In Cruttwell's _Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain_ (Lond. 12mo. 1801), vol. v. 208., is the following:--
"Osmondeston, or Schole. The inn here was once remarkable for a pompous sign, with ridiculous ornaments, and is said to have cost a thousand pounds; long since decayed."
I shall be glad to be referred to any other notices of this sign, and am desirous of knowing if any drawing or engraving of it be extant.
In addition to the query of "P.C.S.S." (No. 13. p. 201.), in which I take great interest, I would beg leave to ask what evidence there is that Quarles had a _pension?_ He had, indeed, a small _place_ in the household of James the First's queen, Anne; and if he had a _pension_ on her death, it would have been from James, not from Charles.
I would also, in reference to Pope, beg leave to propound another query.
In the "Imitation of the 2nd Sat. Book I. of Horace," only to be found in modern editions, but attributed, I fear, too justly to Pope, there is an allusion to "poor E----s," who suffered by "_the fatal steel_," for an intrigue with a royal mistress. E----s is no doubt _John Ellis_, and the royal mistress the _Duchess of Cleveland_. (See Lord Dover's Introduction to the "Ellis Correspondence," and "Anecdotes of the Ellis Family," _Gent. Mag_. 1769. p. 328.) But I cannot discover any trace of the circumstances alluded to by Pope. Yet Ellis was a considerable man in his day;--he had been Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the reign of Charles II., and was Under-Secretary of State under William III.; he is said to have afterwards sunk into the humbler character { 246} of a "London magistrate," and to have "died in 1788, at 93 or 95, immensely rich." I should be glad of any clue to Pope's allusion.
* * * * * "Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather and prunello."
Will your correspondent "P.C.S.S." (No. 13), evidently a critical reader of Pope, and probably rich in the possession of various editions of his works, kindly inform me whether any commentator on the poet has traced the well-known lines that I have quoted to the "Corcillum est, quod homines facit, cætera quisquilia omnia" of Petronius Arbiter, cap. 75.? Pope had certainly both read and admired the _Satyricon_, for he says:--