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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL OCT. 2, im

ior the pronunciation he preferred for hi name. "It is very probable that he pro nounced it so," says Bruce in the Aldine edition of the poems, " but we do not know Any authority for saying so."

Discussing the poet's playful hypothesis o Ms Scottish genealogy, Southey writes thui In the opening passages of his ' Life o Cowper ' :

"It is not unlikely that he might have been willing to fancy himself related to a good old Scotch bishop of James the First's time, who was his namesake ; but more than this, knowing the history

of his own family, he could not have intended

Bishop Cooper was a native of Edinburgh; and families of that name are to be found wherever a Cooper, or Cow-keeper, or a general dealer (Kooper, Dutch) took the name of his occupation and trans- mitted it to his posterity."

Southey would thus seem to have thought " Cooper " the correct pronunciation, and this surmise receives support from the poet's jocose presumption that the founder of his race, at an indefinite period of the remote past, went south, more Scotico, from Cupar, the county town of Fife.

For a characteristic discussion of the genealogical myth see the ' New Statistical Account of Scotland,' vol. ix., in the de- scription of Abercrombie parish ; and com- pare what is said of Cowper in Conolly's
 * Eminent Men of Fife.' THOMAS BAYNE.

EDWARD DE VERB, I?TH EARL or OXFORD. Referring to Oxford's efforts on behalf of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk {beheaded 1572), S. L. writes in the 'D.N.B.' that Norfolk " was distantly related to him through his kinswoman, Lady Anne Howard, wife of John de Vere, fourteenth earl of Oxford." This is a curious error, for the 14th Earl died without issue, and was succeeded by his second cousin, Sir John Vere, as 15th Earl. The 15th Earl had, with other issue, a son John, 16th Earl (father of Edward, 17th Earl), and a daughter Frances, who married Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, by whom she was mother of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk.

Therefore the Earl and the Duke, instead of being " distantly related," were first cousins. G. H. WHITE.

Lowestoft.

ROSCOE'S TRANSLATION OF CELLINI. A correspondent, writing to The Times Lite- rary Supplement of 12 August, draws atten- tion to a remarkable case of literary piracy in connexion with the above work. As this .seems to be little, if at all, known, it is, I think, worthy of notice in ' N. & Q.' The

correspondent referred to points out that the first English translation of Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography was by Thomas Nugent, who published his version in 1771. Thomas Roscoe, son of William Roscoe, the well-known biographer of Lorenzo de' Medici and of Leo X., published in 1822 " a new edition of the memoirs of Cellini." This work, although it contained a reference to Nugent in the preface (removed in subse- quent editions), made no mention whatever of him on the title-page. Nevertheless Roscoe' s translation, we are told, is virtually an appropriation of Nugent' s work, the two versions, with the exception of a few additions and modifications, being almost identical, word for word. Even the verse translations are taken bodily from Nugent. T. F. D.

" BETHERAL." The ' N.E.D.' gives this word as a variant of " bedral " or beadle, but does not quote any instance of its use. One is, however, to be found in the title of a book, * Ten Years' Experience of a Betheral's Life,' by John Parkhill, Paisley, 1859, of which I have a copy. M.

MRS. ALFRED MELLON (Miss WOOLGAR). The journals of 10 September recorded the passing away of this lady at the age of eighty-five. So many years have elapsed since her retirement from the stage that ler continued life was probably known only quainted with dramatic history. They Tiust be few who have recalled with me the was the delight of their youthful visits to the old Adelphi. With her were Madame Celeste, Paul Bedford, Edward Wright, ). Smith, and others, all favourites ; but he comely looks, the graceful form, the arch flit, the natural, modest acting of Miss Woolgar, joined to the little that was heard >f her private life, invested her with a harm exceeding that of others. No wonder hat to Alfred Mellon, in his early career onductor of the Adelphi orchestra, she >roved irresistible that he wooed and narried her.
 * o her own kin, and to those especially ac-
 * ime when, sixty years ago, Miss Woolgar

Their career was not followed by me when was living abroad, but doubtless all will now >e recorded. Long after Mrs. Mellon' s retire- ment she lived, as a widow, in Beaiifort treet, Chelsea, where, if I remember rightly, he resided in the old Adelphi days. That he was still living I learnt some years ince from the incumbent, the late Rev. R. H. )avies, whom I met in the old church of Chelsea. The obituary does not note her