In Strathmartin old burial ground, on James Anderson, 1690: Among the earth beneath this stone Doth his forefathers ly And this has been ther burial place On another, in the same place, name illegible, 1754: Heir lyes a godly honest man, All men that knew him said,— In the old kirkyard of Essie, on David Wighton, schoolmaster, who died in 1717, aged 75. Below this Tomb there lyeth thus As you may see this tomb to read. In Newgate churchyard, on Robert Small, who died 1771 Here lies the dust of Robert Small, A. J. BLUE STOCKINGS. May I ask what was the origin of the blue stocking associations of which we read till within a few past years, and even now when some ladies generally of a certain age are in society, they are enpassant spoken of or alluded to, as quite blue stockings?' They seem as coteries to be of but a modern date. PROPOSED INTERCHANGE OF DUPLICATE COINS. the hands of most Coin Collectors, therefore, I wish to The Editor's agency is at the service of L. A. W., or of any other collector. Obverse Three figures in armour, the centre one who is crowned with flowers or leaves, is joining the hands of the other two. Legend-IVNGE TRVCES DEXTRAS. 1579. W. The origin of blue stocking coteries derived from an association of parties, partly chivalrous and partly festive, is of a much earlier date than generally supposed. The society de la Calza (of the Stocking), was instituted at Venice in the year 1400, in honour of the inauguration of Michael Steno, Procurator of Saint Mark, as Doge. The business of its members was conversation and festivity, and so attractive were their entertainments of music and dancing, that the gay spirits of other parts of Italy assiduously sought the honour of admission as members. Their statutes had solely reference to the ceremonies of their balls and general meetings for diversion, and the members, being resolved on their rigorous observance took an oath in a church to that tendency. They had banners and a seal as an authorised I would feel greatly obliged if any of your numerous order of Knighthood, and their costume was displayed in all the elegance and splendour which the luxuriancy of Vene-readers of Current Notes would give me an explanation tian taste could devise; but with the inconsistency of the of the following Medal. whimsical custom of the Italians of bedizening or marking their academies and other intellectual associations by some external signs of caprice or folly, the members when they assembled for literary discussions were distinguished by the colours of their stockings. These colours were sometimes fantastically blended, and on others, only one colour, particularly the blue prevailed. The society de la Calza continued till 1590, when the foppery of Italian Literature assumed another symbol; the rejected title then crossed the Alps, and found a congenial reception in the flippancy and literary triflings of Parisian society, and particularly branded Female pedantry as the strongest feature in the character of French pretension. The name and something of its character diverged from France to England, and for a while marked the vanity of the worthless advances in literature which were so highly vaunted among our feminine coteries. The propriety of the appellation and its application are, at length, passing into desuetude, for it is apparent to all that in every circle, attainments in literature can and are accomplished by ladies with no deterioration of female importance or propriety: it is in England, more than in any other, that knowledge asserts her right of general dominion, and majestically maintains the position, that, if she be the sustaining energy of one sex, she also contributes to the lighter charm, the graceful adornment of the other. Reverse A fruit tree by the side of a lake, upon which the four winds are blowing; on the agitated water, a single figure is seen in the distance. Legend VEL CONTRA FORTIOR ITO. Leith, March 4. W. K. CURRIE. NATIONAL GALLERY. The Krüger Collection of sixty-four early German paintings, formerly at Minden, were in 1854, purchased for the National Gallery, in no way authorised by the Trustees, for 2800l., and the expenses of conveyance hither were 116. 19s. 8d., in all 29167. 19s. 8d. The most tolerable of these, seventeen in number, after considerable repairs and redecorations, were in October in that year, placed in the room on the left, at the head of the staircase, and have created for it, the appellation of the Chamber of Horrors.' Ten of these pictures have been sent to Ireland, or elsewhere; and the remaining thirty-seven were sold, Feb. 14, by Messrs. Christie and Manson, for 2491. 