D'Almaine, the eminent music-seller of Soho Square, published some years back—
"Three Hymns, the Words by the late Rev. Charles Wesley, A.M., of Christ Church College, Oxon; and set to music by George Frederick Handel, faithfully transcribed from his autography in the Library of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, by Samuel Wesley, and now very respectfully presented to the Wesleyan Society at large."
Among my musical autographs is one which, as it relates to the foregoing publication, I transcribe:
"The late comedian Rich, who was the most celebrated harlequin of his time, was also the proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre, during the period that Handel conducted his oratorios at that house. He married a person who became a serious character, after having formerly been a very contrary one; and who requested Handel to set to music the Three Hymns which I transcribed in the Fitzwilliam Library from the autography, and published them in consequence.
S. Wesley.
Monday, March 30, 1829."
The first lines of the hymns are as follows: 1. Sinners, obey the Gospel Word. 2. O Love divine, how sweet thou art! 3. Rejoice! the Lord is King.
Edward F. Rimbault.
Marquis of Granby (Vol. ix., pp. 127. 360.).—In a critique which appeared in the Quarterly Review for January or April, 1838, on Dickens's earlier works, it is stated that Sumpter, a discharged soldier of the royal regiment of Horse Guards, opened a public-house at Hounslow, having as its sign "The Marquis of Granby," which was the first occasion of the marquis's name appearing on the sign-board of a public-house. This note appeared in reference to the public-house kept at Dorking by Mrs. Weller, the "second wentur" of Tony Weller, father of the immortal Samivel, of that ilk.
John, Marquis of Granby, was colonel of the royal regiment of Horse Guards from May 13, 1758, to his decease, which occurred Oct. 19, 1770, and was justly considered the soldier's friend. (See Captain Packer's History of the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, p. 95.) Mr. Dickens, in his description of the sign-board at Dorking, has arrayed the marquis in the uniform, not of the regiment, but of a general officer: he states,—
"On the opposite side of the road was a sign-board representing the head and shoulders of a gentleman with an apoplectic countenance, in a red coat, with deep blue facings, and a touch of the same over his three-cornered hat for a sky. Over that, again, were a pair of flags, and beneath the last button of his coat were a couple of cannon; and the whole formed an expressive and undoubted likeness of the Marquis of Granby of glorious memory."