Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/227

 12 8. 1. MAB. 18, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

221

LONDON. SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1916.

CONTENTS.-No. 12.

NOTES : Contributions to the History of European Travel 221 Fielding's "Parson Adams," 224 Dickens and Michael Kelly Dr. Richard Hall, 225 -Frederic George Stephens Origin of the British Navy "To box the compass"" Plough Bullocks," 226.

QUERIES :-George Whitefleld, 226 -Dr. Donne's Countess of Huntingdon H. Ensor, Artist J. C. Easling : Thomas Hodgetts Geo. Knight, Artist Song Wanted Thomas Miners The Professor and the Bicycle Folk-Lore : Geese and Rain, 227 Children's Books George Russel, Rector of Schull, co. Cork -Authors Wanted Anerley Handley Cross" Swaddy." 228 Sarum Missal : Hymn- Regimental Loving-Cup Herrick-Cotterill : Connexion with the Continent Darwin and Mutation Baronetage John Gibbs Guild of St. Loy, Dublin Lurapkin, 229.

REPLIES: The Newspaper Placard, 230-Is the Only Child ever Famous? Portsmouth: Southwick ' Anec- dotes of Monkeys,' 232 Grace Dalrymple Eliot and Madame St. Alban A Fellow-Lodger of Benjamin Franklin, 233 Resemblances between Semitic and Mexican Languages Marble Bust of Sir Isambard Brunei Tigers' Whiskers E. Cashin Effect of Freezing on the Human Body, 234 The Rabbit in England The Cultus of King Henry VI., 235 Edward Wortley Montagu James Bentham's Portrait Celtic and Coptic Monasticism, 236 Was Keats a Christian? 237 'The Tragedy of Mariam ' The Dangers of Crossing- Cleopatra and the Pearl" Trefira Saracin " ' The Final Toast' "Terra rodata," 238.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Calendar of Letters relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain' Amentet : the Gods. Amulets, and Scarabs of the Ancient Egyptians.'

Notices to Correspondents.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN TRAVEL.

(See ante, pp. 61, 101, 141, 181.) V.

F. MORTOFT.

MORTOFT'S Journal of his travels through France and Italy in 1658-9* is preserved
 * at the British Museum (Sloane MS. 2142).

He travelled with Mr. Geo. Stanley and one or two others, and started from Calais in September, 1658. The diary gives no account of the journey to Calais, but commences with the statement that the travellers left Calais on Sept. 1 and departed

is said to be by F. Mortoft ; but in the same index, Hinder ' Italy,' it is ascribed to Dr. T. Gill. In the catalogue the MS. is described as the journal of Mr. Geo. Stanley's travels through France and Italy. Stanley was one of Mor toft's fellow- travellers. Dr. Gill appears to have been the owner of the MS.
 * In the index to the Sloane MSS. the journal

for Boulogne, where they arrived the same day. From Boulogne they set out by way of Rouen for Paris, where they arrived on Sept. 9. Here a stay of ten days was made, the travellers visiting the Louvre, Notre Dame and other churches, and on Sept. 19 they passed on to Orleans. They found the Church of St. Croix much ruined " since the Civil Wars " ; and the next day they reached Chambord and visited the gigantic Chateau, that " vast and comfortless barrack," com- menced by Francis I., upon which 1,800 workmen laboured for twelve years, and which even then had to be handed on un- finished to the next reign.

As the travellers passed down the Loire, a halt was made at Amboise to see the " very faire castle " rising high above the town, but neither the grandeur of Amboise nor its grim and troubled history seems to have impressed them. They viewed the famous buck's head with its gigantic horns, for centuries the wonder of the castle,* but Mortoft records nothing further beyond remarking that the castle stands upon a very high hill " and wearies a man very much to go up to it." From Tours the travellers proceeded to Richelieu, where the Cardinal's palace, described as "the statelyest building y fc is to be found in y e kingdom," was the chief item of interest; but the town itself, thpugh small and but thinly populated since the great Cardinal's death, seems to have been a delightful little place. " Though little," says Mortoft, "it is the prettyest contained thing y* any man can enter into." At Samur, noted for the purity of its French, the travellers found the town full of Germans and Englishmen, all busy learning the .anguage ; the same day, Sept. 24, they Dassed on to Angers and Nantes, and on Dct. 3 reached La Rochelle, which is de- scribed as one of " the neatest and clean- yest " towns in France. The travellers then visited Saintes and Blaye, and later proceeded >y water to Bordeaux, " o' selves in one Boate and o r horses in another." They secured lodgings at the " Chapeau Rouge," and spent ten days in visiting the principal (hurches and buildings ; and then continued heir journey by way of Agen and Montauban o Toulouse. Narbonne, " full of marks and nonuments of antiquity," was reached on

It remained for a German soldier in the Franco- Prussian War to discover that the antlers were nothing but a gigantic fraud in wood. They were carried off; but, before the booty could be got to the next station, the famous horns had crumbled away into a mass of worm-eaten dust. T. A. Cook, Old Touraine,' 1912, ii. 88.