8s., at prices varying from twelve shillings to an extreme sum of twenty-two pounds. Deducting the cost of the ration to those now in the Gallery, and the charges of sale, the seventeen remaining, which advance nothing preceptory in art, cost severally the frightful sum of one hundred and sixty pounds. repa KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. The military brotherhood or order of the Knights Hospitallers was founded by Gerard Tour, who was born at Martigues in Provence. After the capture of Jerusalem, he in 1099, established in that city a house of refuge, as an asylum to pilgrims coming from all parts of the Christian world to visit the Holy Places. Raymond Dupuy succeeded Gerard as Grand Master of the Order, and he decided that the brotherhood should in future become military as well as hospitaller, and that it should defend by arms the Christians against the infidels. The Order thenceforth assumed the title of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, where they continued till Saladin, in 1188, obtaining possession of Palestine, the Knights quitted Jerusalem to establish themselves at Acre, and subsequently at Rhodes, till 1530, when on Charles the Fifth giving to them the island of Malta, they proceeded thither. The French nation having since the crusades constantly assumed to represent in the East the military spirit of the West, and to be in that country the most pious and most stedfast supporter of the interests of the Latin Church, the French Government has long coveted the possession of the ruins of the Knights' establishment at Jerusalem, a desire that has at length been gratified. The Sultan, who had already presented to the Emperor Napoleon the Church of the Nativity at Jerusalem, has in order to render the gift more complete and acceptable, also given to him the old palace of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, which is annexed to St. Peter's prison. The Greeks had also solicited for the same building, but the ruins have been surrendered to France in compliment to her considering herself as the representative of Catholic interests in the East. Gelidus the Philosopher was a real character: the Rev. John Coulson; he took his degree of A. M., April 12, 1746, and was subsequently a senior Fellow of University College. In appearance and habit, he resembled Dr. Johnson, and was considered in his time as an Oxford character. Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, with Dr. Johnson, visited Oxford, Sept. 22, 1774, and the great lexicographer, in his journal, notices on the 23rd, the visit of Mr. Thrale and himself to Mr. Coulson; and that on the 24th, they both, with Mrs. Thrale, and her daughter then ten years old, afterward Lady Keith; dined with him. After this visit, Dr. Johnson told Mrs. Thrale, that Mr. Coulson was the man designated in the Rambler, under the name of Gelidus the Philosopher. KIT-CAT CLUB.-In 1821, was published a folio volume, entitled Memoirs of the celebrated Persons composing the Kit-Cat Club, with forty-eight Portraits, engraved from the original Paintings of Sir Godfrey Kneller. I possess this book, and beg to refer to the just castigation it deserved in the Quarterly Review, March 1822, pp. 425-437, where it is denounced as one of the most blundering pieces of patch-work that the scissors of a hackney editor ever produced.' No hint is there given as to who was the anonymous personage who produced this astonishing work,' and though I have made many enquiries as to the name of the party, I have been unsuccessful, yet a query in Current Notes might I am told elicit an answer. May I ask if any reader can furnish me with the requisite information as to who was the editor, or compiler of the volume in question. St. Ann's Street, Manchester. H. The editor, or compiler, which our Correspondent pleases, was James Caulfield. The production of the Kit-Cat Club Walker, for whom Caulfield also edited the Remarkable was one of the many speculations of the late Mr. Charles Characters, to which and to the six volume edition of Granger's Biographical History of England, the same critical severity may be fairly applied. To Caulfield's baneful attachment to gin may be attributed a long course of erratic conduct. To fix him to any literary labour, it was requisite to entrap him, and lock him up in a room, with the main essential, a pint or two of his beloved nectar, and books for his reference. Eventually, one night, returning homeward in his usual besotted condition, while attempting to step from the road to the pavement, he fell, and the knee-pan coming in contact with the curb-stone, it was so miserably displaced, that he was taken in great pain to the Hospital, where he died. NEW ANECDOTES OF PETER PINDAR. The recently published Memoir of William Cookworthy, a minister among the drab-coloured Christians, written by his grandson, Mr. George Harrison, barrister, contains some amusing incidents relative to Dr. Wolcot, not hitherto known beyond the pale of the Quaker's family. Cookworthy was a druggist in Nut-street, Plymouth, who during the spring and summer months emancipated his family of grown up daughters from the confinement and dirt of a narrow street in a sea-port town,' by the enjoyment of a country lodging at Fleet, the family seat of the Bulteels, near Sequer's bridge, on the road from Plymouth to Modbury, abounding with charms of wild flowers, hedge-rows, and scenery, some of the loveliest, even in the lovely county of Devon.' Mr. Harrison relates Fleet for the season, were my aunt Hobson, then On one occasion, the first of the family who went to a widow; her daughter, and my mother. They took with them the maid servant, Molly King, and some cold provisions for a beginning; and were also accompanied by