Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/470

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. in. MAY 20, iocs.

jgood Figures in the Theatre. This Gentlewoman died in Child-bed very young, leaving behind her -one Son, born in his Father's House in the North Strand, who is now an actor in this Kingdom. Some years after Mr. Giffard marry'd a second Wife, who is now alive. She has an amiable Per- son, and is a well-esteemed Actress, both in tragedy and comedy; born, if I am not misinformed by her -Mother, the Widow Lydal, in the year 1711."

It would appear from this that Giffard's two wives were sisters. Be that as it may, he was connected by marriage with the Hev. James Sterling, an association that accounts for the production of Sterling's tragedy of "* The Parricide' at Goodman's Fields in December, 1735.

Personally I am inclined to believe that 'the playwriting divine was identical with 'the "Eev. Mr. Sterling" who was rector of ILurgan in county Cavan in 1752, and before whom Peg Woffington read her recantation late in the December of that year. On that point I am anxiously seeking enlightenment. Can any reader oblige me with the exact name of the Lurgan parson 1 Burke refers to him in one of his letters as a "*' great musician," and Bunting speaks of turn as a clever player on the bagpipes and a fair composer. I fear he is likely to be con- fused in the future with Orange Sterling, a Dublin gentleman of rank and fashion, and an accomplished player of a great variety of musical instruments. O'Keeffe, who has preserved his memory from oblivion, tells us that Orange Sterling taught him to play the pipe and tabour.

In most accounts of the later life of the Rev. James Sterling it seems to me that he has been confused with others of his name. At any rate, if the playwriting divine was identical with the Lurgan parson of 1752, I can hardly believe, with the 'Biographia Dramatica,' that he was preaching and pub- lishing sermons at Annapolis in Maryland in 1754. w. J. LAWRENCE.

Dublin. _________

HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. At p. 173 of vol. iv. of 'The Private Correspondence of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford,' published in 1820 in four volumes, the following letter from Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ailesbury appears :

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday night, June 8, 1779.

You frightened me for a minute, my dear madam ; 1)ut every letter since has given me pleasure, by telling me how rapidly you recovered, and how per- fectly well you are again. Pray, however, do not give me any more such joys. I shall be quite con- tent with your remaining immortal, without the foil of any alarm. You gave all your friends a panic, and may trust their attachment without renewing it. I received as many inquiries the next

day as if an archbishop was in danger, and all the bench hoped he was going to heaven.

Mr. Conway wonders I do not talk of Voltaire's Memoirs. Lord bless me ! I saw it two months ago ; the Lucans brought it from Paris and lent it to me : nay, and I have seen most of it before ; and I believe this an imperfect copy, for it ends no how at all. Besides, it was quite out of my head. Lord Melcombe's diary put that and everything else out of my mind. I wonder much more at Mr. Cpnway's not talking of this ! It gossips about the living as familiarly as a modern newspaper. I long to hear

what says about it. I wish the newspapers

were as accurate ! They have been circumstantial about lady Wcdsingham's birth-day clothes, which to be sure one is glad to know, only unluckily there is no such person. * However, I dare to say that her dress was very becoming, and that she looked charmingly.

The month of June, according to custom im- memorial, is as cold as Christmas. I had a fire last night, and all my rosebuds, I believe, would have been very glad to sit by it. I have other grievances to boot ; but as they are annuals too, vide-licet, people to see my house, I will not torment your ladyship with them : yet I know nothing else. None of my neighbours are come into the country yet : one would think all the dowagers were elected into the new parliament. Adieu, my dear Madam !

I do not find this letter in Mrs. Paget Toyn- bee's recently published edition of 'The Letters of Horace Walpole' under the date given, and it is missing also in Cunningham's edition, upon which Mrs. Paget Toynbee, if I may use the expression, has based hers.

It would be interesting to me to learn whether the date of the letter is incorrectly given in the volume from which I have quoted, or whether the letter itself has actually been overlooked both by Cunning- ham and Mrs. Paget Toynbee.

FRANCIS H. KELTON.

9, Broughton Road, Thornton Heath.

"SKUNK": ITS ORIGIN. Our dictionaries derive this from Abnaki seganku. That it is from the Abnaki tongue is undoubted, but it is to be hoped that Mr. Craigie, who must shortly deal with it, will discard the erroneous spelling seganku, and substitute segongw, following the example of Mr. J. D. Prince, the greatest living authority on Abnaki. The history of seganku is curious. The French missionary Itasles, who about the year 1691 reduced the language to writing, did not distinguish between vocalic wand consonantal w, but used for both indifferently a character resembling the number 8 ; hence he wrote segankS for the animal in question. This was evidently meant to be called seyankw, but our lexicographers misread it as seganku,

was not revived in the family of de Grey till the year 1780."
 * The printed note is : " The title of Walsingham