Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/90

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NOTES AND QUERIES, rio s. xn. JULY 24, 1900.

TOMMY SHOKT ON ARISTOTLE. In ' Memories,' by the Rev. Frederick Meyrick, the following observation occurs :

"He [Thomas Short] lectured in Aristotle's ' Rhetoric,' and after a time he passed by many years the age at which Aristotle says that man's powers are at their best. It became a great enjoy- ment to various generations of undergraduates to hear him say, when he came to that particular passage, ' In those hot climates, you know, people come to their acme much sooner than with us.' P. 11.

The quotation is not verified. Where does it occur in the ' Rhetoric '? It is not likely that the tutor had in his " mind's eye " the lines of Byron : These few short years make wonderous alterations, Particularly among the sun-burnt nations.

' Don Juan,' Canto I. st. 79.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

MISS LA ROCHE, LADY ECHLIN : SIR FRANCIS BLAKE DELAVAL.

(10 S. xi. 501 ; xii. 38.) THE following extracts from Samuel Foote's letters in the " Delaval Papers" will supplement MR. HORACE BLEACKLEY'S interesting note. Unfortunately, in the majority of the private letters of the Delaval family of the period under notice, the year in which they were written is not given ; and as they were all "franked" letters^ there is no official date-stamp. From collateral evidence, however, Samuel Foote's letters would be written about 1753 ; for Sir Francis Blake Delaval, writing to his brother, informs him, under date 24 March 1753 :

" I have just come from Mr. Foote's Farce, which went off with applause. Miss Macklin danced a minuet, played on a Sandola, and accompanied it with an Italian song, all of which she performed with much elegance."

Foote's letters in which he mentions Miss Roach would be written in the same year as Sir F. B. Delaval's letter. While Foote was the intimate friend of Sir F. B. Delaval he was also the companion of John, after- wards Lord Delaval, and the letters pre- served in the " Delaval Papers " in which reference is made to Miss Roach were addressed to John Delaval.

Under date of 5 April he writes : "I have to thank Dear Mr. Delaval for his last favour, which I own a little disappointed me having flattered myself with the hopes of seeing you in Town with your brother. ' The Englishman at Paris has been better received than I expected.

Garrick and all the Deluise [?] of the Theatre say kinder things of it than modesty will permit me to repeat. Upon the whole it was damnably acted, Macklyn miserably imperfect in the words and in the character (oh, stain to comedy !). You might have seen that 1 meant an English Buck by the power of dulness instantaneously transformed into an Irish Chairman.

"Miss Roach, accompanied by some frippery French women, occupied, to the no small scandal of the whole House, the Prince's Box ; whilst the Duchess of Bedford, &c., &c., were obliged to take up the Seats upon the Stage. The piece will be printed the 25th instant, which I will enclose to you."

On 17 January he writes from " Pal Mai " " To John Delaval, Esq., at Seaton Delaval,

near Newcastle, Northumberland. " I am sorry Dear Mr. Delaval should suppose he wants a subject to interest arid entertain me, whilst he has it in his power to communicate his own happiness and that of his family. To the latter you have this morning a collateral addition by the birth of a Son to Miss Roach."

In a memoir of Sir Francis in ' The Literary Register 'of 1771 (the year of his death) the writer, after describing the marriage and divorce of Sir Francis and Lady Paulet, states that

" in the mean while Miss R h shone in all the splendor of a duchess ; Frank presented her with a new set of magnificent jewels, which she afterwards lost, and was the subject of an inquiry before Sir John Fielding. Like Ninon cle 1'Enclos, she made no secret of her amour, but appeared at Ranelagh, and other public places, with her son and daughter, the pledges of their mutual affection."

Notwithstanding this evidence of the weak side of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, it is only just to add that the grief of his con- temporaries at his death strongly marks his character. With many foibles, caprices, and even vices, Sir Francis was a valuable member of society : he was generous, sincere, affable, and polite ; his social virtues and convivial humour rendered him the soul of all merry meetings and select parties, and he was universally known and beloved. Horace Walpole, writing about Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, asks : " Don't you know that next to Mr. Pitt and Mr. Delaval he is the most iashion- aole man in England ? "

JOHN ROBINSON.

Delaval House, Sunderland.

" CHOPS or THE CHANNEL " (10 S. xii. 27)' MR. ROBBINS must surely have a very mean opinion of the workmanship of the possible that " this familiar phrase " is not recorded in it. If people, before writing to * N. & Q.' to say that a word is omitted from the ' Dictionary,' would examine the
 * !New English Dictionary,' to think it even