Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/373

 io* 8. iv. OCT. 14, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 307 into two sections. The second section con- tains Rome delicately elaborated description of outward nature. To the beauty or the passage, one can fancy, there is given an added charm from its having passed under the editorial consideration of Lamb. The passage referred to begins : " I imagine you seized with a fine, romantic kind of a melancholy on the fading of the year," &c. For the complete letter the curious may con- sult the Aldine edition of Thomson's ' Works,' 1860, pp. xxvi-xxviii. Similar descriptive passages adorn Thomson's correspondence; out there is no better example among them of his real power of expressing himself in picturesque prose. The history of the letter, so far as it has been ascertained, is briefly this. According to Mr. Peter Cunningham, who edited Sir Harris Nicolas's biography for the Aldine edition of Thomson, it was first printed in The London Magazine for November, 1824, headed with this note:— " The following very interesting letter has been recovered from oblivion, or at least from neglect, by our friend Elia, and the public will no doubt thank him for the deed. It is without date or superscription in the manuscript, which (as our contributor declares) was in so ' fragmentitious' a state as to perplex his transcribing faculties in the extreme." Internal evidence altogether favours the authenticity of the letter. The noble excursus itself is characteristically Thomson's. But, apart from this matter, the conjunction thus evidenced of two geniuses of intrinsic quali- ties so different is peculiarly memorable. W. B. (giurus. WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to atiix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct. CANNING'S EIMING DISPATCH. — I want to know where any versions of " In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch," &c., appeared in print before 1846. Bell in that year gives a version. This is the earliest I have found. I have looked, I think, at all the books on Canning. Was it quoted and printed in speeches before this 1 HARRY B. POLAND. Inner Temple. [Readers may like to refer to SIR HARRY POLAND'S article at 9th S. x. 270, and also to 4th S. i. 438 and the other references there given.] DETECTIVES IN FICTION.—Can any reader help me with early references to detectives in fiction who used the methods made most familiar to us by Sherlock Holmes? Is there any earlier one than Zadig I RUDOLPH DE CORDOVA. JOLIFFE FAMILY OF DORSET.—In Hutchins's ' History of Dorset' (i. 48) is a lengthy epitaph to Peter Joliffe, "a distinguished naval officer," who died 12 November, 1730, aged seventy- two. His youngest son, William Joliffe, "alderman and merchant of Poole," was mayor of that borough in 1754 and 1758, dying 7 August, 1762, aged sixty-four. I should be glad to learn the parentage of Peter Joliffe. Early in the seventeenth century a family of the name was seated at Cannings Court, in Dorset, and entered their pedigree in the Visitation of that county, 1623 ; but I can discover no later particulars of the descent. A William Joliffe was M.P. for Poole in 1698, and would be, I suspect, of the same family, possibly the father of Peter. There was, I believe, no connexion between the Joliffes of Dorset and those of Stafford- shire, represented now by Lord Hylton. W. D. PINK. Lowton, Newton-le-Willows. PRINCIPAL GILBERT GRAY.—Gilbert Gray was the second principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen. His 'Oratio de illustribus Scotiae Scriptoribus" was reprinted in 1708 by Mackenzie ('Lives of Scots Writers,' I. xxi.). It is stated by Prof. William Knight (MS. Collections, circa 1840) to have been originally printed at Aberdeen by Raban in 1623, but no copy of that print has been traced. I shoula be glad to near of the existence of a copy. It must not be confused with Gray's ' Oratio Funebris in memoriam Duncani Liddelii,' printed at Edinburgh by Andro Hart in 1614—not included, by the way, in Mr. H. G. Aldis's 'List of Books printed in Scotland before 1700.' P. J. ANDERSON. CROMWELL DEATH.—Is anything known of the family of Cromwell Death, of Furnival's Inn, living in the early years of the reign of Charles II. ? OXONIENSIS. PRISONER SUCKLED BY HIS DAUGHTER.—I shall be glad to know the name of the artist, the title, and where the original is deposited, of the picture representing a prisoner (who, althougn deprived of food, to the astonish- ment of the authorities, continues to exist) drawing milk from the breast of his daughter, who visits him with her child. J. SMITH. "PEARLS CANNOT EQUAL THE WHITENESS OF HIS TEETH."—What is the source of an apocryphal legend of Jesus which represents