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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.xi. 3^.16,1015.

having been killed in action. In three cases the succession has passed twice during the year. The editor remarks : " This is surely without parallel."

In 1913 three new sees were created, and have now been filled by the appointment of the Bight Rev. John Edwin Watts-Ditchfield to Chelmsford ; the Bight Bev. Henry Bernard Hodgson to St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich ; and the Bight Bev. .Leonard Hedley Burrows to Sheffield.

At the present time one turns with interest to the list of foreign titles of nobility borne by British subjects. Of these there are forty-four, a fourth of them being German. Among them we note that of Metaxa : " Ever since the con- quest of Cephalonia by the Venetians the IVletaxa family (of ancient Venetian descent) had been the most powerful and influential house in the island. The title of Count was conferred by the Venetian Bepublic upon Capt. Anzolo Metaxa .and all his male descendants on July 5th, 1691." His father commanded the corps of Cephaloniotes .at the siege of Candia against the Ottomans in 1658, and at the reconquest of Santa Maura he commanded the troops raised by his sons ; he was also present at the siege of Nauplia, 1686-7, when his sons greatly distinguished themselves. The O'Gormans, a branch of the sept descended from Cathoir Mpir, King of Leinster, through his second son, Daire Barrach, derived their name from Gorman, chief of the sept. The title of Boman Count was conferred on Ferdinand O' Gor- man in 1882. He is the titular guardian of the tombs of the Imperial House of Austria in the ducal chapel in, Nancy.

Three Boyal dukes have German titles : the Duke of Connaught, who is also Duke of Saxony
 * and Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ; the Duke

of Albany, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ; .and the Duke of Cumberland, whose only sur- viving son was married on the 25th of May, 1913, to the only daughter of the German Emperor.

' Burke ' is now in its seventy-seventh year, and, tightly enough, becomes year by year more portly. This year it is increased by sixty-six pages, which now nearly number three thousand. We can well understand the editor telling us that the task set him this year has been a heavy one, for "he has found it necessary to rewrite a great number of the pedigrees in the light of modern research." He has also been confronted 'in the last five months with the rapid succession of events due to the war. We congratulate him on having so successfully overcome all his diffi- culties. We must add one word as to the get- up of the massive volume : both paper and print -make it a pleasure to turn over its pages.

Who 's Who, 1915. (A. & C. Black, 15s. net.)

LIKE all the other annuals, ' Who 's Who' be- . comes more bulky year by year, and now, in its sixty-seventh year, its pages number 2,376, against _2,314 last year. W T e would suggest that a list should be given each year of the new names . added to the body of the work : this might precede the Obituary. The losses by death to "literature and science include the Duke of Argyll,
 * Sir Bobert Ball, S. B. Crockett, Dr. Ginsburg,

Edward Marston, Edith Sichel, and Theodore Watts-Dunton. The death of our valued contri- butor Col. Prideaux occurred too late to be noticed,
 * o his name still appears among the living.

The editor advises the use of the companion volume, ' Who 's Who Year-Book,' which can be purchased for one shilling. In its tables are to be found the names which are the basis of ' Who 's Who,' these being classified under office appoint- ments or positions, so far as possible. The ' Year- Book ' thus affords a reverse reference to ' Who 's Who ' itself.

THE January number of The Burlington Maga- zine opens with a discussion (illustrated with a large photogravure) of the most important recent acquisition of the National Gallery William Blake's ' Spiritual Form of Nelson guiding Levia- than,' a picture of a " mythological cast," to use its author's own term, and not without some interest in relation to present events. Sir M. Cpnway supplies a photograph of the much- discussed Persian blue bowl in the Treasury of St. Mark's at Venice, and considers that beautiful work to belong to the thirteenth century. There is an interesting article by Mr. K. A. C. Cresswell on ' Persian Domes before 1400 A.D.,' in which are traced the history and evolution of the dome in Persian architecture from the earliest times to the present day. The dome, it appears, was known in Egypt, Chaldsea, and Assyria in very early times, but at first was employed only upon small and unimportant buildings. It is interest- ing to observe that the Persians were able to use the dome on large constructions, and made pos- sible the grand development of that type of archi- tecture, by first of all solving the crucial problem of setting a circular dome upon a square space. Examples are illustrated from the palaces of Firuzabad and Sarvistan. In ' Notes on Two Portraits ' Sir Claude Phillips attributes to Bubens a picture described in the catalogue of the Third National Loan Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery as a portrait of Mary de' Medici by Frans Pourbus. A full-length portrait at the same exhibition supposed to represent Louis XV. he considers to be really concerned with the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII. Another exhibition also, as in the case of that at the Grosvenor Gallery, in support of funds connected with the war, and held at Messrs. Comaghi & Obach's gallery is noticed by Mr. Boyer Nicholls. A ' Fair on the Ice ' by Solomon Buysdael is reproduced, as also Gainsborough's ' Viscount Hampden.' ' Notes on Pictures in the Boyal Collections ' are continued ; and there is an article on a little-known follower of Bembrandt, Carel van der Pluijm. His ' Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard,' though not without dramatic elements, is certainly stiff in action. A reproduc- tion of it accompanies the criticism.

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EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to "The Editor of * Notes and Queries '"Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers "at the Office, Bream's Buildings. Chancery Lane, E.G.

C. W. F. and C. C. -Forwarded.

CORRIGENDUM, Y. T. writes to say that the author of Henry Fielding's 'Life' is not Mr. (as stated ante, p. 12, col. 1), but Miss G. M..Godden.