Few particulars are known of Ann and Rebecca Marshall the daughters of Stephen Marshall, the presbyterian, whose saintly precepts appear in his own family to have passed unheeded. Marshall's publisher was Thomas Underhill, and his son Cave Underhill, was one of the first company including Betterton and Nokes, collected by Henry Rhodes the bookseller, in 1659, to re-open the Cockpit Theatre, in Cockpit alley, Drury Lane. Cave Underhill was possibly the bellweather who led Marshall's daughters astray, as Downes expressly states, Ann Marshall did not join Killigrew's or the King's company, till after their commencement in Riding House Yard, Drury Lane, in April 1663. Rebecca, if not one of the company that season, was certainly there in the next. Pepys in his Diary, 1663-4, records

Feb. 1. To the King's playhouse, and there saw the Indian Queen acted, which indeed is a most pleasant show, and beyond my expectation; but above my expectation most, the elder Marshall did do her part most excellently well, as I ever heard woman in my life; her voice is not so sweet as Ianthe's, however, we come home mightily contented.

The allusion is here to Ann Marshall; Ianthe was Mrs. Saunderson, of the Duke's company, who in the following year was married to Betterton. Pepys seems to have considered 'Beck Marshall' most attractive, and his adoration led him to notice her in preference to her elder' sister Ann. In his Diary, he mentions

Dec. 7, 1666. To the King's playhouse, and saw the Maid's Tragedy, a good play, and well acted, especially by the younger Marshall, who is become a pretty good actor. In the following years, she is the subject of his warmest

encomiums.

Sept. 11, 1667. To the Duke of York's playhouse and there saw part of the Ungratefull Lovers,' and sat by Beck Marshall, whose hand is very handsome. In the next paragraph, Pepys with a glorious chuckle relates Oct. 26. Mrs. Pierce tells me that the two Marshalls at the King's house, are Stephen Marshall the great Presbyterian's daughters; and that Nelly [Gwynne] and Beck Marshall falling out the other day, the latter called the other my Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered herI was but one man's mistress, though I was brought up in a brothel to fill strong water to the gentlemen; and you are mistress to three or four, though a Presbyterian's praying daughter!

Feb. 27, 1667-8. Pepys praises the fine acting of Beck Marshall, in Massinger and Decker's Virgin Martyr; but seems a little astonished at her meretricious agency in the following notice.

April 7. To the King's playhouse. Mrs. Knipp tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is mightily in love with Hart of their house, and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him, and do give him many presents; that the thing is

most certain, and Beck Marshall only privy to it, and the means of bringing them together, which is a very odd thing. His astonishment seems to have abated, for we find him again

May 7. To the King's house, where going in for Knipp, the play being done, I did see Beck Marshall come dressed Nell in her boy's cloaths, mighty pretty; but Lord! their off of the stage, and look mighty fine and pretty; and also confidence, and how many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their talk. The last mention of the younger Marshall by Pepys is but slight.

July 11. To the King's playhouse, to see an old play of Shirley's called Hide Parke; the first day acted; when horses are brought upon the stage. It is but a moderate play, only an excellent epilogue by Beck Marshall. Hamilton in his Memoirs of Count Grammont, narrates erroneously the trick played off on a player of the part of Roxana, by Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford; and Oldys in his History of the English Stage, compiled in 1741 to serve the exigencies of Edmund Curll's son, then blind; refers to Mrs. Marshall as the person alluded to. Evelyn, Jan. 9, 1661-62, notices this actress, who played Roxalana in Davenant's third part of the Siege of Rhodes, in the Duke's company. She was the younger of the two Davenports, and by her connexion with the Earl ceased to be a player. This is simply explained to clear the error generally entertained respecting the elder Marshall, who was of Killigrew's Company. No portraits of the Marshalls are extant.

LADY ANNE BOTHWELL'S LAMENT.

The territorial barony of Glencorse, for at least two centuries, belonged to the family of Bothwell, in whom, upon the death of John, the second Baron, in 1635, was vested the peerage of Holyrood-House. The title devolved on Alexander Bothwell, who married Mary, daughter of Sir James Stewart, a son of Robert, Earl of Orkney, and whose grand aunt, Anne Bothwell, a daughter of Adam Bothwell, bishop of Orkney, was the heroine of the beautiful ballad entitled Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament.

