Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/34

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.vn. JAN. 11,1913,

1781, 1783, and was elected to the Academie 28 May, 1763.

The * Biographic Universelle ' gives 173( as the date of the birth of Fran 9013 in London, but says nothing about the George II. legend.

In the Musee du Louvre, in Salle XVI. Galerie francaise du XVIII 6 siecle, or Galerie Darn, are two battle pictures by Francois Casanova, marked thus on the frames :

" 1243 Casanova (Francois), 1730-1805. Com- bat de Fribourg livre" le 3 AoiU, 1644.

" 1244 Casanova (Francois), 1732-1803. Ba- taille de Lens livre le 20 Aoiit, 1648."

They measure each 3m. 90 height by 4m. 56 width i.e., about 12 ft. 9 in. by 14 ft. 11 in. They are hung so high that one cannot see much of the details. They appear to be ordinary examples of eighteenth-century battle-pieces. They were exhibited at the Salon of 1771, and were in the collection of the Prince de Conde (d. 1818) in the Galerie du petit palais Bourbon, where he had collected a series of pictures representing the military exploits of le grand Conde. They were given to the Musee by Louis Philippe in 1835.

In Salle I., or Salle La Caze, are two very much smaller paintings by Casanova, viz.,

1247 and 1248, each named on the frame ' Un Cavalier.' The dates of Casanova given on the former are 1730-1803 ; on the latter 1730-1805. In the current Catalogue they are called respectively ' Un cuirassier au galop ' and ' Groupe de cavaliers.' They are paintings of considerable merit. Ac- cording to the 1880 and current Catalogues, there are two other pictures small ones by Franyois Casanova, each called ' Paysage avec animaux,' from an old collection. These, when I was at the Louvre in Novem- ber, I could not find.

Presumably the two pictures 1247 and

1248 are held in esteem. They are hung low, and one can buy photographs of them.

The collection La Caze is a comparatively modern addition to the Musee du Louvre. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

EPITAPH AT HARRINGTON. The following, apparently by a gentleman on his first wife, at Harrington, near Spilsby, about seventy years ago, I give from memory :

Reader, pass on : don't idly waste your time With bad biography and bitter rhyme. -bor what I am this cumbrous mound insures, And what I was is no concern of yours.

W. E. B.

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.

BEWICKIANA. (See 11 S. iv. 283.) 1. On what authority does the story (so often repeated) rest of Bewick's having inked the tail-piece at p. 285 in vol. i. of the ' Birds/ in a portion of the first edition,. 1797 ? The first mention I have seen of the inking having been done by Bewick'^ instructions is in the article ' Thomas Bewick, Engraver on Wood' (aid to be by " Christopher North," i.e. Prof. John Wilson), in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for July, 1825. As Bewick again issued the cut unaltered and uninked in the (1798) and 1800 editions of vol. i. of the ' Birds,' I am inclined to doubt that he had the inking done. It seems more likely that the book- sellers, finding that some of their customers, when ordering copies, objected to " the rudeness of the design " of this cut, had some of them inked, and finally prevailed upon Bewick to alter the cut,, which he did in the 1804 demy 8vo edition of vol. i.

In Lewine's ' Bibliography of Eighteenth- Century Art and Illustrated Books,' 1898, p. 58, referring to vol. i. of the ' Birds,' 1797, it is stated that " in the first issue the woodcut at p. 285 is immaculate (to please the Duke of Newcastle, Bewick's patron, it was afterwards inked over)." What is the authority, if any, for this statement ?

2. Atkinson, in his ' Sketch of the Life and Works of the late T. Bewick,' read 15 June, 1830, and published in the Trans- actions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle- upon-Tyne, vol. i., 1831, at p. 142 says :

"In 1800, 500 copies of the 'Land Birds' were printed by Hodgson, price 12s., on octavo, without the letterpress, but having the tail-piece which had been affixed to the birds in the previous edition, on the same page below the bird ; this edition did not sell well, and the second volume was not printed."

Bell, in his ' Catalogue of Bewick's Works/ 1851, p. 32, says this edition " did not at that time meet with a ready sale, in consequence of which many of them were destroyed."

In a letter to Mr. T. Vernon, Liverpool, dated "Newcastle, 6th January, 1801," printed in extenso in Robinson's ' Thomas Bewick: his Life and Times,' 1887, pp. 110- 111, Bewick writes :

" Sir, I sit down to ansr. your Letter of the 21st ultmo., but when I may meet with an opportunity