Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/596

 494 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ io-s.iv. DEC. ie. iocs. " Where I found, when last in town, nought but •exultation and triumph, I now, on the contrary, •witness depression and despair in the strongest degree. In consequence of a most unadvised indulgence, arising from overweening confidence, the King has experienced a thorough relapse from
 * In' flattering state in which he recently appeared.

He attended for three hours on the inst. in arranging the will of the Princess Amelia, according to what he conceived her wishes, and immediately fell back into the incoherency which forms the prominent feature of his malady."—'Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III.,' vol. iv. p. 457. What attachment is alluded to in the first quotation 1 What words have been intention- ally omitted from the second ? Both quotations seem to refer to a more secret event than a marriage with General FitzRoy. Did this marriage really take place? According to Court gossip of that time, the princess had another engagement with an officer in the royal navy, and wicked tongues attributed to this romance a more serious result. I should be most grateful to any one who could help me in clearing up all this mystery. COMMANDANT REBOUL. 3bi>, Rue des Begonias, Nancv, France. ' THE LIVING LIBRARIE,' BY P. CAMERARIUS (10th S. iv. 425).—To the interesting descrip- tion of this work I may perhaps be permitted to add a few particulars respecting its trans- lator, John Molle, of whose personal history your correspondent was unable to give any details beyond those quoted by him. The only known information we possess of him is the short memoir in Fuller's 'Church His- tory ' (1655), book x. pp. 48-9, from which the following extracts are taken :— "About this time [1607 ] Mr. John Molle, Oovernour to the Lord Ross in his travails, began his unhappy journey beyond the Seas. This Mr. Molle was born in, or neer South-Molton in Devon." He spent much of his early life on the Continent, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Cambray. After being ransomed, to be Governour in Travail to his Grand-childe, the Lord ROBS, undertaking the charge with much reluctancie." Against the advice of Mr. Molle, " a Vagari took the Lord Ross to go to Rome." On their arrival, "no sooner had they entred their Inne, but Officers asked for Mr. Molle, took and carried him to The Inquisition-House, where he remained a prisoner, whitest the Lord Rosse was daily feasted, favoured, entertained The pretence and allega- tion of his so long and strict imprisonment, was, because he had translated Du Plessis his Book of ' The Visibility of the Church,' out of French into English In vain did his friends in England, though great and many, endeavour his enlargement by exchange, for one or moe Jesuits, or Priests, who were prisoners here In all the time of hit durance, he never heard from any friend, nor any from him, by word or letter: no English man being ever permitted to see him, save onely one. viz.: Mr. Walter Strickland of Bointon house in York shire. With very much desire and industry, he pro- cured leave to visit him, an Irish Frier being appointed to stand by, and be a witnesse of their discourse. Here he remained thirty years in restraint, and in the eighty first year of his age died a Prisoner." To this last section Fuller adds, in a marginal note, " So am I informed by a Letter from Mr. Hen. Molle his Son." Fuller makes no allusion to J. Molle as the translator of the work of Camerarius, but there can be little doubt he was the one who underwent such a terrible imprisonment. Your correspondent seems to have overlooked a marginal note to the '• Prefatory Remarks," in which ''Mr. John Molle" is thus men- tioned :— " Of him also beeing to earely depriued, it hath no lesse lamented his constrained absence (and per- haps for the same cause) than Rachaell did her massacred Innocents. For alas ! this euer well- deseruing Patriot hath now for many yeares beeoe missing and awanting vnto His." His son (Fuller's correspondent) seems to have edited and enlarged the second edition of his father's work, published in 1625, the first having appeared in 1621. The original volumes by Camerarius were in Latin, and were published at Frankfort, 1602-9. The name of John Molle is unmentioned in 'D.N.B.,' or in any of the ordinary bio- graphical dictionaries. There is, however, a memoir of him in Prince's ' Worthies,' mainly transcribed from Fuller's work, the only important addition consisting of this para- graph : "The time of his death is said to have been about the year of our Lord 1638," the probability being that he was much older. Hazlitt is evidently in error in stating, "The translator appears to have died some time before the publication of his work " in 1621 (Third Supplement to ' Bibliographical Col- lections,' 1889, p. 17). T. N. BRUSHFIELD, M.D. SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAIT (10th S. iv. 368).— The tradition that no original portrait^ of Shakspere exists originated in an assertion of a writer in The Gentleman's Mayan** for August, 1759. The words he uses are: "It may be, perhaps, hitherto unknown that there is no genuine picture of Shakspere existing, nor ever tco«, that called his having been taken long after his death, from a person supposed ex- tremely like him, at the direction of Sir Tbonui
 * ' he was appointed by Thomas, Earl of Exeter