Wolcot. Having arrived at a rather early hour, they were bent on a ramble before dinner. Nothing, however, could persuade Wolcot to go with them, and after bantering him to no purpose on his laziness, they were forced to start without a squire, leaving the servant to unpack in their absence, and make ready against their return. After some hours pleasurably passed in the woods, they found, on reaching the house, all their food in confusion, scarcely fit to be eaten, and the servant in great dismay. She said Mr. Wolcot would pull it about, and eat, in spite of all her endeavours to prevent him,-that he had then gone away laughing, and had left a piece of paper for them. On this paper they found written Folks that are lean, may hop like fleas, In voice, in look, in person, and in similarity of character, John Wolcot was better qualified, perhaps, than any other man of his day to personate Falstaff. Many a time he has set my grandfather's table in a roar with his readings of Shakespeare's plays of Henry the Fourth, and the Merry Wives of Windsor. They were not lost upon his host; although, when Peter was sometimes pushing his jokes before the females a little too far, he would check himself on my grandfather's approach, with the exclamation-Hullo! here comes Will Swedenborg.' Peter's tale of the Pilgrim and the Peas, ending- I took the liberty to boil my peas, fared, like his other witticisms, which were sure to be retorted on him, whenever there was fair opportunity. He had presented to him a couple of ducks, and leading a sort of make-shift life, was at his wit's end how to secure the good eating at the least possible expense of cookery. He bethought him, at last, of sending them to the bakehouse. This was enough for my aunt Hobson, who the next time she met him, accosted him with-So, Mr. Jack, I hear you took the liberty to bake your ducks!' People have been surprised that a man of Wolcot's coarse, indolent, and selfish habits should have ever found a seat at my grandfather's table; but, in the first place, he had been bred a medical man; and this was, probably, his passport to the Chemist and Druggist. He had besides a fund of humour, and was stored with diverting tales about the Cornish and Devonshire common folks, who were wont to call him Maister Ould Cat, and gaped with delight and wonder at his account of a cherub, which he asserted to have caught, tamed, and retained in a cage in Jamaica, when after having been ordained by the Bishop of London, he went thither in the train of Sir Henry Trelawny, the newly appointed governor, in the double capacity of body-curer' and soul-curer.' Wherever he visited, such tales found ready listeners, nor was William Cookworthy the man to form an exception. He was the exception, indeed, in the rule, Noscitur à socio, qui non dignoscitur ex se.* Like his Divine Master, he could be the friend of publicans and sinners,' not to be degraded to their level, but to raise in them a respect for virtue. He was, moreover, well able to give Peter a Rowland for his Oliver, and was to a certainty the person who furnished him with the original incident for Wolcot's tale of the Country Bumpkin and the Razor-seller, beginningA fellow in a market town, Most musical, cried razors up and down. Wolcot had also a taste for the fine arts, and was the first to notice Opie. He brought him to Nut-street, and set him to paint the portrait of my grandfather, which was admitted to be the best likeness of him. It was not his speaking likeness, which would have been all life and fire: it is his thinking likeness, which is very different; and yet when the rays of the setting sun shed their softened light over the features, as they do for several days, twice in the year, at a late and early period, where the portrait hangs in my drawing room, it is difficult to believe the countenance to be any but that of a living man in the calm repose of a mighty mind. William Cook worthy died October 17, 1780. BALLOON EXHIBITION BILL. first week in August, 1786, and is interesting from the The following announcement appeared during the early attention then made to the direction of Balloons, which later experience has confirmed to be utterly futile. Tuffnell Park Road. CHARLES GREEN, Aeronaut. NEW FISH BALLOON AT THE PANTHEON. READY for Ascension, and to be drawn in the Air by live Eagles. It is now universally admitted, that every Attempt to steer Balloons in the Air, by any Power of Mechanism, will always prove fruitless, as there is no Possibility of finding a Point d'Appui, or Point of Resistance. Mr. Uncles, thoroughly convinced of its Truth, is, nevertheless ambitious, as an Englishman, of meriting the Name of the FIRST AERIAL CHARIOTEER. Instead, therefore, of making Use of ineffectual Sails, Oars, or Wings, he is determined to employ living Force to combat the Wind, and guide himself through the Regions of the Sky. With this Intention, he has just finished a vast Fish-formed Balloon, to which is suspended a splendid triumphal Car elegantly ornamented, with projecting Accommodations for four harnessed Eagles, perfectly tame, and capable of flying in every Direction, at their Master's Will. Uncles, who also flatters himself to render