Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/161

 10 s. vii. FEB. 16, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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dated from 1814, and it was its alleged viola tion in 1830 which precipitated the Revolu tion of July. But, apart from any recollec tion of Magna Carta or the Great Charter as a symbol of liberty, the word must have been familiar in a special sense to the older Radicals of that day. A full report was published by William Hone in 1820 of the proceedings at the inquest upon John Lees one of the victims of the Peterloo Massacre at Manchester on 16 August, 1819 ; and, ii the course of the cross-examination of one Robert Hall by Mr. Harmer, a solicitor engaged by the Radicals, there was this passage dealing with the witness's statement that he had seen carried in the procession a black flag with the word " Death " upon it :

" Q. Why do you say that there was only 'Death'? Was it not 'Death or Liberty'? A . I don't know whether it was ' Liberty or Death,' or 'Death or Liberty.'

' ' Q. But was it one or the other ? A. Yes ; it was something of the kind.

" Q. Have you not heard that celebrated national

song, ' Or give us Death or Liberty,' which has been

siing over and over again not only in the presence

of our own Royal Family, but in the presence of

nearly all the crowned heads of Europe ?

Whilst happy in my native land,

I boast my country's charter :

these are the first two lines of the song. A. I never heard it, to my recollection.

" Mr. Harmer. Every one knows that it is sung in the first companies among men of every political principle, with the greatest admiration." I should be much interested to know more of this political song. POLITICIAN.

PICTURE or LADY IN RED. I shall be greatly obliged if you or one of your corre- spondents can give me some information relating to a certain picture which I believe is well known. It is a study of a woman with red hair and red draperies ; the whole tone of the picture is red, and it is entitled a similar name. I think the painter is either Rossetti or Burne-Jones. What I want to know is the actual title, by whom the picture is painted, and in what collection it is to be found. I. R.
 * Fiametta,' ' La Donna della Fiamma,' or

[MB. F. G. STEPHENS kindly supplies the following comment :

The work I. R. refers to is manifestly ' The Vision of Fiammetta,' which, painted in oil by Dante G. Rossetti in 1879, was No. 304 in the Royal Academy's Winter Exhibition of 1883, which com- prehended a very large proportion of the artist's output. It seems to have been begun in or before 1877, but the later year witnessed its completion. Mrs. Stillman (born Spartali) sat for the head, and continued to do so till late in 1879. The completed example was exhibited, first at Manchester in 1882, and as No. 67 at the New Gallery in 1897. It is a

three-quarters-length, life - size figure, dressed in deep rose red, standing facing the spectator, with a mystical flame about her head, and surrounded by a long branch of an apple-tree in full bloom, which, approaching us, she pushes aside. With her right hand she holds above her head a portion of the branch on which is perched a bird passionately singing and with its wings outspread. The subject is from a sonnet of Boccaccio s, a translation of which by Rossetti is inscribed on the frame of the picture. The artist dated his work 1878, but his correspondence published by his brother shows that Mrs. Stillman was still sitting to him in October, 1879. ' The Vision of Fiammetta ' was, almost before it was finished, sold to the late Mr. William A. Turner, of Manchester, for 84W. Mr. Turner lent it to the Academy, and at the sale of his pictures in 1888 it was bought for 1,207/. by the present owner, Mr. Charles Butler, who possesses other pictures by Rossetti. There is a photogravure of 'The Vision ' in Mr. Marillier's exhaustive ' Dante G. Rossetti,' 1899, p. 194. It is not to be confounded with another 'Fiammetta,' a head which was cut out, says Mr. W. M. Rossetti, from his brother's un- finished 'Kate the Queen' of 1850. J

WOLSTON. Four boys of this name were at Westminster School in the first decade of the last century.: Alexander, Augustus, R. W., and T. Wolstan. Information con- cerning their parentage and career is desired.

G. F. R. B.

SIB GEORGE HOWARD, FIELD-MARSHAL. According to the ' D.N.B.' (xxviii. 17), this worthy was born about or in 1720, and obtained a commission in the 3rd Buffs in 1725, rising to the lieutenant-colonelcy of that regiment 2 April, 1744. According to Foster's * Alumni Oxonienses,' Howard matriculated at Oxford from Ch. Ch. 23 June, 1735, aged seventeen. I should be glad to obtain the place and exact date of his birth, as well as the dates of his early steps in the army. G. F. R. B.

" LIFE-STAR " FOLK-LORE. The following incident has been related to me. In 1882 the head of a titled family in the Midland counties lay dangerously ill, and his recovery was considered hopeless. My informant, who lived then, as he still does, in the parish where the family seat is situate, was driving one evening, with his wife, in the direction of the mansion, when they each of them saw a fiery meteor, described as a " fireball," travel swiftly towards them from the far sky, and, on arriving immediately above the Hall, appear to break into fragments. So much impressed were they that they called at the lodge and made inquiry ; but no idings had reached the lodge-keeper. The first thing heard the following morning was at an hour precisely coinciding with the
 * hat the occupant of the mansion had died