Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/220

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[n s. v. MAR. 2, 1912.

Garrards have been Crown jewellers during srx reigns, their first lloyal customer being Frederick, Prince of Wales. Among early entries in the Garrards' ledgers is one, in 1745, of seventy- two mourning^rings as mementoes of the first Earl of Orford, Sir Robert Walpole.

On the occasion of the coronation of George III. the Garrards' bill amounted to 25,487L 13s. This included a sum of 15,024L, interest at 4 per cent, on the loan of jewels valued at 375,600Z.

The Duke of Wellington obtained his coronet from the firm : this cost him 261., with an addi- tional 11. for a leather case. In 1825 they sup- plied the service of plate presented by Liverpool to Huskisson, the cost of which was 3,489Z. 12s. At the Exhibition of 1851 the valuable and beautiful objects in their cabinet called forth great admiration. We can well remember what stores of wealth were gathered in the small space devoted to these cabinets full of the choicest jewels, among them being the Koh-i-noor, valued at two millions sterling. One of the jewellers was so nervous as to the safety of the contents of his case that he expressed his fears to a friend -of ours, one of the Executive Committee, who advised him to test the matter by disguising Mmself one night and trying to break the case open. This he resolved to do, and, shod in list slippers, he approached the case one night. Instantly the hand of a detective was placed on his shoulder. Great was the surprise on discover- ing that it was the owner of the case whom the man was about to arrest ; an explanation followed, and the jeweller slept in peace a,f ter that adventure.

Among the most important of the Garrards' works was the recutting of the Koh-i-noor. The Duke of Wellington placed the first facet of the stone in position for cutting, and one of the illustrations represents him in the act of doing this ; there is also a facsimile of his well-known signature from the visitors' book " Wellington, July 16th, 1852" within two months of his death on the 14th of September. Another illus- tration, taken from Punch, is Leech's caricature, ' The Poor Old Koh-i-noor again.' We find also an account of the jewelled pendant, designed by the Prince Consort, presented in 1855 to Florence Nightingale. The illustrations add much to the interest of the book the last being the Imperial Durbar Crown, which was designed and made by the firm, and contains .over 6,170 diamonds.

.Sir, Lectures on the Recorder and Other Flutes in Relation io Literature. By Christopher Welch. (Oxford University Press.)

THE writer begins his preface with a paragraph expressly designed to be forbidding, which, how- ever, we would hereby warn any one who may take up this book by no means to heed. Mr. Welch has brought together a wealth of interesting material, and though it is obvious that no par- ticular pains have been expended on " graces of style." the work is so forthright, and so alive with his own interest in it, that it is anything but dry or dull. Perhaps the least attractive lecture is the first, in which the history of the recorder is traced, down to its disappearance in the eighteenth century, and various literary errors on the subject are discussed. The second lecture deals with the tone and effect of the recorder in a matter-of-fact, uninflated manner ;

nevertheless, we have seldom read anything better apt to provoke the desire for what is described ; no reader with music in his soul but must feel thirsty for a concert of recorders. The three following lectures are devoted to Shakespeare and Milton, and the allusion -s we get in them to flutes and pipes in which examina- tion Milton, is discovered to be more decidedly inferior to Shakespeare in technical knowledge than probably most people would have suspected. The last lecture, on the temple flute-player and the tomb-piper, is in some ways the most sug- gestive. Not only are some of Mr. Welch's interpretations of ancient rites new and illuminat- ing, but his whole treatment is calculated to give the reader a vivid idea of what music meant to ancient peoples, more sensitive in that regard and more emotional than ourselves.

The Boole-Lovers' 1 Anthology, edited by Mr. B. M. Leonard (Frowde), brings together the tributes paid to books by a host of writers of different sorts and periods, in verse and prose. We congratulate the author on the catholicity of his selection, and have read so much that we delight in that we forgo the reviewer's usual privilege of grumbling over a passage or two sought in vain.

More than 200 authors are contributors, and one can easily find any of them by reference to the excellent Index, while the ' Contents ' gives their contributions in alphabetical order. The Preface says :

" The passages will be found grouped more or less according to subjects, though the dividing lines are fine, and chronological order within the limits of the groups has been a secondary con- sideration."

This almost amounts to a confession of disorder, and we think that Mr. Leonard might have sup- plied definite headings, and spared us some of the rapid transitions from one century to another. Among the pieces we note some excellent bits of Samuel Johnson, and pretty verse by Lionel Johnson ; Tupper and his parodist Calverley ; ' Erewhon ' Butler at his best about the British Museum ; T. H. Bayly satirizing the rage for writing about the peerage in novels ; the pun- gency of Colton's ' Lacon ' and the good sense of the Hares in ' Gues?e.H at Truth ' ; the lines "O for a Booke and a shadie nooke," which engaged the research of our own columns ; the lyric wist- fulness of J. A. Symonds ; and some fluent, clever verses on ' The Booksellers' Banquet ' by Maginn. We give these instances to show the wide scope of the book. More famous and familiar authors are also well represented.

A photograph of the Bodleian, which receives several worthy tributes here, forms the frontis- piece.

to C0mspontonts.

MR. THOMAS JESSOX. Forwarded.

J. P. COLVIN. For ' Charade ' see answers suggested at 10 S. i. 207.

R. M. (" Black spirits and white, red spirits and grey"). ' Macbeth,' IV. i. 43.

E. O. E. (" Plus je connais les homines plus j'aime les chicns "). See 10 S. s. 188, 273 ; xli. 292, 300.