Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/253

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

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gr^co-romaine, et viennent appuyer par leur date architectural la tradition populaire, qui fait remonter leur seconde Erection a 1'an 38 ou 40 avant le Christ."

T. H. B ARROW.

[The history of Cleopatra's Needle is related at length in The Athenceum of 7 July, 22 September, 57 October, 3 November, and 15 December, 1877. There is also a long article in The Graphic of 2 February, 1878.]

ARMY BANDMASTERS AND THE OFFICERS' MESS. In a paper, ' The Band of the Royal Marines (Portsmouth Division) and Lieut. George Miller,' which appears in The Musical Times for September, the writer says :

"For many years before himself becoming an offiper, he was an honorary member of the officers' mess. This was a rare social distinction, highly esteemed, and marked the rising status of that branch of his profession so well represented by Lieut. Miller."

Miller was appointed Bandmaster of the Marines in 1884, and " received his com- mission as lieutenant in 1892, and is, there- fore, the senior bandmaster of the British Army." It would be of interest, I think, if correspondents of ' N. & Q.' could recall instances where Army bandmasters, non- commissioned, have enjoyed the same privilege. Grattan Cook, who was, about sixty years ago, Bandmaster of the 2nd Life Guards, told Charles (brother of George Augustus) Sala, as a proof how highly esteemed he was in the regiment, that he dined at the officers' mess. This statement, which I, for one, never doubted, was at times disputed on the ground that such an arrange- ment would be contrary to regulations, and therefore must be set down as " soldiers' brag." Yet not only may " the exception prove the rule," but Grattan Cook, being, I presume, a " civilian " bandmaster, would doubtless occupy a position distinct from the ordinary N.C.O. of the period.

HERBERT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

DR. ZACHARY PEARCE, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. He married Mary Adams, of St.~Giles-in-the-Fields, Middlesex, in the parish church of St. George the Martyr, Queen Square, Holborn, on 6 Feb., 1721/2 (parish register).

He was the defendant in a Chancery case, Adams v. Peirce (sic), determined in Trinity Term, 1724 (Wm. Peere Williams, ' Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery,' 6th ed., 1826, vol. "iii. p. 10, and vols. i. p. 383, ii. p. 643, iii. p. 204).

A portrait of Dr. Pearce (Holl sc.) is inserted in The Biographical Magazine, 1820, vol. ii. p. 66. DANIEL HIPWELL.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

BRISTOL M.P.'s : SIR ARTHUR HART AND SIR JOHN KNIGHT. I should be glad to learn something as to Sir Arthur Hart and Sir John Knight, who were members of Parliament for Bristol both in the Conven- tion and in the first Parliament of William and Mary.

Of the first I can find out nothing. He is not even in Le Neve's ' Knights,' if the Index is to be trusted ; and Marshall in his Index gives no reference to a Gloucester- shire family of the name.

Of the second there is a life in ' D.N.B.,' and the author speaks doubtfully of his relationship to his namesake, who was bur-

fess for Bristol in more than one of Charles I.'s Parliaments. Le Neve seems to make him his eldest son, and this is supported by a letter from the Rev. Dr. Dixon, Rector of Weyhill, Hants, who married Abigail, the older Sir John Knight's sixth daughter, and in 1690 claims both the contemporary burgesses as near relatives of his wife. It is the exact nature of this relationship which I primarily wish to discover.

JOHN R. MAGRATH. Queen's College, Oxford.

' ESSAY ON THE THEATRE,' c. 1775 : R. CUMBERLAND. Can any reader inform me where I can find an anonymous ' Essay on the Theatre,' published between 17 Decem- ber, 1774, and the middle of July, 1775 ? I may add that the files of newspapers and magazines in the British Museum of this date have been searched in vain. The pamphlet, for such it must be, is a critic on R. Cumberland's plays, particularly on that entitled ' The Fashionable Lover.'

E. H. Strassburg.

MADELEINE HAMILTON SMITH. In 1857, at Edinburgh, there was tried for murder a young woman of Glasgow named Madeleine Hamilton Smith. She was acquitted by the Scotch verdict of " Not proven." The case was emphatically a cause celebre, and created a great sensation in its day.

When and where did she die, and where is she buried ? FRANCIS M. ROSER.

New York.