Poetical antiquaries had long advanced various conjectures as to the person of Lady Anne Bothwell, whose Lament is among the choicest gems of Scottish Song, and a divorced Countess of Bothwell was more prominently named; but, it would seem to have passed unnoticed that the Earls of Bothwell were Hepburns not Bothwells, and this perplexity continued until Father Hay, in his Manuscript History of the Holyrood-House family, dissipated all doubt upon the subject, by mentioning that the bishop had a daughter named “Anne, who fell with child to a son of the Earl of Marre." This Lady Anne, by the polite Douglas, as improved by Wood, is excluded from her proper position in the peerage; but the late Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, whose knowledge of the naughty doings of former days has never in the north been surpassed, disclosed the fact in a note, p. 45, in the Household Book of Ladie Marie Stewart, Countess of Marr.

--

It grieves me sore to hear thee weep;
If thou'lt be silent, I'll be glad,
Thy mourning makes my heart full sad.
Balow,t my boy, thy mother's joy ·
Thy father bred me great annoy.
Balow, my darling, sleep a while,
And when thou wak'st, then sweetly smile
But smile not as thy father did,

To cozen maids-may God forbid !

For in thine eye his look I see
The tempting look that ruin'd me.
Balow, my boy, etc.

When he began to court my love,
And with his sugar'd words to move;
His tempting face and flatt'ring chear
In time to me did not appear;
But now I see that cruel he
Cares neither for his babe nor me.
Balow, my boy, etc.

-

Farewell, farewell, thou falsest youth,
That ever kissed a woman's mouth;
Let never any after me
Submit unto thy courtesie,
For if thou do, O, cruel thou!

Wilt her abuse, and care not how.
Balow, my boy, etc.

I was too cred'lous at the first,
To yield thee all a maiden durst;
Thou swore for ever true to prove

;

Thy faith unchanged, unchanged thy love;
But quick as thought the change is wrought;
Thy love's no more-thy promise nought.
Balow, my boy, etc.

Douglas' Peerage of Scotland, revised by Wood, 1813, folio, Vol. i. p. 680, erroneously described as the fourth son. † Balow, a Scottish lullaby, or term used by a nurse when lulling her child, supposed to be part of an old French lullaby Bas, le loup; or as the Scottish term is sometimes pronounced, balililow, qu. bas, là le loup?—' lie still, there is the wolf, or the wolf is coming.' In Godly Ballates, quoted by Ritson, in his Essay on Scottish Song, this is written somewhat differently, as the name of an old Scottish tune, 'Followis ane sang of the birth of Christ, with the tune of Baw lu la law.

Zachary Boyd, in his Battell of the Soul in Death, p. 308, observes Well is that soul which God in mercie exerciseth daylie with one crosse or other, not suffering it to be rocked and lulled with Sathan's balowes in the cradle of Security.

I would I were a maid again,
From young men's flatt'ry I'd refrain;
For now, unto my grief, I find,
They are all perjur'd and unkind.
Bewitching charms bred all my harms
Witness my babe lies in my arms.
Balow, my boy, etc.

I take my fate from bad to worse,
That I must needs be now a nurse,
And lull my young son on my lap
From me, sweet orphan, take the pap.
Balow, my child, thy mother mild,
Shall wail, as from all bliss exiled.
Balow, my boy, etc.

Balow, my son, weep not for me,
Whose greatest grief's for wronging thee;
Nor pity her deserved smart,

Who can blame none but her fond heart;
For too soon trusting, latest finds

With fairest tongues are falsest minds.
Balow, my boy, etc.

Balow, my boy, thy father's fled,
When he the thriftless son has play'd;
Of vows and oaths forgetful, he
Preferr'd the wars to thee and me;
But now, perhaps, thy curse and mine
Make him eat acorns with the swine.

Balow, my boy, etc.

But curse not him; perhaps now he, Stung with remorse, is blessing thee. Perhaps at death,-for who can tell Whether the Judge of Heaven or Hell, By some proud foe has struck the blow, And laid the dear seducer low.

Balow, my boy, etc.

