Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/100

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. m. FEB. 4, 1911.

By a slip, MB. WADSWOKTH, in his interest- ing and informing communication, says it -was the second Viscount Canterbury who "was once Governor of Victoria. It was John Henry Thomas, the third, his elder brother, Charles John, second Viscount, having died unmarried in 1869, and he him- self passing away eight years later.

POLITICIAN.

COUNT OP THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE <11 S. ii. 509; iii. 54). Surely the Pope claims and exercises the power of creating Counts of the Holy Roman Empire. I know one created by Pio Nono.

R. W. P.

Miss PASTBANA (11 S. ii. 29). In * Relic- ta,' the volume published shortly before his death by Mr. Arthur Munby, the first poem is entitled. ' Pastrana.' It opens with a description of the striking proceedings of a large baboon, which the observer notes in a suburban garden of a Continental city. Presently, in the dining saloon of his hotel, his attention is arrested by the appearance of a fashionably dressed lady of singular aspect, who partakes copiously of the viands provided, and does not otherwise materially differ from the dining crowd. She sits out all except the narrator, who finds himself fascinated by her presence and held spell- bound by her gaze. At length a man with a net, energetically supported by the waiters, secures the festive personage, who proves to be none other than the strange monkey of the suburban pleasure-ground. Respond- ing to a request for information on his theme, Mr. Munby wrote : " ' Pastrana ' is partly based on fact. I saw her, and told Charles Darwin about her." THOMAS BAYNE.

If one may infer plurality of persons from diversity of accounts, there must have been several Miss Pastranas during last century. Writing before 1864, Chambers (' Book of Days,' ii. 255) speaks of. an unfortunate creature, Julia Pastrana by name, who "a few years ago " was exhibited in London. She was sometimes popularly known as " the pig-faced lady," but Chambers describes the lower part of her face as more resembling a dog than a pig. A Spanish-American by birth, she was ex- hibited (nothing is said about dancing) in this country for a time, and then on the Continent, where she died. Her embalmed remains were subsequently exposed to the gaze of the curious at a_charge of so much per head.

Somewhere I have read (probably in some modern chap-book) that Julia Pastrana possessed a body exquisitely formed, but surmounted by a face of grotesque and hideous ugliness. As this does not apparently agree with L. L. K.'s recollection of her, it is probable that many similar printed accounts are highly exaggerated.

SCOTUS.

I have in my scrapbook a portrait of Julia Pastrana. The sheet is 18 inches by 12 inches, the figure on it 9 inches. At the top is

Julia Pastrana As she now appears

embalmed. On each side is

Burlington Gallery 191 Piccadilly.

At the bottom is

The above is a correct portraiture of this most marvellous specimen of modern embalming. Open daily from HA.M. to 9 P.M.

Admission one shilling.

The figure is very well done, and exactly as I remember seeing it in, I think, 1860 or 1861. H. A. ST. J. M.

" BOLTON FFAIBE GBOATES " (11 S. ii.

467). There is not enough information put forward to enable a satisfactory reply to be given. The groats may be certain fees paid at the fair time, or tolls, to some one claiming them. The vicar of a riverside parish claimed "chaplain's groats" from the King's ships lying in the Thames (' States Papers Dom., Chas. II.,' vol. 283, 27). Does the date of the payment coincide with the date of Bolton Fair ? A. RHODES.

CANOVA'S BUSTS OF MABS AND MINEBVA (11 S. ii. 528). In Melchior Missirini's work entitled ' Delia Vita di Antonio Canova Libri Quattro,' 3rd ed., Milano, 1825, there is no mention of any such busts having been executed by this famous sculptor At the end of the volume a ' Chronological Cata- logue ' is given of his acknowledged works, which begins in 1772, and is continued till the year of his death, 1822. This list was put together for the most part during his lifetime because he did not wish to have any works attributed to him which were not his own : " e non fosse indotta in errore la posterita su falsi supposti, resi autorevoli dal suo silenzio " (p 470). One may there- fore conclude that these " colossal marble busts of Mars and Minerva .... hidden away in a country house long before Canova same to fame," are either not his work or that he