Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/247

 ii s. iv. SEPT. 23, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1911.

OONTENTS.-No. 91.

NOTES : The"ophile Gautier, 241 Shakespeariana, 243 Mr. Weare: Thurtell : VV. Webb Queen Elizabeth's Portraits at Hampton Court, 244 Roger, Bishop of St. Andrews, and Queen Ermengard Buckland and Richard Bell, 245 Holinshed Bibliography Finch Family Tradition Dumas on Cleopatra's Needles, 246 Army Bandmasters and Officers' Mess Bishop Zachary Pearce, 247.

QUERIES: Bristol M.P.'s ' Essay on the Theatre' Madeleine Hamilton Smith, 247' Lord Macaulay's Last Lines' Printers' Errors in 'Pickwick Papers' "Our incomparable Liturgy " " Ignoble tobagie "Pirates on Stealing Gold Ring at Verulam Noble Families in Shakespeare, 248 Author of 'Guy Livingstone' Reuben Browning's Latinity Ragnor Lodbrok's Sons H. Etough Salisbury of WestmeUh Griffin : Wilkes: Arnold- Sir J. Fen wick, 249 Beszant Family Etherington Family " Scotch science " Cymmau West-Country Charm- Dates in Roman Numerals Trees growing from Graves " Beat as Batty "Judge M'Clelland, 250.

REPLIES: -Private Lunatic Asylums Strawberry Hill, 251 "J'y suis, j'y reste" Eighteenth-Century Shake- speares, 252' Church Historians of England,' 253 John Niandser " All my eye and Betty Martin," 254 French Coins Grinling Gibbons and Rogers, 255 "Apssen counter "Urban V. Lieut. -Col. Ollney, 256 C. Elstob Highgate Archway Black Stockings St. Esprit The Lord Chief Justice and the Sheriff, 257 Club Etranger Cardinal Allen Jew and Jewson Metal Box Leman Street Dickens and Thackeray The Cuckoo, 258 Daniel Horry Rev. J. Hutchins Bibles with Curious Readings "Put that in your pipe" Twins and Second Sight " Castles in Spain " " Sevecher," 259.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'A History of Architecture in

London.' Notices to Correspondents.

THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 31 AUG., 181123 OCT., 1872.

THE present year is memorable as the cen- tenary of the birth of two men who have exercised in not dissimilar ways a powerful influence upon the literature of their re- spective countries William Makepeace Thackeray and Theophile Gautier. Both were novelists, poets, travellers, essayists, and art-critics. As a novel, ' Mademoiselle de Maupin ' can scarcely be deemed inferior to ' Vanity Fair ' ; as a series of poems,

thought to occupy a higher place than the
 * Emaux et Camees ' will probably be

Montes ' possesses qualities which we fail to find in ' A Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo ' ; but in the art of the essayist there is perhaps nothing in the works of Gautier which is quite comparable with the ' Roundabout Papers.' The Basque
 * Ballads ' ; as a book of travels, ' Tra los

blood in Gautier naturally inclined him to romance, and it was about the time that Thackeray was making his first attempts at art-criticism in the Pays Latin of ' The Paris Sketch-Book ' that " Theo le Chevelu " began to think of deserting the pencil for the pen.

An ardent admirer of Hugo, to whom he had been introduced by Sainte-Beuve the " oncle Beuve " of his ever-affectionate admiration he first came into prominent notice when, a lad of eighteen, he led the claque at the first performance of ' Hernani ' on 25 February, 1830, wearing the famous crimson waistcoat which became the ori- namme of the " Romantics." " Je n'ai jamais mis mon gilet rouge qu'une fois ; je 1'ai porte toute ma vie," said Gautier a statement true perhaps in spirit, but inexact in point of detail, for he not only wore it on every one of the thirty-two days during which the play ran, but at several dinner-parties during the course of that eventful year.

A few months afterwards, while the Revolution of July was in full swing, he produced his first little volume of ' Poesies,' which was printed at his father's expense. Every day the anxious poet went to the shop of the bookseller Mary, who had pub- lished the book, and peered through the glass windows in the hope of seeing the little heap of unsold copies diminishing in bulk ; but there was scarcely any sale, and in 1833 the 190 pages of which the book was composed were incorporated in another volume called ' Albertus, ou 1'ame et le peche,' which contained nothing new except the poem from which it took its title and twenty other pieces. This also had scarcely any sale, and Gautier took over nearly the whole issue and distributed the copies as presents to his friends. Like too many others, the book had no value until it was out of print. At the present time both these little volumes are worth their weight in gold ; and even in 1886 the Noilly copy of the ' Poesies,' enriched with several original sketches by Gautier and numerous autograph poems, fetched as much as 2,370 francs. To-day it would be worth considerably more than double as much.

In the same year Gautier published ' Les Jeunes-France,' a collection of short stories which was the beginning of his fame. This was followed two years later by the great romance which established his reputation, and which, with the exception of * Emaux et Camees,' is perhaps the only work of Gautier which will survive the test of Time