Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/156

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. v. FEB. 17, 1912.

at Turin was then Lord Warkworth, who, of course, became Earl Percy after his father's elevation in the peerage. There is no doubt that it was the Earl of Northumber- land's eldest son with whom Casanova became friendly at Turin, for at that time his younger brother Algernon was only in his twelfth year, and the description of Lord Percy as a reckless sower of wild oats is quite in keeping with all we know of his early life. Lord Warkworth, later Lord Percy, was on the Continent in 1762, and did not return home till some weeks after Casanova came to England:

" On Tuesday night [26 July] Lord Warkworth, son of the Earl of Northumberland, arrived at his Lordship's house. .. .from his travels." St. James's Chronicle, 26-28 July, 1763.

Casanova's mistake is quite pardonable, for his acquaintance became far more notorious as Lord Percy than he was as Lord Warkworth, and the memoirist naturally would bear in mind the later title. Mr. Tage E. Bull of Copenhagen, the most learned of Casanovists, agrees with me in this matter, and attributes Casanova's mistake to the " slow apprehension of foreigners with regard to the ' fine shades ' of British titles."

It is not at all remarkable that Lady Northumberland neglected to pay Casanova the attention that her warm welcome of him would encourage him to expect. This ^' jovial heap of contradictions," who, as Walpole declared, would almost shake hands with a cobbler, was not frightened by
 * any report to Casanova's discredit that may

have come to her ears. Soon after she met the adventurer she was laid up with an attack of rheumatic fever, and, according to the newspapers, only recovered in time for the celebrations at Lord Warkworth's coming of age on 25 August. These cir- cumstances, and the fact that she and Lord Northumberland left London on 15 Septem- ber for Ireland, where the earl had been appointed Lord-Lieutenant, explain her ap- parent neglect of her son's friend. Obviously, she had far too much to occupy her atten- tion in July and August to spare a thought for Casanova. Lord Warkworth, too, ac- companied his parents to Dublin, and did not return to London till 9 November for the meeting of Parliament (he was M.P. for Westminster), when the exciting inci- dents of the Wilkes controversy were suffi- cient to make him forget the Italian gentle- man whom he had met at Turin.

It is a remarkable fact that Casanova never mentions John Wilkes, notwithstanding the

fact that he was the most talked-of man in Great Britain while the memoirist was in London.

One morning when Casanova went for a ride on horseback with Gabrielle, one of the Hanoverian sisters (whose identity it should be possible to solve, since an important clue is provided in the ' Memoires ' ), he alighted for London at a place which he calls Bame. " Nous avons fait cette course en vingt-cinq minutes, et il y a pres de dix milles " (Gamier, vii. 50). The spot must have been on the road to St. Albans, as Lord Pembroke soon passed by, bound for that town ; so I venture the conjecture that Casanova wrote Barne, meaning Barnet (which is ten miles out of London on the St. Albans road), and that his editor, as is so often the case, still further distorted his spelling of an English name. I have not discovered that Lord Pembroke, who was a very conspicuous figure in the annals of gallantry of his day, had a seat at St. Albans, as Casanova alleges. Casanovian chronology may be helped forward, however, by the newspaper chronicle of this nobleman's movements in the summer of 1763. Accord- ing to the daily press, he arrived in London from his seat at Wilton on 13 July, and on 3 September left again in company with the Duke of York for his Wiltshire house. It is possible, however, that he was back in town before the middle of Ihe month. Commodore the Hon. Augustus Hervey, who was Casanova's companion so often, is said by the newspapers also to have left London with the Duke of York's party on 3 September. He had been appointed to the command of the Centurion man-of-war, on which the Duke sailed for his tour in the Mediterranean ; but, according to Horace Walpole, " the press of soldiers was so warm that Augustus Hervey could not be spared to attend the Duke of York," so he may have been back in London soon after the departure of his Royal Highness en 23 September.

It is interesting to compare Casanova's account of the ball given at Carlisle House on Tuesday, 24 January, 1764, in honour of the Prince of Brunswick, with that of the contemporary newspapers. The following paragraph appeared in The St. James's Chronicle, 24-26 January, 1764 :

" On Tuesday night a grand ball and enter- tainment was given to the Prince of Brunswick at Madame Conolley's [sic] Concert Room in Soho Square: there were present H.R.H. Duke of Cumberland and upwards of 250 of the Nobility. The ball was opened by the Prince of Brunswick and the Duchess of Richmond, and continued till