Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/419

 10 s. XL MAY i, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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children. Perhaps he was vexed that he had none himself. I can't recollect one child meant to be pleasing in all his original works. There is indeed a fine arch little rascal in the picture of Sancho's feast, the best in the Quixote series.

A. C. ' The Strolling Actresses.'

S. T. C. I have no doubt that the intention of ' The Strolling Actresses ' was to ridicule the mythological school of painting especially the French and Flemish, where Gods and Goddesses were draped when draped at all a la Louis Quatorze. I suspect the bevy (?) at the Luxem- bourg Gallery were not altogether out of Hogarth's thought. The absurd jumble of heathen and Xtian emblems in some allegorical pieces is not overlooked, and the two little devils fighting for a pewter pot on an altar explain themselves more clearly than reverendly (sic). It is an allusion common in Rabelais. There is more of Panta- gruelism in this than in any other of Hogarth's

works, but his genius was not or Rabelaisian.

I cannot think quite so ill of it as C. L. and

did, but it has less imagination and

less truth than the author generally exhibits, | and, only satirizing an obsolete absurdity, has lost whatever meaning it ever possessed. It is j however, a glorious jumble. It could not glance j at the acted Mysteries. Satire on a folly two j centuries dead would be neither humorous nor I intelligible. The operas and English panto- mimes probably suggested a part of the ridicule. It is an amusing scene, but very far from deserving the commendation of H. Walpole. Much of the piquancy may be lost by the lapse of time. Some at least of the figures are most likely portraits of living historical figures. Perhaps more are

caricature copies from pictures. The

Diana does not look like a virgin goddess. She is in truth a Venus, but not Venus Urania. Juno has something of the character of that celestial shrew, the most unamiable person on Olympus. The tragic Muse is the three Eumenides in one. Night is old, but not venerable.

J. SHAWCROSS.

(To be continued.)

PROTESTANT CEMETERIES AT

NAPLES : THE LATE EUSTACE NEVILLE-ROLFE.

IN October, 1908, I was inquiring con- cerning a certain Englishman who died at Naples early in the nineteenth century. My first reference was to the ' Inscriptions at Naples,' given to ' N. & Q.' by COL. G. S. PARRY, to whom I venture to offer my thanks for his laborious collection (10 S. viii. 62, 161, 242, 362, 423). I found the entry which I wanted at the first reference. Wishing to get the ipsissima verba, I wrote to Mr. Neville-Rolfe, C.V.O., who was appointed Consul at Naples in 1895, and Consul-General for Naples and South Italy in 1903. He gave me what I asked for, and I think that the following extracts from his letters are interesting as regards himself aild the inscriptions.

25 Oct., 1908. " Early in the nineteenth- century the now disused British Cemetery was opened, in place of a garden in which the burial of British subjects (Protestants) was tolerated. Some twenty years ago this garden was sold, and I found it up [sic], visited it, and moved all the movable (that is, practically, the Mural Tablets), and put them on the wall of what was then the British Cemetery. The Hunts, who were shot by brigands on the way to Psestum as a newly married couple, were buried in the oldest cemetery, but commemorated in both, so when I moved the mural tablets, I was confronted with the difficulty of two almost, if not quite identical tablets. So I did what I think was right, and put the second one up near the first.

" These from the oldest cemetery would all have been lost but for me, and it is singular that several of them have been asked for, and have proved the only record of the deceased, as there were no registers till 1850, and the Chaplaincy records, even, do not begin till 1820, I think, and for very many years were most irregularly kept. ... .A new British Cemetery was started some

fifteen years ago, and the one where the

slab [that about which I was inquiring] is was closed ....

" P.S. 26/10/08. The earliest burial recorded at the Consulate is May 2, 1819."

I wrote to Mr. Neville-Rolfe, asking him to send me particulars as to the cemeteries and what he had done concerning them, sc- that I might publish the facts in ' N. & Q.' The following is from a letter of his dated Nov. 12, 1908:

" I am getting at the facts about the cemeteries, and will soon send them. Before I was Consul here, I was very keen on archaeology, and used to take in ' N. & Q.,' but I have no time now. Possibly when I retire I shall take it up again.

" The negotiation for what is now the disused cemetery must have taken place about 1824. The records would be at the Legation and in their archives ; but what became of the archives when the Legation was abolished I do not know. I expect they are somewhere in the F.O. library. Those at the Consulate begin about 1842. Besides,, it would be the Minister, and not the Consul, who would treat the matter.

" It was by the merest fluke that I saved those slabs which are now in the disused cemetery. However, you shall hear all about it from me."

I never heard any more, for my old school- fellow Neville-Rolfe, who had looked forward to what he would do when he retired, died on 15 Dec., 1908, a little more than a month after this second letter.

ROBERT PIERPOESTT.

MAY DAY. (Continued from 10 S. ix. 345.)

" Est item consuetudinis, ut juventus pro- miscui sexus laetabunda Cal. Maij exeat in agros, et cantitans inde virides reportet arborum ramos, eosque ante domprum fores ponat, et denique unusquisque eo die aliquid viridis ramusculi vel herbae ferat, quod non fecisse pcena est, praesertim apud Italos, ut madefiat. Haec vel a Romania