Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/23

11 S. VIII. 5, 1913] alphabetically under place-names. The last six pages are occupied with 'An Alphabetical List of the Nobility and Gentry, the present proprietors and occupiers of the Seats mentioned in this work.'

The seventh edition, 1794, is in the London Library, the catalogue of which states that editions 1-3 had the title, 'The Ambulator; or, The Stranger's Companion,' &c. The second, third, fifth, and ninth editions may be consulted at the Guildhall Library.

'The Ambulator' was an annual publication which appeared first, I believe, in 1787. My copy is described as "the seventh edition, corrected and improved." The title-page is as follows:—

" Ambulator : [ or, | a pocket companion | in a | Tour round London, | within the circuit of Twenty-five miles, | describing | Whatever is most remarkable for Antiquity, Grandeur, | Elegance, or Rural Beauty ; | including | New Catalogues of Pictures, | and illustrated by | Historical and biographical Observations. | To which are pre- fixed. | A Concise Description of the Metropolis, | and | a Map of the country described | . . ..

" London : | Printed (by Assignment from the Assignees of John Bew) for | Scatcherd and Whitaker, Ave-Maria Lane, | 1794."

This title-page describes fairly accurately the scope of the work ; the compiler's name does not appear. At the commencement of the volume is " an Alphabetical list | of the | Nobility and Gentry, | the present proprietors or occupiers of j the seats men- tioned in this work " ; and at the end is a table of topographical queries which, it is suggested, should be answered with a view to incorporation in later editions of the work. WM. XORMAN.

ROME : JEWISH SARCOPHAGI AND GREEK PAINTING (11 S. vii. 429). 2. In Hare's " Walks in Rome.' thirteenth edition, p. 659, in the account of the Appartamento Bor- gia, the celebrated fresco known as the "* Nozze Aldobrandini ' is mentioned. Found in 1607 (Gournerie, ' Rome Chr6tienne,' ii. 62) in the Baths of Titus, near the Arch of Gallienus on the Esquiline, it is con- sidered to be the finest specimen of ancient pictorial art in Rome. It was purchased at first by the Aldobrandini family, whence its name. It represents an ancient Greek ceremony, possibly the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis. There is a fine copy by Nicholas Poussin in the Doria Palace.

" S'il fait allusion a un sujet mythologique, le rel y est a c6te de 1'ideal, et la mythologie y est appliqude a la representation d'un mariage

ordinaire. Tout porte a y voir une peinture roruaine, mais 1'auteur s'etait inspir6 des Grecs, comme on s'en inspirait presque toujours & Rome. La nouvelle marine, assise sur le" lit nuptial et attendant son 4poux, a cette expression de pudeur virginale, d'embarras modeste, qui avait rendu celebre un tableau dont le sujet etait le mariage de Roxane et 1'auteur Action, peintre grec." Ampdre, ' Hist. Rom,,' iv. 127.

Mr. H. Stuart Jones in his ' Companion to Roman History' (1912), p. 410, says of this painting :

" It probably belongs to the Augustan period, and was taken from the upper part of a wall decorated in a variety of the architectural style : a certain note of severity in its composition, which is that of a bas-relief rather than of a painting, caused it to be ascribed to pre-Alexandrine art. On the other hand, the fact that the central group Aphrodite and the bride is closely paralleled by a terra-cotta of the third century B.C., from Asia Minor, has been held to show that the supposed original was of Hellenistic date. There is in reality no need to posit such an original. Graceful as the composition is, it is far from lucid in its details witness the varieties of inter- pretation proposed by modern scholars ; nc* does it stand alone, for there are similar groups, as for example in the remains of the Golden House of Nero, which have the same supsrficial appear- ance of classical severity, but are even more evidently made tip of well-worn types. They are the handiwork of a ' classicizing ' school, which retained its traditions beside those of the more
 * modern ' decorators."

A. R. BAYLEY.

2. In vol. ii. of Helbig's ' Fiihrer durch die offentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertiimer in Rom,' ed. 2, pp. 169-71, is a description of the ' Nozze Aldobrandini,' fol- lowed by a bibliography of fourteen titles. Helbig's book has been translated into English. EDWARD BENSLY,

LOUISE DE LA RAMEE (OUIDA) (11 S. vii. 187). Criticizing the writer of the sketch of Ouida in the ' D.N.B.,' EL SOLTERO

says :

" Fourthly, that her first novel, ' Granville de Vigne,' was published in The New Monthly Magazine. It was not ; she in a Preface says it was published in a military magazine."

The writer of the sketch is right, and EL SOLTERO is wrong in this matter, for ' Gran- ville de Vigne ' appeared in The New Monthly Magazine during the years 1861-3, cxxi.- cxxviii. It is worth adding that neither name nor pseudonym was employed.

EL SOLTERO also says :

li Thirdly, that these stories were* never re- printed. In America they were, about 1868 or 1872, in two volumes, one called ' Cecil Castle- maine's Gage, and Other Stories,' the other 4 Beatrice Boville, and Other Stories ' ; by whom published, and where, I do not know."