R. G.
Anna Lightfoot (Vol. vii., p. 595.).—I have heard my mother speak of Anna Lightfoot: her family belonged to the religious community called Friends or Quakers. My mother was born 1751, and died in the year 1836. The aunt of Anna Eleanor Lightfoot was next-door-neighbour to my grandfather, who lived in Sir Wm. Warren's Square, Wapping. The family were from Yorkshire, and the father of Anna was a shoemaker, and kept a shop near Execution Dock, in the same district. He had a brother who was a linendraper, living in the neighbourhood of St. James's, at the west end of the town; and Anna was frequently his visitor, and here it was that she became acquainted with the great man of the day. She was missing, and advertised for by her friends; and, after some time had elapsed, they obtained some information as to her retreat, stating that she was well provided for; and her condition became known to them. She had a son who was a corn-merchant, but, from some circumstance, became deranged in his intellects, and it is said committed suicide. But whether she had a daughter, I never heard. A retreat was provided for Anna in one of those large houses surrounded with a high wall and garden, in the district of Cat-and-Mutton Fields, on the east side of Hackney Road, leading from Mile End Road; where she lived, and it is said died, but in what year I cannot say. All this I have heard my mother tell when I was a young lad; furthermore your deponent knoweth not.
J. M. C.
Jack and Gill (Vol. vii., p. 572.).—A somewhat earlier instance of the occurrence of the expression "Jack and Gill" is to be found (with a slight difference) in John Heywood's Dialogue of Wit and Folly, page 11. of the Percy Society's reprint:
"No more hathe he in mynde, ether payne or care,
Than hathe other Cock my hors, or Gyll my mare!"
This is probably not more than twenty years earlier than your correspondent's quotation from Tusser.
H. C. K.
Simile of the Soul and the Magnetic Needle (Vol. vi. passim; Vol. vii., p. 508.).—Southey, in his Omniana (vol. i. p. 210.), cites a passage from the Partidas, in which the magnetic needle is used in illustration. It is as follows:
"E bien assí como los marineros se guian en la noche escura por el aguja, que les es medianera entre la piedra é la estrella, é les muestra por de vayan, tambien en los malos tiempos, como en los buenos; otrosí los que han de consejar al Rey, se deven siempre guiar por la justicia; que es medianera entre Dios é el mundo, en todo tiempo, para dar guardalon á los buenos, é pena á los malos, á cada uno segund su merescimiento."—2 Partida, tit. ix. ley 28.