Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/18

 10

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. JAN. 2,

death in 1710. The 'DN.B.' makes no men- tion of his wife. What was her maiden name 1 When did he marry her"? and where?

BERNARD P. SCATTERGOOD.

" O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL." Can MR.

SHEDLOCK or some of your readers inform me as to the origin of the tune popularly known as the ' Portuguese Hymn ' ? There seems some reason for believing that the tune was written by John Reading, a pupil of Dr. Blow. In a notice of the Christmas service at the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral in the Daily Telegraph of 26 December last, it is stated : " Recently, it may be noted, the melody was restored to its simple form and key, and each of the eight verses being harmonized by a different British musician, the variety of treatment thus obtained proved exceedingly interesting."

N. S. S. [See ' Adeste Fideles,' Fifth Series, General Index.]

HENRY, EARL OF STAFFORD. ON HIS

FRENCH WIFE.

(9 th S. xii. 466.)

THE eccentric provisions of Lord Stafford's will are known to students of Grammont, and the passage quoted by DR. FURNIVALL will be found in the introduction, p. xxv, of Mr. Gordon Goodwin's edition of the 'Memoirs,' published by Mr. A. H. Bullen in 1903. The exact date of the will is 2 Feb- ruary, 1699/1700, a year later than that given by DR. FURNIVALL The earl subsequently added two codicils to his will, but no mention of his wife was made in either of them. He died without issue, 27 April, 1719, in his seventy-second year, and was buried in West- minster Abbey. He had been an adherent of James II., and followed his master to St. Germain-en-Laye, where on 3 April, 1694, he marned Claude Charlotte, the elder of the two daughters of Philibert de Grammont and Elizabeth Hamilton. These two girls were described by the Marquis de Dangeau ('Journal,' i. 241) as great intriguers, and better known in society than many belles, though very ugly. They seem to have inherited the wit and vivacity of their father without partaking of the beauty of their mother. Claude, though not in her first youth, was eighteen years younger than her husband, and scandal had already been busy with her name in connexion with the young Duke of Orleans, afterwards the celebrated Regent.

of Orleans, whose maid of honour Mile, de Grammont had been, persuaded
 * ls L s, aid that his mother, the Duchess

Lord Stafford to marry her. However this may have been, the union between a stolid, middle - aged Englishman and the lively daughter of a French father and a Scoto-Irish mother could hardly be expected to turn out happily. Lady Stafford, both in youth and age, was one of those characters that Thackeray was happy in depicting. Her girlhood was that of Beatrix Esmond ; her old age that of the Baroness Bernstein, with a dash of Lady Kew. She probably had her husband in her thoughts when she uttered the words recorded by Lord Hervey in refer- ence to Queen Caroline and George II. :

"Pour moi, je trouve qu'on juge tres mal si cette pauvre Princesse avait le sens commun, elle doit etre embarrasse dans sa situation ; quand on a un tel role a jouer, qu'on doit epouser un sot Prince et viyre avec un desagreable animal toute sa vie privee, on doit sentir ses malheurs, et je suis sure qu'elle est sotte, et meme tres sotte, puis qu'elle n'est pas embarrasses et qu'elle ne parait point confondue dans toutes les nouveautus parmi les- quellea elle se trouve."

As things turned out, Lady Stafford, not- withstanding Lord Hervey's opinion of her judgment, was completely mistaken in her view of the situation. The queen, instead of vividly feeling her position in being yoked to so disagreeable a husband as George II., played her part through life with the cheer- ful and unembarrassed bearing that had distinguished her when she first made the acquaintance of the king, and succeeded in securing as much affection as it was in his power to give to any woman.

Lady Stafford, when in England, used to live at Twickenham, where she became on very intimate terms with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. When, in 1727, the old countess set out for France, Lady Mary wrote to her sister, the Countess of Mar, that her friend had carried half the pleasures of her life with her ; she was more stupid than she could describe, and could think of nothing but the nothingness of the good things of this world. She relates the scandal that arose from the intimacy of the second Duchess of Cleveland with her husband's young kins- man, Lord Sidney Beauclerk, the father of Johnson's friend Topham, and sends her a copy of verses on the same theme, winding up 'with an ill-founded and ill-natured mot of Lady Stafford's. Walpole knew the old lady in his childhood, and averred that she had more wit than either of her neighbours, Lady Mary or the Duke of Wharton. She died in 1739, and her will, dated 13 May in that year, was proved three days later by Charles, Earl of Arran, to whom she left all her property.