess of Gordon. There is no doubt that he perished on one of them in March, 1809. See Wilson's ' History of the Madras Army,' iii. 248. In this volume also is a juster estimate of the General as a soldier than your correspon- dent has formed of him. For about eighteen months before he left India he was Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army. FRANK PENNY.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED (11 S. vii. 450). The lines

Men are only boys grown tall, &c., occur in a poem entitled ' Katie Lee and Willie Grey,' and beginning

Two brown heads with tossing curls, Red lips shutting over pearls,

by an anonymous author. The poem may be found in William Cullen Bryant's * Library of Poetry and Song ' (New York, Fords, Howard & Hulbert), and no doubt in other collections. J. DE BERNIERE SMITH.

Fifty years ago and more, I knew the words of a pretty little romance in rime entitled ' Katie Lee and Willie Grey,' o: which but a few lines remain in memory the first being :

Katie Lee and Willie Grey, Little girl and boy were they.

The little boy, encountering the little girl who carried a heavy basket, with native courtesy offered to assume the burden but was pleasingly told :

No, but you may carry half.

Men are only boys grown tall ; * Hearts don't change much after all.

In later years, when William proposec to Katharine to carry all her burdens there after through life, the discreet maidei answered in the terms of childhood : No, but you may carry half !

By whom and where the ballad wai Written never was revealed to the under signed ; it is probable, however, that i may be found entire in the youthful Al bums of Poetry still extant of other Willies and Katies, and so be traced to its author.

HYSON T.

  • A variant of Dryden's statement, " Men ar<

but children of a larger growth."