Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/239

 10 S. VII. MARCH 9, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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155), which MB. WAINEWBIGHT has cited. Here we have reference to the will of " John Barnard (son of the patriotic Sir J. Barnard, many years father of the City of London), late of St. George, Hanover Square, esquire, deceased." From this, apparently, the ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' appositely gathers that he had died in the preceding year, 1784. The first of the two notices refers to a bequest not affecting our subject ; the second tells us that

" the son and heir of the great patriot of the same name died worth 200,000/., but being without issue left his real and personal estates to his nephew, Thomas Hankey, Esq."

The 'D.N.B.' tells us further that John Barnard was known as an art collector, as well he might be with his wealth. This interesting fact probably rests on the deposit at the British Museum of ' A Catalogue of that superb and well-known Cabinet of Drawings of John Barnard, Esq., late of Berkeley Square, deceased,' Berkeley Square being in the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, as in the will. The auction of the drawings chiefly of the old masters took place 16 Feb., 1787 (thus more than two years after the decease), and the sum realized was 2,47 21. 15s. Qd.

No more is learnt of John Barnard, and it is strange that the precise date of death of the wealthy connoisseur is not found in Any of the contemporary obituaries. His will, said in the above notice of it to be in the Registry of the Prerogative Court of Canter- bury, has been to me a very ignis fatuus : thrice did I seem to have caught it at Somerset House, when the will at sight proved to be of no interest. Such was that of John Barnard, of St. James's, West- minster, Esq., which, proved 17 July, 1773, seems to concern the subject of the Gent. Mag. obituary 13 July, 1773, represented as one of the Pages of the Bedchamber to His Majesty. He, however, had been married and left children ; and similarly others of the same name did not answer particulars. Yet it is strange that the right will or its transcript is not found, though said to have been formerly in that depository. Possibly a descendant of the fortunate nephew Thomas Hankey might know of it.

One other stone remains to be turned, viz., the parish register of Mortlake ; for is it not probable that the bachelor son was there buried with his father and mother, who are both recorded ? W. L. RUTTON.

" BLUE-WATER " (10 S. vii. 109, 133). The " Blue-water " school of naval defence

is surely not so unknown, nor the phrase so unintelligible, as HIPPOCLIDES would seem to imply. Thanks to the writings of Capt. Mahan and other experts in naval matters, the policy of making the enemy's coast the frontier of this country, and of so disposing our fleet that no f oeman shall have the chance " on British ground to rally," is now pretty well understood. What, however, is not so well known is that this policy of national defence dates from a much earlier period than the eighteenth century. It was deli- berately adopted at the time of the Spanish Armada, and is definitely laid down by Sir Walter Raleigh in his ' History of the World.' The policy there advocated is so sound, and the phraseology so quaint, that it will, I think, bear reproduction :

" Although the English will no less disdain, than any nation under Heaven can do, to be beaten upon their own ground, or elsewhere, by a foreign enemy, yet to entertain those that may assail us, with their own beef in their bellies, and before they eat of our own Kentish capons, I take it to be the wisest way ; to do which His Majesty, after God, will employ his good ships on the sea, and not trust in any entrenchment on shore." Raleigh's ' History of the World,' p. 801.

T. F. D.

POONAH PAINTING (10 S. vii. 107, 152). Comparing the description given by ST. S WITHIN in an extract from ' The Girl's Own Book ' with specimens of Poonah painting in an old album in my possession, I think there must have been two kinds one for artistic young ladies and one for children. The stencilling process for the latter required " nothing but care and neat- ness " ; but the results achieved by young ladies in the twenties and thirties of last century could only have been produced by these means and something more. The art is not of the highest character ; but the results are manifestly artistic. I suggest that there is something more in the name of the style than your correspondents seem to suspect. There was and is a process of painting practised not only in Poonah, but in other parts of India, in China and Japan, by which a picture is produced on thin paper probably rice paper by means of the application of thick body colour, without any or much shading, and with no back- ground. It is this kind of painting quite Oriental in its character which the young ladies of my mother's generation practised in the production of flowers. It was not so simple as not to require a teacher ; and I suspect that such a person is indicated in MB. H. J. BEARDSHAW'S reply. The kind of brush required was a stumpy round-