Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/542

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NOTES AND QUERIES. cio- s. i. JUNE 4, 190*.

the Hu'.el des Ventes. The library comprised 206 theological, 76 juridical, 511 scientific and artistic books, 3,434 volumes in the domain of polite litera- ture, and 4,892 historical works."

F. C. J.

WILLIAM III. CROWNED IN IRELAND. The

6 juillet, au service divin dans la cathedrale, ou 4tait le roi, ' auquel on mit, dit-il, la couronne d'lr- lande sur la tete avec les ceremonies accoutumees.' Macaulay releve cette circonstance et dit que :

couronne.' "
 * Dumont est le seul qui fasse mention de la

EUGENE F. McPiKE. Chicago, U.S.

THE LONDON SEASON.

" London becomes a mere blank after the 4th of June. Nobody remains in Town ; it is too hot, too suffocating ! Everybody therefore retires to their seats, if they have them ; and the rest fly to Mar- gate, Ramsgate, and Brighton, those capacious i-eceptacles." ' Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Cen- tury, with a Review of the State of Society in

1807,' by James Peller Malcolm, second edition, 1810, vol. ii. p. 423.

Possibly the fact that the 4th of June was the birthday of George III. had something to do with the desertion of London by that date in the early part of the nineteenth century. Nowadays the London season is supposed to end some seven weeks later.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

SIR H. M. STANLEY'S NATIONALITY. The following letters from the Daily Neivs seem worth reprinting in the pages of 'N. & Q.' for the benefit of future historians. On 13 May this communication appeared :

Thirty-two years ago a discussion that arose as to the nationality of the then Mr. Stanley was deemed to have shown that he was a Welshman. In the Daily News of 27 August, 1872, however, was published the following letter to myself, in which Mr. Stanley made quite a different claim :

London, August 22.

My Dear Ollivant, A thousand thanks for your letter and clippings. If I were to answer all the letters that I have received about such questions as

ii j v Journal propounds, I should certainly be called an idiot, and deservedly so. I care not what anybody writes about me, nor do I intend to notice them. If English or Welsh folks are so gullible as to believe all the "rot" they read about me I cannot help it nor have I a desire to help it in

any way. But for you, and such kind friends, I say I am an Anierican, and can prove it by over ten thousand friends in the United States. The letter in the Rhyl Journal is all bosh. I never knew a man named Evans, nor have I ever sung a Welsh song not knowing anything of the language. My name is neither Thomas, Rowlands, Smith, Jones, nor Robinson, but plain Henry M. Stanley. At sixteen I was in Missouri, at seventeen in Arkansas, at eighteen in New Orleans, at nineteen in Europe travelling, at twenty in the war, and so on. Yours, &c.,

(Signed) HENRY M. STANLEY. CHARLES OLLIVANT. The Ranche, Bath, 11 May, 1904.

Mr. Ollivant's second letter was printed in the Daily Neivs of 19 May :

Referring to my letter in your journal of Friday last, 13th in^t., I write to correct an erroneous im-

Eression it appears to have made, viz., that in my elief Sir H. M. Stanley was an American. I cer- tainly was under that impression when I first received the letter from the then " plain Henry M. Stanley." But shortly after its appearance in the Daily News, 27 August, 1872, Lord Granville had the documents placed before him proving Mr. Stanley to be a native of Wales. I sent his letter for republication in your journal simply as a curious historical document, there being no question what- ever as to his being a Welshman.

CHARLES OLLIVANT. The Ranche, Bath, 17 May.

HERBERT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

NAPOLEON'S POWER OF AWAKING. Amongst the curiosities in the possession of the late Princess Mathilde was an excellent alarum clock, made in 1810 by the famous clock maker Abraham Breguet for the Emperor Napoleon. It is a perfect piece of clockmaking, the best alarum ever made by Breguet, and considered by him to be his masterpiece. However, the fact of its existence puts an end to the long- existing legend that the Emperor could wake from sleep at any given moment he willed.

This reveille-matin is simply of bronze, gilt and chased ; but it has no fewer than eight dials : these indicate the real time, mean time, phases of the moon, seconds, days of the week and of the month, the month and the year. It is provided with a small metal thermometer, and strikes the hours and quarters. It accompanied the Emperor on his campaigns in Russia and France.

J. LORAINE HEELIS.

Penzance.

[MR. H. B. CLAYTON is thanked for an account of this clock from the Daily Chronicle of 12 May. ]

NATALESE. The Natal Witness of 16 April speaks of Natalese as a synonym for the colonial-born English and Boers in Natal, in place of the more usual Natalians. The former word seems more strictly in analogy