Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/599

 10 s. VIIL DEC. 21, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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PROVAND'S LORDSHIP, GLASGOW (10 S. viii. 406). The extract from The Scotsman of 24 October contributed by J. A. calls for some comment. In the first place, it is difficult to see how the manse of a prebendary or indeed any house could be the " residence of a hospital," whatever the writer of the article may mean by the phrase. If he wishes to imply that the Hospital of St. Nicholas was housed under the roof of the building in question, he is clearly in error, St. Nicholas Hospital having been a distinct and separate building, the ruins of which were removed in 1808. In the second place, it is by no means so certain as the members of the Provand's Lordship Club appear to think that the house Nos. 3 7, Castle Street, Glasgow, ver was the manse of the Prebendary of Balernock, known as the Lord of Provan, -whose town house was called the Lordship of Provan. The matter was very fully and carefully examined some years ago by Mr. J. G. Dalrymple, F.S. A.Scot., who ame to the conclusion (in which he was supported by Mr. John Honeyman, F.R.I.B.A.) that the edifice, far from being a relic of the fifteenth century, was erected not earlier than some time in the first half of the seventeenth century, probably about 1630-40. See ' Papers of the Glasgow Regality Club,' First Series, p. 45 (Glasgow, James MacLehose & Sons, 1889). Thirdly, even if we grant " Provand's Lordship " to have been built about 1455-70, it is hardly correct to say that it is " supposed to be the oldest inhabited house in Scotland." Possibly the writer of the article meant to say " in Glasgow," which would be true, ii it really was built at that time. Fourthly while the dinner in the Trades' Hall was in many ways a great success, I must protest against the statement that " the food was described in old Scots." As a matter oi fact, the menu was written in a sort o mongrel modern Scots, the use of which evoked considerable adverse criticism not only at the dinner, but subsequently in the columns of The Glasgow Herald, where several letters on the subject appeared.

T. F. D.

SAMPLERS IN FRANCE (10 S. viii. 428). See " ' Samplers and Tapestry Embroi- deries,' by Marcus B. Huish ; also ' The Stitchery of the Same,' by Mrs. Head and 'Foreign Samplers,' by Mrs. C. J Longman. With 30 reproductions in colour and 40 illustrations in monochrome," 4to Longmans, 1900. W. H. PEET.

ASSASSINATION THE METIER OF KINGS 10 S. viii. 328, 391). What a salad of the acts and saying ! What Umberto I. said o his aide-de-camp, shrugging his shoulders with amazing sang-froid, for he had that moment escaped a ghastly death, was, un incidente del mestiere " (" It is one of the incidents of the profession "), as who should say, " One of the risks of my job ! " EDWARD HERON-ALLEN.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Suppressed Plates. By G. S. Layard. (A. & C.

Black.)

MR. LAYARD has hit on a subject of great interest ~jO the collector, and also to the ordinary man, since many of the plates reproduced here are in ihe nature of indiscretions, and human nature is so constituted as be curious about such lapses. Incidentally he touches on a question which has been started in our own columns, Who was Thackeray's Lord Steyne ? The unravelling of this mystery leads to many curious details of testimony. The suppressed plates of Buss in 'Pickwick' are vieux jeu by this time, as is the feeble work of Cruikshank in ' Oliver Twist.' Mr. Layard intro- duces, however, much that will be new to the literary public, and writes with the verve of a man on familiar and favourite ground. The suppressed frontispiece for FitzGerald's ' Omar Khayyam ' by Edwin Edwards will be new, probably, to most people; but it has not escaped the notice of our erudite contributor Col. Prideaux in his ' Notes for a Bibliography of Edward FitzGerald.' Mr. Layard's comment concerning the game of ' Ducks and Drakes' in Greece is feeble, and he misjht easily have found a little moreabout it if he had taken the trouble. To consult Liddell and Scott and give vaguely their references (often inadequate) as a guide seems to us a cheap form of getting credit for information. However, a book or this kind does not aim at classical scholarship, or Oriental for that matter, and Mr. Layard has quoted, undeniable authorities for the magic lantern which figures in Edwards's illustration, the Persian ' Fanus i Khiyal.' Two chapters at the end of the book deal with adapted or palimpsest plates, a subject which is piquant and well treated here. Mr. Layard writes easily, but has a way of introducing trivia- lities which is occasionally annoying, and he does not strike us as particularly well equipped for the divagations from the subject in which he indulges.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint, with an Introduction by W. H. Hadow, has appeared in the " Tudor and Stuart Library " (Jxford, Clarendon Press), and we need hardly inform readers of discrimination that the issue is worthy of the occasion. Many as are the editions of the immortal Sonnets (they have even been made into a drama by an enterprising American), this is the most tasteful that has ever come under our eye. The Fell type on old-fashioned paper is a veritable delight to tired eyes, and the binding in dark-blue leather could not be bettered. Mr. Hadow's Intro- duction is well written and cautious, a merit rare

in writers 011 Shakespeare. "If," he says, "we