Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/217

 io" S.V.MARCH s, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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which, one may be sure, was very keenly felt. It will be remembered that the "for- bidden play " was acted at the Bijou Theatre by the New Stage Club on 10 May last year, but failed, it would seem, to impress by reason of unsympathetic interpretation.

CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenseum Club.

HAIR -POWDERING CLOSETS (10 th S. iv. 349, 417, 453 ; v. 57, 95, 135). In that beautiful publication of the brothers Adam, ' Works in Architecture,' 1778-1822, there is a plan of Earl Derby's house in Grosvenor Square (vol. ii. plate i.) which shows clearly that a hair- powdering closet was a necessary portion of a well -equipped establishment. There is no question as to whether this particular closet was merely a dressing-room, and the plate I have named will remove all MR. RUTTON'S objections on that score. For Lady Derby's dressing-room famous for its sumptuous decorations in the Etruscan style is clearly marked on the plan, and is an apartment (26ft. Gin. by 19 ft.) opening 7i suite between the third drawing-room and her ladyship's bedroom, which measured 17ft. by 16ft. Adjacent to the bedroom, and communicating with it, is a room named a closet chamber, and from this a door leads into the lt powdering chamber." Thus every room is distinctly indicated bedroom, dressing-room, closet chamber, powdering chamber, and another small and curious apart- ment, all en suite. In the ground-floor plan are shown Lord Derby's bed and dressing rooms, with another powdering chamber, for those were the days of the Macaronis, when a gentleman's head-dress was almost as elaborate as that of a lady. This sumptuous house was No. 4, Grosvenor Square, and was finished in the early winter of 1774, before Lord Stanley (afterwards twelfth Earl of Derby) had succeeded to the title. Writing on Saturday, 3 Dec., 1774, Lady Mary Coke tells us : '* Lady Betty Stanley [afterwards Lady Derby] has come to town, and had a part}' the other night of three tables to show her fine house." This same "fine house" did not suit the taste of Horace Walpole, for he speaks of it as "filigreed into puerility." Probably most persons who look through the plates published by the brothers Adam will agree with this criticism.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

Fox Oik, Walton-on-Thames.

"BRELAN" (10 th S. v. 29, 114). "Bouil- lotte or Brelan " and the way to play it are given in the * Comprehensive Handbook to the Card Games,' by II. F. Foster (Simpkin,

Marshall & Co., no date a recent publica- tion), pp. 239-44. It is spoken of as "an old and famous French gambling game," " the rage during and long after the French Revolution, but has lately had to share public attention with Baccara, and even with Le Poker Americain."

" A Brelan Carr6 is four of a kind, three in the player's hand, and the fourth turned up on the pack. If any player holds a brelan (three of a kind) of a higher denomination than the brelan carre, the player may turn up the card under the retourne [i.e., under the turn-up card], and if this makes his hand a brelan cane also, he whis the pool."

"A Simple Brelan is three of a kind in the

player's hand Should the brelan be formed by

uniting the retourne with two cards in the player's hand, it is a brelan favori."

If there is no brelan, the player who has the "point" wins: the "point" would require a long explanation.

Three, four, or five persons may plaj 7, but four is the proper number. If there are four players, bouillotte is played with a pack reduced to twenty cards, ace, king, queen, nine, and eight of each suit. If five persons play, the knaves are added. If only three play, the queens are thrown out.

According to the ' Dictionnaire de 1'Aca- demie,' seizieme edit., 1835, bouillotte is a sort of brelan played by five persons, at which a player gives up his place when he has lost his '* cave," i e., all that he has before him. According to Foster, the numbers of counters bought by the players from the banker at the beginning of the game are equal, usually 100, and a player cannot buy any more until he has lost every one of his original " cave." EGBERT PIERPOINT.

CRICKET : PICTURES AND ENGRAVINGS (10 th S. iv. 9, 132, 238, 496; v. 54, 96). At the exhi- bition of Bucks antiquities held at Aylesbury last July, Sir E. Verney lent a picture, thus described in the catalogue :

" No. 1447- Portrait of a young cricketer, Thomas Calvert, in 1761, showing the form of bat, ball and wickets in use for eighteenth-century cricket, then recently introduced into Public Schools."

Bletchley.

W. BRADBROOK.

PEACOCK AS A CHRISTMAS SYMBOL (10 th S. v. 69, 130). I cannot say that I ever heard of the peacock being served at Christmas, though many years ago I occasionally par- took of one at a gentleman's table. The passage in Monstrelet's * Chronicles ' referred to by MR. JAMES WATSON has in W. Smith's edition (1840, vol. ii. p. 252) an illustration of the ceremony, with the live peacock on a dish, before which a knight in complete armour is making his bow, with drawn sword