Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/563

 10*8. m. JUNE IT, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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which cost him 500/. and brought him no adequate return. Once he was journeying from London to Middle Hill, and, chancing to enter an inn on the way, he saw a portrait there. ' Whose portrait is that ? ' he asked the landlady, who answered that she had heard her mother say it was a likeness of Mary, Queen of Scots. 'I'll give you a hundred pounds for it,' said Sir Thomas, and the bargain was struck on the spot. On subsequently learning that it was not that unfortunate queen's portrait, and was not worth a hundred shillings, he brought an action against the landlady for the rescission of the bargain, but he was not successful. On another occasion, at Haverfordwest, he happened to see an itinerant photographer at work at a fair. He at once bought the whole business, van and all, and sent the man to take photographs of mansions and castles for him through England and Wales. He never willingly allowed any one, outside his small circle of personal friends, to see his library. He used to sit at his writing desk until daybreak, and then he would retire to rest till two or three in the afternoon, when he would either return immediately to work or take a turn in the garden and pick some fruit. He was never seen outside the walls of his demesne except in a carriage, and that was very seldom. His great bugbear was Popery, and he never suffered a Roman Catholic to enter his door, nor would he tolerate even scarlet petticoats and stockings. Choir-singing in church was an unpar- donable sin in his eyes, and he was an uncompromis- ing enemy to High Churchmen. He published a number of books against the monks, which he had translated from foreign tongues (ieithoedd tramor). The late William Murphy, the lecturer, and the Messrs. Whalley and Jsewgate [?Newdegate] were great friends of his. He kept Murphy for weeks at Cheltenham. Although he was such a zealous anti- Romanist, he never went to a place of worship himself Sunday, holyday, or workingday (Sid, gicyl na g>vaith). He had not been inside a church or chapel for a quarter of a century when I was at Thirlestane, for he believed the time spent in public worship to be pure waste. He could not bear a tobacco-smoker or any one who wore a ' Jim Crow ' hat. His maidservants were only allowed to go to the particular church that he chose for them. His temper was sometimes quite unbearable. It was fatal to give way to him, and woe to the miserable wretch who showed any fear ! No christened mortal (dyn byw liedyddiol) ever had so many librarians. I was the hundred and twentieth, I believe."

"Giraldus," it will have been noted, does not say anything about the collections them- selves, nor about his own duties. An obser- vant butler or valet would have been able to tell at least as much as we have above. Elsewhere the writer says that Sir Thomas employed him to collect local "legends and make notes of old customs " in almost every parish in South Wales. Another disappoint- ing omission is that he says nothing at all about the mysterious negotiations between Sir Thomas and the authorities of Lampeter College, which ended in the refusal of the latter body to accept the splendid collections which have now been scattered to the four winds of heaven. J. P. OWEX.

SIR JAMES LAWRENCE'S 'EMPIRE OF THE NA1RS,' 1811.

I THINK I may take it upon me to say- that this is one of the scarcest books of the- nineteenth century. The following is the- wording of the title-page :

"The Empire of the Nairs ; or, the Rights of Women. An Utopian Romance, in Twelve Books. By James Lawrence, author of ' The Bosom Friend,' 'Love, an 'Allegory,' &c. [A quotation in Latin from Virgil.] In Four Volumes. London : Printed for T. Hookham, Jun., and E. T. Hookham, No. 15, Old Bond Street, 1811."

For nigh forty years I diligently sought after this work, and during all that long period I recollect having seen only two copies in booksellers' catalogues ; but as neither ofr them was in the condition I desired I let them pass. Not very long ago, however, I was fortunate enough to secure a copy in a condition to gratify the taste of the most fastidious book collector. The volumes are in the original boards, edges uneut, and almost as fresh and crisp as the day they were published. Even the paper titles on the back are without a scratch. I first came to know about this work through its being, referred to in a book I was reading at the time I have indicated ; but what was its title I have never been able to recall, much to my regret. I fancy it was in one of Coleridge's prose works, of which I was then an assiduous reader ; but a recent search in this direction was without result.

'The Empire of the Nairs' was originally published in Germany, where it received the benediction of both Wieland and Schiller, the former printing it for the first time in his 'German Mercury.' A French translation also appeared with this title: 'L'Empire des Nairs, ou le Paradis de 1'Amour.' This Eng- lish edition, besides an "Advertisement" of four pages, contains an "Introduction" of forty-three pages, in which the principles, upon which the romance is constructed are explained and justified. For a scientific and- really interesting account of the manners and customs of the Nairs reference may be made to "Primitive Folk. Studies in Com- parative Ethnology. By Elie Eeclus."

In a letter to Thomas Hookham, one of the publishers of this book, dated "Lynmouth, Barnstable, Aug. 18th, 1812," Shelley writes ('Essays and Letters,' ed. Rhys, 1886," p. 181):

" I should esteem it as a favour if you would pre- sent the enclosed letter to the Chevalier Lawrence. I have read his 'Empire of the Nairs'; nay, have it. Perfectly and decidedly do I subscribe to the truth of the principles which it is designed to establish."

Mr. Buxton Forman prints in full the letter