his Balloon stationary, intends to make his grand Ascension in it after be exhibited in the grand Saloon of the Pantheon, every Easter. Till then, this new and magnificent Spectacle will Day, Sundays excepted, from Ten to Six o'clock. Admittance One Shilling only. Mr. He who has no character of his own, bears that of the company which he keeps. ANCIENT SILVER DISH OR SALVER. Amongst the church plate at Wallsend, in Northumberland, is an exquisitely wrought silver salver, now for protection fastened on a plate of iron. It is 10 inches in diameter. In the centre of the salver which is sunk about half an inch there is no device, but round it is engraved a simple but elegant wreath of flowers and leaves tied at the top and bottom with knots of riband. On the other rim or border which is 2 inches in diameter are four oblong medallions or compartments containing figures in basso relievo, representing the four Seasons, all so disposed as to be seen upright at one view without needing to turn the salver. The spaces between these compartments are filled with rich tracery of large flowers. At the top of the salver, Spring is represented by the figure of a boy, crowned with roses, reclining, with the left hand resting on a basket of roses by his side, and holding in the right hand, which is crossed over his breast, a bunch of the same flowers. The back-ground is filled up with a landscape of trees, etc., beautifully executed but much worn. Summer, on the right hand of the salver, is represented by the upright figure of a boy, crowned with ears of corn, sitting on a bank overshadowed by the boughs of a tree, having a sheaf of corn in his left arm, and a sickle in his right hand. Autumn, at the bottom of the salver, is represented by a boy, crowned with vine leaves and grapes, with his right hand raised to his head and his left hand resting on fruit. Here, as in the opposite compartment, is a landscape with trunks of trees in the fore ground. Winter, at the right hand side of the salver, is represented by the upright figure of a boy, with a curious old fashioned cap on his head, sitting and warming his hands at a fire, the flames of which ascend from the ground and curl up in front of him, Behind him are the boughs of a leafless tree. At the top of the dish is the old silver mark, a three towered castle, and 1.H. surmounted by a star. St. Alban's Parsonage, March 4. E. H. A. DERBYSHIRE TRADESMEN'S TOKENS. An interesting addition to the County History of Derbyshire, has this month emanated under the title of The Tradesmen's Tokens of the Seventeenth Century, of Derbyshire.' Mr. W. H. Brockett, of Gateshead upon Tyne, has most laudably drawn up this list from the Notices extant in the Collections of Thomas Bateman, Esq., of Loneberdale House, to whom the work is dedicated; Mr. William Boyne, F.S.A.; Mr. Llewellyn Jewett, F.S.A., and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The rarity of many of these specimens is so great, that one only is known, hence the reference to so many depositories, to eke out anything like a continued series. descriptive notes are highly illustrative of families and persons who issued them, and the more attractive are accompanied by wood-cuts of truthful effect. The HERO OF BUTLER'S HUDIBRAS. The name of Sir Samuel Rolle of Heanton Sackville, in the parish of Petrockstow, Devon; elder brother of Henry Rolle, Chief Justice of the Upper Bench under the Commonwealth, frequently occurs in the history and records of the period as an active promoter of the Parliament cause. The elder D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, second series, suggests that this worthy knight, and not Sir Samuel Luke, as commonly supposed, was the original of Butler's Hudibras. The following are D'Israeli's words-When Butler wrote his Hudibras, one Colonel Rolle, a Devonshire man, lodged with him, and was exactly like his description of the Knight; whence it is highly probable, that it was this gentleman and not Sir Samuel Luke, whose person he had in his eye. The reason he gave for calling his poem, Hudibras, was, because the name of the old tutelar saint of Devonshire, was Hugh de Bras. Is there any foundation for this passage, beyond what appears in the above extract? and was the tutelar saint of Devonshire ever known in that county? March 14. EDWARD F. RIMBAULT. Hastings, Nov. 4, 1822. Sir,-You will have perceived by an advertisement in the papers, that I am going to publish a play called Don Carlos. Having no conception of the proper method of adapting a play for the stage, I did not offer it to the Theatres, but if upon perusal, it should appear to you fit for this purpose, I should naturally prefer that it should be performed by the admirable Company at Drury Lane, rather than any other. If you have any wish to see it, a copy shall be sent to you, as soon as it is printed off. If it were to be acted, it must be, with considerable curtailments, and also, if you should judge it unfit for acting I should be neither must profess to be from the published edition. surprised nor disappointed. You will have the goodness not to communicate this letter to any one. Of course J. RUSSELL. Nothing but reading will teach spelling. |