Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/243

 18* S. I. MARCH 5, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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beside literary men and antiquaries. The contents of the two volumes now issued are remarkably diversified. Vol. iii. deals largely with our em- bassies to Muscovy, the reception accorded to our ambassadors, and the concessions made to our mer- chants. In an appendix is furnished ' The Ambas- sage of Sir Hierome Bowes to the Emperor of Moscovie,' containing a full account of the "stout" and heroical discharge of his duties in a Court where, as representative of his queen, Bowes wore his hat in the royal presence, even though the hat of the French ambassador had been nailed to his head for a like offence. Bowes asserted that he represented no cowardly King of France, but the invincible Queen of England, who did not veil her bonnet nor bare her head to any prince living. His plucky behaviour recommended him to his barbarous host, and his name, celebrated in England by Milton and by Pepys, was also long held in honour in Russia. Ambassadors at that time had something to do besides "lie abroad for the commonwealth," as says Sir Henry Wotton. Only less interesting are the early ambassages of Thomas Randolph and others. Concerning the Muscovites generally many quaint utterances are given. "Their diet is rather much then curious," an utterance which somehow reminds us of Dickens's often-quoted phrase " extensive and peculiar.'' An account of the Turkish or Russian bath is given when, under date 1588, we read how the Russians " sometimes (to season their bodies) come out of their bathstoves all on a froth, and fuming as hoat almost as a pigge at a spit, and presently to leape into the river starke naked or to powre cold water all over their bodies, and that in the coldest of all the winter time." In the midst of these prosaic descriptions and State documents, English and foreign, it is curious to come upon the rimed messages of George Turberville, the poet, also an ambassador to Russia, describing to his "Dancie dear" (his special friend Master Edward Dancie) how the Russes are

A people passing rude, to vices vile inclinde, Folke fit to be of Bacchus' traine so quaffing is

their kinde. Drinke is their whole desire, the pot is all their

pride, The sobrest head doth once a day stand needfull of

a guide.

In the account of the earliest travels into Persia are many edifying passages describing " the tree which beareth Bombasin cotton, or Gossampine," how "Christians become Busormen" or Moham- medan converts, &c.

The most notable portion of vol. iv. consists of the immortal description of ' The Vanquishing of the Spanish Armada, Anno 1588,' and that of 'The Honourable Voyage to Cadiz, Anno 1596.' After these things at the outset of the second volume of the folio edition, vol. iv. p. 269 of the present reprint conies a series of early voyages, some of them more or less apocryphal, beginning before the incarnation of Christ. Many of these are brief records derived from Matthew Paris, Holinshed, Camden, &c., the Latin text and a translation being both given. The voyage of King Richard I. into Asia is taken from Foxe's book of 'Acts and Monuments.' Very briefly treated are the victories of Sir John Hawkwood and the travels to Jerusalem, 1399, of Thomas, Lord Mow- brey, Duke of Norfolke, banished by Richard II.

Admirably executed illustrations constitute still a delightful feature. The frontispiece to vol. iii. is a portrait of Sir Jerome Bowes, looking very gallant in his ambassadorial dress, from the picture at> Charlton Park. A portrait of Abd' Ullah Khan is from a MS. in the British Museum. Others follow of Abraham Ortelius, from his ' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum,' and of Gerardus Mercator and Jodocus Hondius, from the first English edition of Mercator's 'Atlas.' Burrough's 'Chart of the Northern Ocean ' is of singular interest. A curious picture of a Russian Lodia, or small coaster, a plan of Moscow, 1571, and a map of Russia, 1571, are also provided. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, is the frontispiece to vol. iv., and is succeeded by Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, Sir Horatio Pallavicini, the Earl of Essex, and Sir Robert Southwell. There are also designs of the Ark Royal, and many admirably helpful designs of sea fights.

A Brief History of Old English Porcelain and it* Manufactories. By M. L. Solon. (Bemrose Sons.)

THIS splendid and admirably illustrated volume is a boon to the collector and the connoisseur. With praiseworthy modesty, the author, to whom is already owing ' The Art of the Old English Potter,' affirms that he claims to have contributed no fresh materials to what has been gathered by his predecessors. All that he prides himself on having done is to have banished from his work all that is inaccurate and most that is superfluous. That a fair number of works on the subject are in existence is proven by the bibliography of British books which he adds at the close of his volume- He may, however, at least be credited with supply- ing in a compact and convenient form a history of the great manufactories of English porcelain, together with marvellously executed reproductions in black or in colour of some of their most character- istic products. Before all things Mr. Solon is an- enthusiast. In his opening page he speaks of Oriental porcelain, with its substance " as white and pure as the petals of a lily"; its texture "as dense and translucent as that of the onyx, and as soft [qy. smooth?] to the touch as the nacreous lining of a shell" ; and the colours with which it is enamelled rivalling " in brilliancy those that glitter on the wing of a gorgeous butterfly." With the attempts in England to produce a translucent ware his book is concerned. The first recorded effort of the kind dates from 1671, when John Dwight mad_e experiments in that direction in Fulham. It is not, however, till 1745 that the author finds the china works at Bow and Chelsea in working order, to be followed, a few years later, by those at Derby and Worcester. The first attempts to obtain soft china by a mixture of chemical substances fused into what is called a " frit" were speedily successful- For the account of these processes, and of the porcelaine tendre of Vincennes and Saint-Cloud, the reader must consult the book. Between 1745 and 1820 a score different manufactories are described. That slight recognition or, rather, entire neglect is accorded English pottery by foreign historians and connoisseurs is attributed in part to the fact that writers on the subject borrow, mis- understand, and misquote from the somewhat antiquated ' Collection towards a History of Pottery and Porcelain' of Marryat. To Thomas- Frye, one of the managers of the works at Bow