Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/273

 ii s. XL APRIL 3, mo.] NOTES AND QDERIES.

263

Nuncupat hanc vulgus Bossam cognoniine, quo nil

Oebrius ore suo grex muliebris habet.

Nomen enim Bossae crebro yolat hinc volat illinc,

Dum furit, et turpis jurgia lingua serit.

Guil. Hormanni ' Anti-Bossicon,' 1521, ad init.

Bookbinder. John Bate man, bookbinder to James I. in 1622, with annual stipend of 41. 5s. 4d. Rawl. D. 793, f. 14.

Bosbury, Herefordshire. Account of tithes and offerings to the Vicar, 1635-41. MS. in University Library, Edinb., bequeathed by D. Laing.

Branks. Engraving of a woman wearing the branks. R. Gardiner's ' England's Grievance Discovered,' 1655, p. 110.

Bucks (Order of). A kind of Christian Free- masonry. See a sermon preached before the Society in 1789 by Rice Hughes, A.M.

W. D. MACBAY. (To be continued.)

THE TAYLORS OF ONGAR.

THE following extract from a letter dated Marden Ash, 14 Dec., 1857, from Josiah Gilbert, eldest son of Ann Taylor, to his -uncle Isaac Taylor (1787-1865), known mainly as the author of ' The Natural His- tory of Enthusiasm ' (see ' D.N.B.'), may perhaps interest some of your readers :

" I have a curious bit of information for you. In one of the Professional Lectures at the Royal Academy . this session your early designs to the Bible will be specially referred to. It is not your literary celebrity which has led to this, since it arises in quarters in which you are only known, and have been long known, as the artist, and not the literary man the young Isaac Taylor, not the engraver of that name.

" I met last week accidentally Mr. Lane the lithographer, accompanied by Mr. Frank Stone the well-known artist. The latter was introduced to me as a great admirer of those designs of yours. He told me how he had bought up for two guineas, somewhere, I think, in the year 1820 or 24, the only copy he could meet with of the work, and that he had it ' magnificently bound ' in testimony of the value he set upon it, and that belonging to a Shakespeare Club for discussing matters of literature and art, of which Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, Thackeray, and others of like well-known name were members, he had some years ago read before one of the meetings a lecture upon ' Taylor's Designs to the Bible,' and exhibited the book, "which was highly appreciated.

" It is Mr. Lane who is about to introduce them to the notice of the Royal Academy in his lecture. His observations are already written, but a rule of the Academy prohibiting reference to any living artist in illustration perplexed him. His first question, therefor.e, to me was whether you were alive or not, and the answer rather disappointed him, but on my assuring him that as an artist you were certainly dead, and had been so for

the last thirty or forty years, he and Stone agreed that the reference might be held permissible.

" Now I have filled my letter without any ' business.' You will perhaps be amused to find yourself an artist after all whose merit the Royal Academy shall at last be called upon to recog- nize."

Extract from a Lecture to be given in the Royal Academy, 14th January, 1858.

" The first Lyrical Poet of the day, lately turning over, with me, a volume of prints called ' Illustrations of the Bible,' more than justified my appreciation of them by his remarks upon the simplicity and grandeur of the designs ; and as we paused over one (' The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise '), he told me that he had made a copy of it.

" Unpractised in the draughtsman's art, the poet's hand imparted to the lines a kindred grace and meaning ; and by such testimony in favour of the conception of these works I am encouraged to present them to your notice.

" They are from the Designs of Isaac Taylor, in number about 120, and of the class of small ' Book Plates.' They are engraved in ' line,' and the best of them are indifferently-well exe- cuted.

" In conception they are very unequal ; but I think you will not, in any instance, find one important element of design neglected that is suggested by the text, or necessary to the cha- racter of the scene.

" It is, indeed, by the unpretending nature of these works, combining, as I have said, with extreme simplicity the poetic element, that I have strengthened myself in the desire to speak of them to you.

" The most ambitious student may, without any deviation from his devotion to the Great Masters, or the routine of Academic training, step aside, with profit as well as with delight, to the contemplation of ' Isaac Taylor's Illustra- tions of the Bible.' "

I may, perhaps, add here that Josiah Gilbert (1814-92) drew many portraits which were exhibited at the Royal Academy, and wrote various books : ' Landscape in Art,' ' Cadore, or Titian's Country,' ' The Dolomite Mountains,' &c.

HENRY TAYLOR, F.S.A.

Rusthall, Kent.

LEVANT MERCHANTS IN CYPRUS:

ENGLISH TOMBSTONES IN LARNACA.

(See ante, pp. 222, 241.)

1. The oldest English grave in Cyprus is within the churchyard of Ay. Yeorgios Kondas, Larnaca. The top edge of the stone is broken :

interred | of Peter Deleav | London mer- chant departed this lyfe | the 2nd May 1692.

Beneath the inscription are a rudely sculp- tured skull and crossbones.