I wish I were into the bounds

Where he lays smother'd in his wounds,
Repeating, as he pants for air,

The name of her he once call'd fair;
No woman's yet so fiercely set,
But she'll forgive, though not forget.
Balow, my boy, etc.

If linen lacks, for my love's sake,
Then quickly to him would I make
My smock-once for his body meet
And wrap him in that winding sheet.
Ah, me! how happy had I been
If he had ne'er been wrapt therein.
Balow, my boy, etc.

Balow, my boy, I'll weep for thee,
Too soon, alas! thou'lt weep for me;
Thy griefs are growing to a sum,

God grant thee patience when they come:
Born to sustain thy mother's shame
O hapless fate! -a bastard's name.
Balow, my boy, etc.

possibly, some day or other, an heir may come forward The peerage of Holyrood-House is in abeyance, and

to claim it.

Edinburgh, August 3.

J. M.

RATCLIFFE.-Pittis, in his Life of John Radcliffe, M.D., founder of the Ratcliffe Library, Oxford, details the particulars of the Honours which were observed on the day of his funeral, Dec. 3, 1714, in St. Mary's Church, Oxford, his grave being as there stated, p. 85, 'on the south-east side of the organ.' From some cause that this was the exact position of the body was long a matter of doubt; but the following extract from the British Press newspaper, Thursday Sept. 9, 1819, affords some elucidation:

The coffin containing the remains of Dr. Ratcliffe, the munificent benefactor to the University of Oxford, was last week discovered deposited in one of the vaults of St. Mary's Church, in that University. The spot where he was buried was not before known.

Carmine Latino solvendum.

Pars prior est Signum, decies triginta,* triunum, Et, quod mireris, ter tria plusque decem. Altera sed nitido dives gratissima toto,

Et Fauno, et pecori Castaliæque gregi.† Totus arat totum, tondet, totumque pererrat, Canus et Arctoa stat nive, statque gelu. Et totum pascit, totumque bibitque vehitque, Filius et Nili, Pamphyliamque legit. Stat vere in cœlo, volitatque per aëra pennis, In fronte et cauda plurima gemma micat. Phoenissam rapuit, Romæque ædilis et augur; Et Siculis quondam causa timoris erat. Tolle caput, reliquis decies tamen adjice quinque, Fit gratum Phobo Pieridumque choro. Adde duplum, tumido fervescunt æquora fluctu, Et fera Sarmatico turbine sævit hyems. Multiplica decies, præstat Gætulus Iarbas, Risuque in fusco perspicuum fit ebur! Hawkshead, August 12.

LETTRE DE CACHET. It is stated the Lettre de Cawas an order for incarceration in the Bastille; and I have heard it had a wider range. Can any reader of Current Notes briefly explain what was really the purport of the so generally dreaded Lettre de Cachet? Glasgow, August 3.

J. H.

A Lettre de Cachet was any written order emanating from the king, and expressive of his will; the term was not confined simply to orders for arrest.

WRECK OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

The Rev. J. C. M. Bellew, Assistant Minister, St. and Self-Sacrifice, preached for the benefit of the Phillip's, Regent Street, in a sermon entitled Selfishness late Duchess of Gloucester, born April 25, 1776, who Cambridge Military Asylum, made an allusion to the died April 30, 1857

The Cambridge Asylum has lately lost its Lady President, who was indeed to it a Ruth, a constant unselfish, self-sacrificing and protecting friend. She was a soldier's widow. In her death has been broken the last link that connected us with the reign of George the Third. the wrecks of death!

A piece of the wreck of the Royal George
For the people's pity and wonder.

Such are

Death which spares none, but hurries alike the poor soldier and the King's daughter to the Grave.*

The preacher in quoting these lines, observes, they occur in some poetry, written on meeting King George the Third on the Terrace at Windsor, when doubtless the majesty of mind was gone. That he had not for more than twenty years, met with the poem, and was alike ignorant of the writer, or where it could be seen. 'He believed it was attributed to Wolfe; for beauty and pathos it is worthy of the mind that composed the Burial of Sir John Moore.'

Wolfe was not likely to write such lines, or on such a subject; may I ask if any reader of Current Notes can point to the source from whence they come? August 8.

N. J.

Sermons printed for W. and T. Boone, 1857, vol. II.

D. B. H.

p. 394.

