Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/104

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. x. A i, 1914.

Poetry,' and the verses to Pope referred to at the above reference, all of them dated 1720, when the authoress was only 18. The first- mentioned contains 178 lines ; the latter is clearly identical with MR. GRIFFITH'S MS. copy, containing exactly 90 lines, and it is said by Mr. Ashley Cowper to have been written by her in her copy of Pope's works.

I have never seen a copy of William Pattison's poems. He was only 23 when he died, and Pope said that Curll killed him by starving him ; but it is stated in the ' D.X.B.' that he too wrote a letter from ' Abelard to Eloisa ' : indeed, Pope's ' Eloisa to Abelard ' must have appeared like a challenge to every minor poet of that period to essay a reply from Abelard.

Shortly after Mrs. Madan's death in 1781 somebody discovered her ' Progress of Poetry,' and published it as a new poem. The following extracts from The Gentleman's Magazine (1783), vol. liii. part i. p. 152, refer to this, and also contain some useful notes as to the publication of some of her other poems :

" ' The Progress of Poetry,' "by Mrs. Madan. 4to.

" The Editor of this ' master-piece ' (as he justly styles it) of this late ingenious lady cries Samos, by pretending ' to introduce to the public notice' a poem of which the public were in possession probably before he was corn ; it having been inserted in a collection called ' The Flower Piece ' as long ago as the year 1731, and since that date in the 'Poetical Calendar,' 1763, and other more recent publications. Instead, there- fore, of dwelling longer on this not new (however excellent) performance, we will add a short account of the admired writer and some verses de sa fa$on, much less known.
 * ettpTjKa ' with much less reason than the sage of

" Miss Judith Cowper was born in 1702. She was eldest daughter of Spencer Cowper, Esq. (one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas in the reign of King George I.) and niece to the Lord Chancellor of

that name Miss Cowper distinguished herself in

the literary world at the age of 18 by writing some Verses to the Memory of Mr. Hughes, in 1720, and others to Mr. Pope, which are prefixed to their Poems (Eng. Poets, vols. xxii. and xxxii.)and were justly admired. Her ' Epistle from Abelard to Eloisa ' is also well known, having been frequently published. Arid her ' Progress of Poetry ' (as has

been said) first appeared in 1731 Several smaller

pieces, by Mrs. Madan, have been handed about in manuscript," &c.

The portrait of Mrs. Madan to which MR. GRIFFITH refers is in coloured crayons, measuring thirty inches by eighteen. It was the work of Charles Jervas ('D.N.B.'), an intimate friend of Pope, whose portrait by him, as well as those of Queen Caroline, Martha Blount, and Dean Swift, are now in the National Portrait Gallery. It has always

been in the possession of some member of the family, and is now the property of the Rev. Nigel Madan of Bleasby Hall, near Nottingham, and Hon. Canon of Soxithwell Cathedral. ALAN STEWART.

SIGNS OF CADENCY (11 S. x. 50). Mr. John E. Cussans, in his ' Handbook of Heraldry ' (1882), p. 151, says :

"It was not until the fourteenth century that cadency, as the word is now understood, became

general, for although Edward I., before he was

King, assumed a Label to mark his position towards his father, then living, we find in the Roll of Caer- laverock (A.P. 1300) the two systems, one of changing charges, the other of adopting marks of cadency, it* vogue at one and the same time (Cott. MS. Calig.,. A. xviii., Brit. Mus.). Thus Englished by Thomas. Wright :

And the two brothers Basset likewise

Of whom the eldest bore thus :

Ermine, a red chief indented

Charged with three gold mullets,

The other with three shells.

And Maurice de Berkeley

Who was a partaker in this expedition

Had a banner red as blood

Crusilly with a white chevron

On which there was a blue label

Because his father was (fathers were ?) living."

A. R. BAYLEY.

ALEXANDER SMITH'S ' DREAMTHORP ' (II S. ix. 450, 493 ; x. 33, 58). 5. This passage can be traced in Carlyle's ' Cromwell,' Part V., after Letter CXXXII. When Cromwell was received in London. 31 May,. 1650, on returning from his campaign in Ireland, with " one wild tumult of saluta- tion," he

"said, or is reported to have said, when som& sycophantic person observed, ' What a crowd come out to see your Lordship's triumph ! ' ' Yes, but if it were to see me hanged, how many more would there be ! '"

Carlyle gives as authorities newspapers (in Kimber, p. 148) ; Whitlocke, p. 441.

DARTLAND.

"FELIX SU-MMERLY" (11 S. x. 47). I have

" Felix Summerly's Pleasure Excursions

Eastern Counties, South Eastern, Brighton and South Coast, South Western, and London and 1 North Western Railways.' London, published at

the 'Railway Chronicle' Offices 1847."

R. B R.

TRANSLATION OF THE LIFE OF M. DE RENTY (11 S. x. 49). The translator of this, whose initials are E. S., is not improbably Sir Edward Sherburne, himself a Catholic. He was not knighted until 1682.

Oxford. L " L