Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/506

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498


NOTES AND QUERIES. & s. vn. JUNE 22, IDOL


dominions ; and to him they are all accountable for their proceedings, and from him they receive their particular orders and instructions, according to the directions and commands given by his Majesty in Council."

HERBERT R. H. SOUTH AM.

Your correspondent will find an account of this Lieutenant (afterwards Major-General) Wm. Phillips and of the company of Miners, attached to and forming part of the Royal Artillery, in the ' List of Officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery ' (1900). The company was formed on the representation of the Board of Ordnance to the Master-General, the Duke of Marlborough, dated 19 March, 1756, owing to supposed preparations at Toulon for an attack on Minorca. Owing to the capitulation of Port Mahon, the company was too late to be of any service. H. P. L.

WILLIAM HONE (9 th S. vii. 408). In answer to MR. ANDREWS I may say that William Hone is buried at Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington. The inscription on his " plain headstone," according to a little work on the parish of Hackney in my possession, is as follows :

William Hone,

Born at Bath, 3 June, 1780,

and died at Tottenham,

6 of November, 1842.

I paid a recent visit to Abney Park Cemetery to verify this inscription, but, woe is me ! though I had seen the tombstone many a time, I lost myself amongst the silent houses of the dead, and could not find the object of my quest. Inquiry was futile ; the amiable janitor had "never heerd o' such a man." Such is fame, though the reputation of William Hone will survive as long as his works are read. Very near to Hone's grave is a monolith inscribed with the name of one of his friends, the engraver and sketcher S. Williams, who died 21 January, 1846, aged seventy-six years. MR. ANDREWS will find much information about Hone's illness and funeral (including the inscription on the tombstone) in the following little work : "Walks in Abney Park; with Life-Photo- graphs of Ministers and other Public Men whose Names are found there. By (Rev.] James Bran white French (James Clarke, 13 Fleet Street, 1883)." This book is unfor- tunately now out of print. Dickens visiteo Hone during his last illness in company with George Cruikshank, as will be seen by the following letter from the great novelist to John Forster, dated 5 October, 1842 :

" I am going out to Tottenham this morning on a cheerless mission I would willingly have avoided. Hone, of the * Every-Day Book,' is dying, and sent Cruikshank yesterday to beg me to go and see him


as, having read no books but mine of late, he wanted

o see and shake hands with me before (as George

said) ' he went.' There is no help for it, of course ; so to Tottenham I repair this morning."*

The next month Dickens went with Cruik- shank to Hone's funeral at Abney Park, pre- viously attending a religious service at the bouse, a description of which by Dickens in which he seems to have allowed his imagina- tive faculties to run wild led to a contro- versy which ended rather badly for him. Particulars of this also will be found in Mr. French's book mentioned above. I may add, for the benefit of others who may wish to find Hone's grave, that it is not far from the retreat known as " Dr. Watts's Mound," in the north-eastern corner of the cemetery, and very close to the grave of Canrabah Caulker, a negro princeling who was brought to Eng- land to be educated, and who died from con- sumption while under the care of the Rev. Jacob Kirkman Foster, a minister of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion at Cheltenham. Dr. Foster also is buried near, and not far off lies the Rev. Thomas Binney, the protagonist, I think, in the controversy with Dickens mentioned above. So that all the parties to the discussion are now sleeping soundly in areas of peace and reconciliation. R. CLARK.

'jfrmtllmtam.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Swallowfield and its Oivners. By Lady Russell.

(Longmans & Co.)

SWALLOWFIELD, since 1820 in the possession of the Russells, and at present the residence of Sir George and his mother Lady Russell the latter the Con- stance Russell ever welcome in our pages has a long and eminently romantic history, which is told with great vivacity in the book before us. Situated five miles and a half south-west from Wokingham and six miles south-east of Reading, it was at one time included in Windsor Forest, the circuit of which was then about fifty-six miles. The manor of Swal- lowtield, with which until the middle of the six- teenth century was associated that of Shinfield, is mentioned in the Domesday Survey as vested in the Crown. From this survey we learn that in the reign of Edward the Confessor (1043-66) Selingefelle (Shin- field) and Soanesfelt (Swallowfield), with one hide in Solafel in Reading, were held by Sexi, " Huscarle Regis E.," in free manors of the king, and were valued at 11. each per annum, "huscarle" meaning probably in this case something more than famiilus domesticus. At the time of the Conquest both manors, with many others, were bestowed upon William FitzOsbern, Lord of Breteuil, dapifer to William the Conqueror, who was his second cousin once removed, was his closest friend, and addressed him as "cousin and councillor." At

  • ' The Life of Charles Dickens,' by John Forster,

p. 197 (Memorial Edition).