Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/42

 36

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. JULY s, 1911.

other two. In 1795 the Act 36 Geo. III. cc. 7, 8, for the prevention of treason and sedition, was known as the " Gagging Act." A Bill for restricting public meetings, passed in 1819, was popularly called " a gagging Bill." Some Acts affecting the right of public meeting in Ireland have also at a later date been so designated.

W. SCOTT.

LAMB'S ' ROSAMUND GRAY '(US. iii. 467)- Writing to Southey on 29 October, 1798, Lamb says that the opening lines of the ballad ' An Old Woman clothed in Gray ' suggested the writing of ' Rosamund.' Substantially fictitious, the play in various features unquestionably draws upon the writer's personal experience. The scene is laid at Widford, Herts, with which the happiness of his early days is associated, and Rosamund Gray seems to adumbrate his first and only love, the Anna of his Sonnets and the Alice W n of the ' Essays of Elia.' In chap. iii. of his monograph on Lamb for the " English Men of Letters " Canon Ainger discusses the matter as follows : "The heroine, Rosamund Gray, is drawn with those features on which he was never weary of dwelling in the object of his own boyish pas- sion. Rosamund, with the pale blue eyes and the 'yellow Hertfordshire hair,' is but a fresh copy of his Anna and his Alice. That Rosamund Gray had an actual counterpart in real life seems certain, and the little group of cottages, in one of which she dwelt with her old grandmother, is still shown in the village of Widford, about half a mile from the site of the old mansion of Blakesware.

Her fair hair and eyes, her goodness, and (we

may assume) her poverty, were drawn from life. The rest of the story in which she bears a part is of course pure fiction."

THOMAS BAYNE.

Charles Kent in his edition of Lamb says that the root-idea of the story is traceable to the antique ballad of c The Old Woman clothed in Gray ' ; and that the author appears to have borrowed the name of his heroine from a small volume of poems bj/ Charles Lloyd, published in 1795 at Carlisle

"The child-heroine's reputed dwelling-place, i may be interesting to add, is still shown at Blen heim, as one of a couple of cottages near Healin Green, some two miles from Blakesweir."

A. R. BAYLEY.

[ToE REA also refers to Canon Ainger.]

FORBES or SKELLATER (11 S. iii. 467 iv. 17). J. F. J. is correct in his impression as to the parentage of General Forbe ("Ian Roy") of Skellater. He was th second son of George Forbes of Skellate by his wife Christian Gordon of Glen

ucket. See a well-informed article, over he initials J. M. B., in Scottish Notes and Queries, 1901, vol. iii. Second Series, pp. 43-4.

W. S. S..

ST. GEORGE AND THE LAMB (11 S. iii.

87). Many famous Italian painters

Dorreggio, Veronese, Carpaccio, Tintoretto, and L. Caracci among them have painted St. George, with or without the dragon, and

here are representations of him at Florence, Venice, Verona, Padua, Bologna, and Rome.

3ut I never saw or heard of the saint repre-

ented with a lamb ; and such well-known authorities as Mrs. Jameson, C. E. Clement

' Saints in Art '), and Husenbeth ('Emblems of Saints') are silent on the subject. I

represented" thus, either in Italy or any- where else. Can MR. FANE have possibly
 * annot think that St. George is " often

misunderstood his Italian friend's question ?

D. O. HUNTER BLAIR. Fort Augustus.

There is no legend concerning the saint and a lamb, so far as I can ascertain, nor do I remember ever having seen any picture such as MR. FANE'S Italian friend mentions. The representation, however, would seem to portray the martyr's meek submission to the torments that he had to undergo by the order of Diocletian. In the ' Acta Sancti Georgii Megalo-Martyris,' published by the Bollandists, and collated with the manuscripts of the Vatican and Florence, we are told how the " vir sanctus, tanquam agnus," was bound with cords before suffering the frightful punishment of the wheel :

"Hoc ille supplicii genus perferens, primum quidem magna voce precabatur, deinde secum ipse tacite gratias agebat Deo, nee suspirium quidem ullum edebat. Mox bonurn temporis spatium tan- quam dormiens, coriquievit." 'Selecta Martyrum Acta,' vol. ir. pp. 208-9, Gaume Freres, Paris, 1853.

JOHN T. CURRY.

The lamb is probably symbolical of the Saviour, and, along with St. George, may be taken to represent the force of the Christian religion. In this connexion Mrs. Jameson (' Sacred and Legendary Art,' vol. ii.) says :

" When the princess is introduced [in representa- tions of St. George], she is clearly an allegorical personage, representing truth or innocence the Una of Spenser. I can recollect but one instance

in which she has the lamb It is an exquisite

little print by Lucas van Leyden, which appears to represent the meeting of St. George and the princess before the conquest of the dragon."

Row TAY.