Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/115

 128. 1. FEB. 5, 1916. J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mind to bear on one object, and was at the mercy of every theory Leigh Hunt's ingenuity would suggest .... He had a tending to religion when first I met him [1816], but Leigh Hunt soon forced it from his mind. Never shall I forget Keats once rising from his chair and approaching my last picture (' Entry into Jerusalem'); he went before the portrait of Voltaire, placed his hand on his heart, and bowing low, ' That's the being to Whom I bend,' said he, alluding to the bending of the other figures in the picture, and contrasting Voltaire with our Saviour, and his own adoration to that of the crowd. Leigh Hunt was the great unhinger of his best dispositions. Latterly, Keats saw Leigh Hunt's weakness. I distrusted his leader, but Keats would not cease to visit him, because he thought Hunt ill-used. This showed Keats's goodness of heart."

Describing elsewhere (ibid., p. 350) a social gathering (Jan., 1817) at which he, Shelley, Keats, Mr. and Mrs. Hunt, " Old Hill," and Horace Smith were present, Haydon says, " All present were deists but myself," and Shelley and Hunt virulently attacked Christianity, but that

women seemed delighted to be palliated in the infidelity they had come to ; and Shelley, Hunt, and S. kept at it till, finding I was a match for all their arguments, they became personal, and so did I. We said nasty things to each other, and When I retired to the other room for a moment I overheard them say, ' Haydon is fierce.' ' Yes,' said Hunt, ' the question always irritates him.' As his wife and sister were dressing to go, Hunt said to me, with a look of nervous fear, ' Are these creatures to be d ned, Haydon ? Good heaven ! What a morbid view of Christianity.' "
 * ' neither Smith, Keats or Hill said a word ; the

Here Keats is distinctly numbered amongst the deists, from whose ranks Haydon strove valiantly to extricate him, for in the following May he wrote thus to him, -pleadingly :

" Trust in God with all your might, my dear Keats. . . .Beware, for God's sake, of the delusions and sophistications that are ripping up the talents and morality of our friend ! He will go out of the world the victim of his own weakness, and the dupe of his own self-delusions, with the contempt of his enemies, and the sorrow of his friends." Vol. iii. p. 61.

This passage refers, according to Mr. F. W. Haydon, to Leigh Hunt. I am not, however, dealing with Hunt's religion, but with that of Keats, and seek evidence, if it be forthcoming, from those better informed on the matter of the poet's Christianity or non- Christianity. Did Haydon' s influence over him outbalance that of Hunt, and retain for him or restore to him his one-time belief in the Christian religion ? Mr. Forman appears to think so, for he observes on the letter quoted above :

" This is an excellent example of the kind of influence the painter exercised on the poet " ;

and Keats himself, in reply to that letter, wrote to Haydon :

" I wrote to Hunt yesterday scarcely know what I said in it.... His self-delusions are very lamentable they have enticed him into a situation which I should be less eager after than that of a galley slave what you observe thereon is very true must be in time. Perhaps it is a self -delusion to say so but I think I could not fce deceived in the manner that Hunt is may I die to-morrow if I am to be."

There is a spark of hope here which I would fain see kindled into a flame of certainty. The phrase " God bless you " is frequent in his (and, for that matter, in Hunt's) letters, but I know of no definite acceptance of Christianity in his works beyond that incident recorded above.

J. B. McGovERN.

STICKING - PLASTER PORTRAITS. In 1 Ravenswing,' chap, vii., Thackeray speaks of " little cracked sticking-plaster minia- tures," and in * The Book of Snobs, 1 chap, xiv., of " a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby. . . .in a cap and gown." What were these ? It seems possible that silhouettes may have actually been made of black court- plaster, or that they may have been jocularly designated from the appearance of the black paper of which they were made ; but I do not know any evidence of this. Does the expression occur elsewhere ?

HENRY BRADLEY.

Oxford.

ALLAN RAMSAY. What is the date of composition of Allan Ramsay's ' Stanzas to Mr. David Malloch on his Departure from Scotland,' and when was it first printed ? Any information concerning this poem will be welcome. What is the date of the first edition of vol. ii. of the ' Tea- Table Miscellany ' ? Which library contains a copy ? A. E. H. SWAEN.

Amsterdam.

[The stanzas to David Malloch (Mallet) were written in 1723.]

DE PEAULY OF KALLENBACH. Can any reader inform me where I may find the pedigree of the family of De Peauly (Fr., or Von Poly (Ger.) of Kallenbach in Rhenish Prussia ? Baron George de Peauly died in exile at Banbury, and was buried there in 1810, and his Baroness in 1813, leaving an only child, Baroness Antoinette, who pub- lished a book entitled ' Memoirs of the Family of De Poly ' (Northampton. J. Able, 1822), in which she is very vague about her ancestry. This book was subscribed for by a large number of the aristocracy. Her