Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/182

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. VL A. 2*, 1012.

Joseph was born in Birmingham, 10 June, 1818, and when he was two years old the family removed to London. Here the father, John Fussell, was soon in good practice as an artist ; besides illustrating books, he exhibited, between 1821 and 1845, forty-nine pictures, mostly Scriptural, twenty-four being hung in the Royal Academy. He also became well acquainted with many of the famous artists of a century ago. Alexander, his elder son, exhibited between 1838 and 1876 thirteen pictures (historical subjects). Joseph, who rseems to have rather failed as a portrait painter, after a while (says The Theosophical Path, June, 1912.)

" went to reside in Nottingham, where ho had a .most successful career, and at the time of his leaving England in the spring of the year 1903, at the age of eighty-five, he was probably the oldest active art-teacher in the country, with a record of seventy- four years of active work."

At Point Lonaa he was appointed one of the art-instructors in the College ; but it -was more as director of the beautiful gardens that he occupied his latter days ; and after
 * his demise, the body having been cremated

-at Los Angeles, his ashes were laid to rest among the exquisite flowers he had loved
 * so well. He leaves two sons, H. Alexander

Fussell and Joseph H. Fussell.

I am afraid that I have sadly trespassed 'upon space which might be devoted to more important matter ; but, as the subject of early- Victorian art and artists is one which possesses considerable attraction for me, I always believe there are others who, like myself, old or middle-aged, may care some- times to read about the lesser lights of other days. HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

PARNELL'S ' OLD BEAUTY ' : A READING. In the ' Life ' prefixed to the Aldine Edition of ' Parnell's Poetical Works,' Mitford writes thus regarding ' An Elegy, to an Old Beauty ' :

"The Elegy to an ' Old Beauty ' has much of that sprightliness and graceful ease which Pope pos- sessed, and which gave a lustre and worth to trifles. There is, however, a couplet in it that seems to me to be defective, and wanting in construction, but I do not know how to rectify it, while the metre and rhyme are preserved,

But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise, As harpers better, by the loss of eyes, though it might be restored to its meaning under the following alteration,

As harpers better play, by loss of eyes." All this, of course, is simply critical ingenuity wasted, for " better " in the line is not an adverb, as Mitford seems to have

fancied, but a verb implying " become better " or " improve." From the Eliza- bethan age to the present time the word has been constantly used with a transitive or a reflexive force, and Parnell does a quite legitimate thing when he thus employs it intransitively. It will be remembered that the poet in this Elegy contributes to the language the phrase " pretty Fanny's way." THOMAS BAYNE.

SIR WALTER SCOTT AND FREEMASONRY. (See ante, p. 82.) Another Lodge- meeting at the Masonic Hall in Hill Street, Edin- burgh, has a connexion with the great novelist, this being the Lodge Edinburgh St. James' No. 97., An initiate of the Lodge, G. M. Kemp, designed the beautiful Scott Memorial in Princes Street, and was a member at the time of his death. The Lodge Room contains an old-fashioned organ, still in use, which was presented by the doctor who accompanied the last Franklin Expedition- Behind the Master's chair is a huge picture that was painted on the wall of the old room in which the Lodge was held for many years, and successfully removed to its present position. It is said to represent that part of Jerusalem in which Solomon's Temple was located.

CHARLES S. BURDON.

"EMPLOYEE." This French word, but without the accent, is now apparently Angli- cized, and seems to have come to stay. It has been adopted in the National Health Insurance Act as a substituted name for the employed. Presumably it is not in future to be pronounced as a French word, but regarded as of the same group as " trans- feree," " mortgagee," &c.

JAS. CURTIS, F.S.A.

[The late Howard Collins in his useful handbook entitled 'Author and Printer' (1905) under "employe" added: "frequently employee (no accent)."!

" DACIA " = DENMARK. Some weeks ago I was examining a transcript of a monastic ballad written before the Norman Conquest, and found in it the word " Daciani," appa- rently meaning the Danes. In looking through the ' Chronicon' of Sigibert of Gem- bloux (printed at Paris in 1513) I find this at fo. 20 : " Arturus rex Norguegiam & Daciam suae ditioni subegit ; deinde transiit ad Galliam." The year is 482. On fo. 83 mention is made of " Rex Danorum Aral- dus" in the year 966. The ' Chronicon' itself, as far as Sigibert wrote it, goes back to the year 1110. RICHARD H. THORNTON.