Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/609

 10 S. XL JUNE 26, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

501

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 2>J, 1909.

CONTENTS. No. 287.

JfOTES : Miss La Roche, Lady Echlin, 501 ' Englands Parnassus,' 502 Epitaphiana, 504 Swinburne and Mau- passant Broadside : Guildhall Donation Orcadian Surnames Name Corruption : Mountain Bower, 505 " Conservative " as a Political Term Snakes generated out of Human Brains Deare Family Navarino Sur- vivor Cowper Misprint, 506 The Borrowing Days, 507.

QUERIES : Malherbe's ' Stances a Du Perrier 'Pewter Plate- " Hackbut bent " Black Da vies Thomas Bullock Richard Whyte.c. 1744 Healen Penny Brillat-Savarin in New York ' An Excursion to Jersey,' 507 " Resting ": Dressing Stone Cawdor Dispatch Lumley Family Pins for Thorns Sir Cuthbert Slade "Outroper" Aberdeen Maps and Plans Archbishop Blackburne, 508 Baughan: Boffin John Clapham, Elizabethan Author " Haugh- endo" : Fylde Oath Walcheren Ruby Wedding Twiss's 'Verbal Index to Shakespeare" "Davelly" Rain, 509 Walt Whitman on Alamo Miles Corbet " At the back of beyond "The Brook, Liverpool, 510.

REPLIES : Gaol Literature, 510 Robert Noyes, 512 Tennyson Concordance Benerode ^" Comether," 513 Naseby Field Swedish Painters in England "The Wooset" Harbours Bank-Note Sandwich, 514 Sir Lewis Pollard" Napier Tavern," Holborn Lynch Law, 515 Goose with One Leg St. Sunday Daniel Defoe's Wife Manor Court Terms, 516 Struan Robertson " Brokenselde " "Tha" woodin image " Tuesday Night's Club Earl of Westmorland's Elopement, 517 "Lumber" Dead Animals on Trees and Walls "Rhombus" "Though lost to sight": "The Nun' Byron's 'Bride of Abydos' Stevenson and the Housemaid Treyssac de Vergy, 518.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Anne Seymour Darner' 'The Greatness and Decline of Rome ' ' The Judgment of Paris.'

OBITUARY : Edward Merton Dey.

.Notice to Correspondents.

MISS LA ROCHE, LADY ECHLIN.

IN G. E. C.'s ' Complete Baronetage,' v. 343, there is the following reference to the wife of Sir Henry Echlin, 3rd Baronet :

" He married Emily La Roche, daughter of the Governor of Martinico. She is so described in the pedigree entered in Ulster Office, 16 Feb., 1806, by Robert Echlin, brother to Sir James, the then Baronet. In ' Pue's Occurrences ' his marriage is given as being in Sept., 1758, at Edinburgh, to Miss Roach of Curzon Street, Mayfair but the date of the marriage licence at Dublin, in which she is called Elizabeth Roach of the parish of St. Peter (Dublin), spinster, is 28 Jan., 1762. Presumably, however, all three notices refer to the same person."

The first portion of this paragraph would seem to be inaccurate, as I am informed by Mr. H. H. Ball (who has looked up one or two references to this lady for me) that there is no one of the name of Roche or La Roche in the list of Governors of the French colony of Martinique. It is quite possible, however, that she went through the ceremony of marriage on two occasions with the same

husband, as there are several instances in the eighteenth century, particularly if a wedding had been celebrated in Scotland, in which this was done. It seems probable that the date of the first marriage, as given in ' Pue's Occurrences,' is correct, as Sir Henry and Lady Echlin sat for their portraits to Reynolds in October and November, 1759. See ' Life of Reynolds,' by Leslie and Taylor, i. 178.

The Town and Country Magazine declares that Miss Roche was seduced at an early age by Sir Francis Blake Delaval, and became his mistress. In vol. iii. pp. 420-22, she is thus described :

" This lady, who was as remarkably beautiful for a woman, as Frank was for a man, seemed predestined to unite in a happy union with him. They had been acquainted from their childhood, and a mutual fondness increased as they advanced towards maturity. This lady was of a good family and possessed of a genteel fortune, which was expended in the course of this alliance, that lasted some years. During the lifetime of his father Sir Francis was much streightened in his finances, and the occasional assistance he received from Miss R was very seasonable. But a life of incessant gaiety and dissipation at length brought her affairs into as embarrassed a situa- tion as his own .... Her marriage with Sir Henry E n, a weak good-natured young man, made her almost forget her foibles and intrigues, till a separation replaced her in the full meridian of gallantry."

Other references to her will be found in the same magazine at ii. 570 ; iii. 408 ; v. 289 ; vL 10, 180 ; vii. 300 ; x. 290, 457-8 ; xiii. 177 ; xviL 626 ; and the context leaves no doubt that Miss Roach, Roche, or La Roche, the wife of Sir Henry Echlin, is indi- cated. We are told that before her marriage she bore Sir Francis Delaval a son and a daughter, and that on one occasion she sent a challenge to a lady whom she regarded as a rival :

" They met in Hyde Park : Miss R, like a genuine amazon, produced her pistols. The joke had its effect : they laughed together over negus in the Green Park Coffee House."

The Town and Country Magazine regards her as having been " one of the most beautiful and polite demi-reps in the republic of gallantry."

The statement with regard to her ille- gitimate children is corroborated by The Gazetteer of 19 Aug., 1771, which says : " Sir F. Blake Delaval is said to have left 10,OOOZ. each to two natural children by Miss La Roche, now Lady A [sic]." In his will at Somerset House, dated 20 July, 1771, the knight left not 10,000/., but 1,000^. each, to " my natural son Francis Delaval, now at., Mr. Angelo's Academy," and to " my