Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/100

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. AUG. i, 1014.

A memoir of Scott will be found in the <of his work. A Life of him was published in two volumes in 1892, edited by W. Minto, and containing two portraits from etchings Iby himself. It may be interesting to note that Swinburne wrote some memorial verses an The Athenceum (28 Feb., 1891), which commenced thus :
 * D.N.B.,' also some bibliographical details

A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed Through stress of season and coil of cloud, Sets.

The British Museum Catalogue has nearly three columns devoted to Scott's poetry and his illustrated work.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.R.S.L.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS : HIS NATION- ALITY AND RELIGION (11 S. ix. 448, 513). Hylahd C. Kirk of Washington, D.C., has published a pamphlet of 64 pp. named ' The Secret of Columbus,' to prove Columbus was a Galician Jew.

Dr. Constantino de Horta y Pardo of Havana, Cuba, has also published a pamphlet, in Spanish, of 96 pp., named ' La Verdadera Cuna de Cristobal Colon,' to prove the same thing. EDWARD DENHAM.

New Bedford, Mass.

" MASTER " AND " GENTLEMAN " DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND (11 S. ix. 510 ; x. 36). The following entry from the registers of Great Parndon illus- trates the use demonstrated by F. P., other- wise it would seem mere tautology :

"1590 May 3. Thomas Bedwelf Esq. of the Tower of London and Judith Raynesforde, the dau. of Master Richarde Rainesford, Gent, of Eppinge, were married."

In a burial entry at Epping (1603) we have merely "Mr. Richard Rainsford."

It would seem that the prefix Mr. gradually extended itself downwards throughout the seventeenth century until, according to the ' Oxford Dictionary,' it has now become universal in its application.

In parish registers it seems to have been used only for a short time in the eighteenth century, after which it is probable that its extension colloquially caused it to be dropped as meaningless in the official record. GEORGE RICKWORD, F.R.Hist.S.

Public Library, Colchester.

ANNE BRONTE (11 S. x. 24). When at Scarborough about two years ago I saw the monument to Anne Bronte, and I procured a photograph of it from a local stationer. The inscription as it now appears differs from that given by MR. McGovERN by the addi-

tion of d to " Rev.," and by the date being " May 2-," as Mr. Clement Shorter has it. I was told that the stone had been renovated in recent years, which may account for the error in the date. The stroke after the figure 2 seems peculiar and unnecessary. The whole of the lettering is in capitals, except the sixth and seventh lines, which are in script.

G.

" SPEAK TO ME, LORD BYRON " (11 S. ix. 388 ; x. 31). It is plain that Ebenezer Elliott's ballad of ' Devil Byron ' relates to the " Wicked Lord," who was not the father, but the great-uncle, of the poet. The fifth Lord Byron succeeded to the title in 1736, and died in 1798, and, his son and grandson having predeceased him, he was succeeded by his great-nephew. In stating that his sister was the heroine of the legend, I think the axithor must be in error. The " Wicked Lord " had only one sister, Isa- bella, whose first husband was the fourth Earl of Carlisle, by whom she became the mother of the fifth Earl, the little-loved guardian of the poet -Lord. After the Earl's death she married Sir William Mus- grave of Hayton Castle, who, according to Walpole, was

" but three-and-twenty, but in consideration of the match, and of her having years to spare, she has made him a present of ten, and calls him three- and- thirty."

Lady Carlisle was eccentric, but there is nothing to show that she was not on good terms with her brother. The legend prob- ably is connected with Lord Byron's wife Miss Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of Charles Shaw of Besthorpe Hall in Norfolk, who was the heiress of 40,00'^Z., seems to have been of a " flirtatious " disposition. She had been engaged to Lord Coke, the eldest son of the Earl of Leicester, but the match was broken off, says Walpole, " upon some coquetry with Mr. [James Stewart] Mackenzie at the Ridotto." Her ill-fortune led her, a couple of years afterwards, to marry Lord Byron, and her relations with him were of the unhappiest description. All sorts of wild rumours began to float about the country. One story was that in a fit of rage he shot his coachman, and flung the dead body into the carriage in which his wife was seated. Another was that he threw his wife into one of the Newstead ponds with the purpose of drowning her. At best he was a man of ungovernable temper, as the whole historj^ of his duel with Mr. Chaworth clearly proves, and he rendered Lady Byron's life a torment