Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/530

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. n. NOV. 20, 190*.

to her, and was firmly and artistically snubbed for his pains. She married privately "Handsome Jack Campbell," an imprudent match, which turned out well, since he became Duke of Argyll. Dying in 1736, aged forty-one, she left four sons and one daughter, Caroline, who, at the age of eighteen, married Lord Bruce, subsequently Earl of Ailes- bury, a " cross, covetous " man of fifty-seven. He died eight years later, leaving her a well-jointured widow, who espoused in second nuptials the Hon. Henry Seymour Con way, with whom she had a long and happy life, entertaining Horace Walpole and many celebrities. Of the wife, Madame du Deffand says in her ' Memoirs ' that she is " certainement la meilleure des femmes, la plus douce, et la plus tendre," while of Conway Walpole says that when he was made Field-Marshal he was generally called 44 the divine Marshal." When her daughter by her first husband married the Duke of Richmond, Horace Walpole said : 4t It is the prettiest match in the world ; youth, beauty, riches, alliances, and all the blood of all the kings from Robert Bruce to Charles II. They are the prettiest couple in Eng- land, excepting the father-in-law and mother." Anne Seymour Conway, the daughter of the afore- mentioned, and consequently the third in descent, was more intelligent and not less fascinating than her mother and grandmother, though their inferior in beauty. She married the Hon. John Darner, son of Lord Milton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, and attained much excellence as a sculptor. Walpole left her Strawberry Hill and 2,000/ r. a year, and constituted her his residuary legatee. On a figure of the Osprey of her execution at Strawberry Hill Walpole inscribed :

Non me Praxiteles fecit sed [at ?] Anna Darner. Concerning these three charming ladies, their asso- ciations and surroundings, Lady Russell tells all that she knows. Her record is accompanied by between sixty and seventy illustrations, chiefly in photo- gravure, from portraits at Swallowfield House and elsewhere. The frontispiece consists of a reproduction of an exquisite portrait of Jane Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon, byRomney. Numerous portraits of the ladies we have mentioned are given from Inverary and elsewhere. Among the most interesting in the early portion of the volume are Sir Peter Lely's Mary, Countess of Dalhousie, the mother of Mary Bellenden ; Mary Bellenden herself, by Sir Godfrey Kneller ; John, Duke of Argyll, her husband, by Gainsborough ; Mary, Duchess of Richmond, by Angelica Kauffmann'; Field-Marshal H. S. Conway, by Gainsborough ; and Mrs. Darner, by Angelica Kauffmann. Very far are the records or the por- traits from confining themselves to the ladies named and their immediate connexions. Much information, some of it new, is supplied concerning the beautiful Miss Gunnings, of whom, and of their close connexions, portraits are supplied. The story is told afresh, and in most interesting fashion, of Miss Mary Blandy, who was hanged for the murder of her father, and portraits of her and of the Hon. Captain Cranstoun, by whom she was led into the crime, are furnished. Prints presenting the execution of Lord Ferrers at Tyburn, and his body in his coffin, are also supplied. Portraits appear of Lord \Vhitworth and other members of a family with which the Russells of Swallowfield are closely allied. Far less than justice is done by us to a book which in every respect is entitled to regard and admiration. All know how small is the space we can assign to literature, and how many are the

demands upon it. We congratulate Lady Russell upon the production of an admirable work; we; congratulate Messrs. Longman on the way in which it is produced ; and we congratulate ourselves upon the possession of this book and its predecessor. Most heartily do we commend the volume to perusal and purchase.

The Life and Opinions of John Buncle, Esquire.

By Thomas Amory. With an Introduction by

Ernest A. Baker, M.A. (Routledge & Sons.) The. Adventure* of Don Sylvi-o de Rosalva. By

C. M. Wieland. With an Introduction by Ernest

A. Baker, M.A. (Same publishers.) ' THE LIFE AND OPINIONS or JOHN BUNCLE ' of Thomas Amory has been added to Messrs. Routledge's "Library of Early Novelists." With, a slightly different title it first saw the light in 1756-66, and it has since been more than once reprinted. Half forgotten, indeed, it is, yet we should hesitate to say, with its new editor, that it has never been popular. We read it fifty to- sixty years ago, and have never been without a copy on our shelves, though, we grant, in no very accessible position. It has been highly praised bjr Hazlitt, Lamb, Coleridge, and Leigh Hunt, who- should secure its immortality. The most discri- minating praise of Buncle is given by the Retro- spectire Review, a work which modern criticism- has thought fit to neglect, but to which it will have to recur. To this periodical Mr. Baker briefly refers. The editor might, when dealing with the question, of Buncle's alleged madness, have quoted the passage (vol. vi. part i. p. 101) of the Review in question : " Insane, indeed ! We would a thousand thousand times rather be gifted with the insanity that produced this book than with such faculties as made the discovery of his being so." We trust no attempt has been made to expurgate a book which Coleridge compared to Rabelais, but which is much closer akin to Pepys. One cannot find time instanter to correct oneself by a reperusal of the pages. Something of the kind we have in con- templation when, if ever, a period or an interval of leisure is obtained. As it appears to be scarce, the reproduction is in all respects judicious.

Much scarcer is the translation of Wieland'a 'Adventures of Don Sylvio de Rosalva,' which' appears in the same commendable series. Beyond reading occasionally, in a catalogue of second-hand books, the title of this work, which was first issued in the original in 1714, and in English in 1773, we were unacquainted with it, though we find that we possess a rendering of it into French by Madame d'Ussieux, in the delightful and finely illustrated 8vo edition of 4 Le Cabinet des Fees.' It appears, as Mr. Baker says, in vol. xxxvi. This is not, how- ever, as he states, the last volume of the work. 4 Le Cabinet des Fees ' is in forty-one volumes, which we have seen sold for as many pounds. Wie- land's romance is a curious modernization of the 'Don Quixote' of Cervantes, a work often con- tinued or altered, among the first to deal with it being Beaumont and Fletcher in ' The Knight of the Burning Pestle.' It well deserves republication. The series of reproductions thus begun promises to be one of the most attractive of modern days. It will, we see, include the " Heptameron,' the 'Decameron,' 'Guzman d'Alfarache,' and Mrs. Behn's once-popular 'Oroonoko.' Some of the Picaresque novels are to be commended to the editor.