Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/172

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [n s. vm. AUG. so, 1913.

LINK WITH "OLD MORTALITY." The Daily Telegraph of the 12th of August contains the following among its obituary notices :

"Another link with one of Sir Walter Scott's famous characters has been removed by the death in Edinburgh of Miss Jane Paterson, who was the great-granddaughter of Robert Paterson, the original of 'Old Mortality.' Miss Paterson had preserved various relics of her family, showing their long-continued friendship with Scott, and she had -a, picture doubtless an ideal one of Old Mor- tality's white pony, on which he perambulated the country on his mission to Covenanting church- yards. That mission was, as Scott's readers know, to renovate the tombstones of the Covenanters, .and so keep alive the memory of their great deeds."

N. S. S.

SILHOUETTE PORTRAITS BY EDOUART. (See 10 S. ix. 191; xi. 371, 477.) It is, per- haps, worthy of record in ' N. & Q.' that a catalogue has recently been issued of 5,000 silhouette portraits by the French artist Augustin Edouart, which collection is now being dispersed by private sale.

Edouart is stated to have landed in Eng- land, a political refugee from France, in 1825. He commenced cutting portraits in London, and subsequently visited Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Leamington, Liver- pool, Belfast, Dublin, Killarney, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, and other places. At Edinburgh he took many portraits, including Charles X. of France, the Dauphin, and the entire Court to the number of seventy-eight. His portrait of Sir Walter Scott is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

Messrs. Newman, Graham & Co., of 110, Strand, W.C., who have had the sale of these silhouettes, write that, " in addition to being a clever artist, Edouart was also a capable, methodical business man, who kept a careful record of every portrait which he cut ; the name and home address of the sitter (where the home address could be obtained) ; the date, and the place where taken. Moreover, just as present-day photographers keep their negatives, he kept a duplicate of every portrait by cutting from double paper and it is these duplicates which are now being disposed of."

The printed list referred to, compiled from Edouart's " business books," relates to the portraits which he cut " before passing to the United States, where he spent the last twenty-five years of his life."

The fact of the existence of these dupli- cate silhouettes is probably unknown to many owners of originals. The list includes portraits of several notable persons peers and peeresses, naval and military and pro- fessional men and also tradespeople of the towns visited by him. P. M.

STERNE AND THE EARL OF ABOYNE. Mr. Lewis Melville, in his ' Life and Letters of Sterne ' (i. 66), notes that in the dispensa- tion of Stillington to Sterne in 1742 the author of ' Tristram Shandy ' is described as chaplain to the Earl of Aboyne. It suggests, he says, an explanation of the following passage in ' Tristram ' :

" My travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy's eldest son, whom in the year 1741 I accompanied as governour, riding along with him at a prodigious rate through most parts of Europe."

Mr. Melville's idea is strengthened by the following note in The Aberdeen Journal, 6 Jan., 1795 :

" His lordship [Charles Gordon, 4th Earl of Aboyne, 1726 P-1795] received from nature a sound understanding, which was cultivated and im- proved by a liberal education. Having finished the usual course of study in the Scottish Univer- sities [his name is not identifiable in any registers of alumni], he went abroad, where, mingling for several years with the higher ranks of life, his manners acquired a delicacy and gentleness which endeared him to all."

J. M. BULLOCH.

123, Pall Mall, S.W.

ANNIBALE CARRACCI : ' THE THREE MARIES.' In connexion with the recent gift of the above picture (and others) to the National Gallery, by Lady Carlisle, some of your readers may like to see the following extract from p. 16 of

" A | Descriptive | Catalogue J of the | Pictures Gibson. | 1814 " :
 * at | Castle-Howard. | Malton : Printed by J.

" On seeing a Lady, whose lively Faith and un- affected Piety were well known to the Author, burst into Tears while contemplating the celebrated Picture of the Three Maries, by Annibal Caracci, at Castle Howard. " Sept. llth, 1805.

The veil withdrawn, in plenitude of art,

The tragic Subject storm'd* the Christian heart ;

Still, as she bow'd with reverential awe,

O'er the dead Author of the living law,

And view'd the anguish of contrasted woes,

Congenial sorrows in her breast arose :

Rooted she stood, entranc'd in speechless grief,

Pure as her love, and strong as her belief,

Her bosom glow'd, her heart refus'd to beat,

Till gushing tears allay'd the fervent heat :

Such hallow'd tears as Saints and Angels shed,

When from the Cross Redemption rear'd her

head ; Tears, sooth'd by hope, which now maturely

beam'd, A Saviour martyr'd but a World redeem'd.

" Sent to the Earl of Carlisle from York."

M.


 * Dr. Johnson : " It storms the human heart."