Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/297

 10 s. XIL SEPT. 25, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1909.

CONTENTS. No. 300.

NOTES : Harriet Powell, 241 The Slovaks, 242 News- papers in 1680 Fausti Verantii Novse Machinse,' 243- Laurence Oliphantand his Wives "The Dog and Pot," 244 Insect Names in Scotland " Coup de Jarnac" Shakespeare Statuette, 245 The Electrophone and Lord Rosebery Actor versus Preacher Dozmare Pool and Tregeagle, 246.

QUERIES : Ladies and Side-SaddlesSir Jacob Jacobsen Bishop Ernest Wilberforce The White Tree of Crocker- ton Hill Rev. Brooke Heckstall Turnspit Dogs, 247 "Lord Glencairn" St. Bartholomew, the Benedictines, and Otford Rev. George Markham Bee-Sting Cure for Rheumatism, 248 Saffron Walden Abbey and Launde Priory James IV. of Scotland Queen Elizabeth and the Bishop of Ely Armada Ships wrecked off Ayrshire- Hawk and Eagle Furness Abbey "Pertesen" Monro : Livingstone : Primrose, 249 ' Dimes and Dollars ' : Edwin Waugh's Lancashire Recitations, 250.

REPLIES : Charles Lamb and his Pepe, 250' Notes and Queries ' Commemoration Mrs. and Miss Vanneck Jacob Cole, 251 Sainte-Beuve on Castor and Pollux, 252 Burial-Places of Notable Englishwomen Gotham and the Gothamites Ensor and Paul Families Hocktide, 253 Rushlights London Taverns in the Seventeenth Century Old Names of Apples Sacred Place-Names in Foreign Lands, 254 Triple Chancel Arches " Shot at the rook " Pigott's 'Jockey Club 'Authors Wanted, 255 Virgin Mary's Nut Bishop Heber Strode's Regiment Cockburnspath, 256 Original Letters of Sir John Fastolf First Elephant Exhibited Twelve Surname Court of Requests, 257 Oregon St. Barbara's Emblems" Castle Inn," Birmingham Joanna and the Westmorland Hills James II. 's Last Words Tildens of Tenterden " No Flowers " ' Browning as a Preacher,' 258.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Reade's ' Johnsonian Gleanings ' Waddington's ' Chapters of my Life ' ' Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

HARRIET POWELL. (See 9 S. ix. 267, 512 ; x. 145.)

ALTHOUGH the following notes may not clear away the mystery which surrounds this beautiful lady, they will help to throw some light upon her career. According to the ' Life of Reynolds,' by Leslie and Taylor, i. 347, she sat to the great artist in the character of Leonora in ' The Padlock,' in March, 1769. A mezzotint after this picture 'by Elizabeth Judkins was published on 1 July, 1770, and another by Richard Houston on 1 May, 1771. The most charm- ing, however, of all the portraits of Harriet Powell was painted by Catherine Read, depicting her as playing the guitar, and this was engraved by Houston on 1 Oct., 1769. Apparently there is no evidence that she .adopted the stage as a profession, and it may have been the whim of the artist to paint her as Leonora, but it is evident from the date of her portraits that she had foecome a fashionable beauty as early as

the beginning of 1769. A little later she began to be noticed by the reporters of the press, and at a masquerade at Madamo Cornelys's on 14 May, 1770, we are told that advantage as a shepherdess." The first piece of evidence with regard to her con- nexion with her faithful protector occurs in ' The Nelson and Hamilton Papers,' Second Series (1893), i. 18. Writing from St. James's Square on 12 Feb., 1773, Charles Greville tells Sir William Hamilton :
 * Miss Harriot Powell appeared to great

" I have just come from a masquerade at Almack. Triste au dernier point, only three or four girls of the town ; one (Harriet Powel or Lamb) with Lord Seaforth."

The writer here confuses two celebrated ladies. Harriet Lambe, whose name originally may also have been Powell, was an entirely different person from the subject of this note, and she was connected with Lord Melbourne and Lord Weymouth, but never with Lord Seaforth ; vide ' Memoirs of Mrs. Sophia Baddeley,' v. 150 ; Town and Country Magazine, iii. 67-8 ; ' Harris's List of Co vent Garden Ladies for 1773,' p. 114.

It is apparent from The Town and Country Magazine, v. 403, that the liaison between Seaforth and Miss Powell was continuing in August, 1773; and on 23 July, 1774, George Selwyn writes to Lord Carlisle : " Lord Seaforth and Harriot set out on Monday for Flanders, and thence to Paris." Hence- forth, until her death, the pair seem to have been inseparable.

It was in the May number of The Town and Country Magazine for 1775 that the

portraits and memoirs of " Lord S and

Miss Harriot P 1 " appeared among the "Histories of the Tete-a-Tetes." A long account is given of the lady's career. She is described as

" the daughter of an apothecary, who resided in the Borough, and who, after giving her a very genteel education, found his business so far diminish. . . .that he was incapable of supporting her in a manner he wished. .. .The elegance of her manner and the beauty of her person could not fail to give pleasure to all who beheld her."

After the death of her father she took up her abode, we are told, with the notorious Charlotte Hayes, where she was patronized by "a certain foreign count." Then she happened to meet Lord Seaforth at Vauxhall.

" He lost no opportunity to withdraw her from Charlotte's [Hayes], and having furnished her a genteel house in the New Buildings, he came and resided entirely with her.... They are, perhaps, the happiest couple out of the pale of matrimony .... and this alliance, which appears to have a very permanent basis, may be cited as