TANTAMOUNT.—Another authority similar to that quoted in Current Notes, p. 56, occurs in Udal ap Rhys' Account of Spain, 1749, 8vo. p. 14, where speaking of the privileges formerly pertaining to the Arragonese, he notices one that related to the terms and conditions upon which they chose their kings:

The form was as follows, Nos, que valemos tanto como

vos, os hazemos nuestro Rey y Señor, con tal que guardeis nuestros Fueros y Libertades. Si no, no.' i.e. We, who are

as good as you, make you our Lord and King, provided you

maintain our Rights and Liberties. If not, no.

This privilege the people of Arragon retained till about the end of the Eleventh Century, when it was abrogated by King Pedro the First.

Athenæum, Pall Mall, August 3.

R.

UNIVERSITY BOOKSELLERS OR STATIONERS.

In the Partidas in Spain, the law respecting tioners supplies some interesting facts. It was enacted

FUNERAL VERSES ON ANNE OF DENMARK.

Anne, daughter of Frederick the Second, King of Denmark, and wife of King James the First, died at Hampton Court, March 1, 1619. In a copy of Camden's Remains, third impression, 1623, 4to. p. 344, I once found a folded sheet-- Vpon the Death of Queene Anne, wife of our Sovereigne Lord King James. Funeral Oxford, Doctor of Divinity and Chaplaine to Her MaVerses written by William Swadon, of New College in matical woodcut. The fact of having thus found it, and jesty. The monumental inscription has an anagramalso twice in Munday's edition of Stowe, 1633, folio, between pp. 814-815, induces my suggesting to collectors to examine their copies of these works, as from the manner in which the sheet was placed in these volumes, it would seem that it was originally in both. Oxford, August 11. P. B.

NAPOLEON THE FIRST.

Every University to be complete should have in it Stationers (estacionarios) who have in their shops (estaciones) good books, legible and correct both in text and gloss, to let out to the scholars, either to make from them new books, or to correct those which they had already written. And no one without leave of the Rector, was to have or hold such a booth (tienda) or shop. And the Rector, before he granted his licence, ought firstly to have the books of this person who would keep the shop examined, to know whether they be good, legible and genuine. And he ought not to consent that any one who has not such books should become a stationer, nor let out his books to the scholars, at least not before they have been corrected. The Rector ought also, with advice of others, to set a price how much the stationer should receive for every sheet which he lends the scholars to write from or to correct their books; and, moreover, the Rector ought to demand good bond from him, that he will preserve faithfully and well all books which are entrusted to him to sell, and not use any deceit whatever.

Tienda, here rendered booth, is still the word in use in Spain for those inferior shops where everything is sold. The word explains its own history. Every army had traders who followed it to sell provisions and buy | plunder, and their shops were Tents. The word corresponding to estaciones would be standings, a phrase still retained in country fairs or markets. These are strictly speaking, booths; but when the Partidas were written, tienda denoted a booth, and estacion a shop, for trade was advancing, and its self evident improvement had created a new meaning to old terms.

Hence the word Stationer, now generally expressive of a vendor of paper, is a designation which would have been in every respect equally applicable to any other settled trade. R. F.

Again it is stated, the Bonapartes are said to have adopted the name of Napoleon from Napoleon des Ursins, a distinguished character in Italian story, with one of whose descendants they became connected by marriage; and the first of the family to whom it was given was a brother of Joseph Buonaparte, the grandfather of Napoleon I. The jeux de mot which have been made on the name are many, but one noticed in Litterature Française Contemporaine, Vol. ii. p. 266, is deserving of note.

The word Napoleon being written in Greek characters will form seven different words, by dropping in succession the first letter of each. Thus Ναπολέων, Απολεων, Ρόλεων, Ολεων, Λεων, Εων, Ων. These words constitute a complete sentence, and are thus translated into French-Napoléon, étant le lion des peuples, allait détruisant les cités.

M.

BRANDENBURG WINE.-The boors or country people near Frankfort, Brandenburg, and Berlin, in the seventeenth century, bragged so much of their vineyards and wine, which notwithstanding were so execrable, that their neighbours in Upper Saxony were wont to frighten their young children to school by threatening to otherwise make them drink Brandenburg Wine.