Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/335

 12 S. I. APRIL 22, 1918.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

329

ADELAIDE NEILSON. There appears to b some mystery connected with the birth o this beautiful and talented actress. Is i known who her father was ? One accoun relates that he was a Spaniard and an artist Mr. Joseph Knight, in his monograph of he in the 'D.N.B.,' says "many portraits o her have appeared in magazines and othe publications." A complete iconography would be welcome. Can the readers o ' N. & Q.' supply it ?

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

RICHARD CARRUTHERS, ARTIST, Is any- thing known of an artist of this name ? I possess a portrait in oils by him of Sir Charles Price, first baronet of Spring Grove date of painting about 1800. It was en graved by Charleri Turner in 1819.

LEONARD C. PRICE.

Essex Lodge, Ewell.

[Richard Carruthers, according to Mr. Algernon Graves's ' Royal Academy of Arts,' vol. ii., showed twelve pictures at the Academy between 1816 and 1819- That of Alderman Sir C. Price was No. 267 in the exhibition of 1817.]

A ' HISTORY OF MASONRY.' I have a volume with this title which professes to be the history of Masonry from the Creation to the present time. It is " the third edition. Edinburgh, printed by William Auld, 1772." I wish to know if it is a reliable compilation. It has also a collection of songs, prologues, epilogues, &c. The author is not given, but at the end of section ' Masonry in Britain ' is printed " John Locke."

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

FOLK-LORE : CHIME-HOURS. A recent experiment in clairvoyance that chanced to be successful evoked the comment from an, observer in a Norfolk village that the ex- perimentalist must have been " born in chime-hours." What are " chime-hours " ?

MARGARET W.

THE " JENNINGS PROPERTY." In con- nexion with this one-time famous trial or rather trials a mass of interesting genea- logical details relative to the Jennings and allied families was, I know, collected. These were especially abundant in the early attempts to recover the property. It is a pity that all this information should have been lost ; but I can find no published details. Do such exist ? B.

Bristol.

BRIANTJS DE REDE. Can any reader say who was Brianus de Rede ? He lived in 1139. Where did he live, and are there any descendants ? . W. D. R.

THE ^HISTORY OF AN " IN&DITE "

ENGLISH LETTER OF VOLTAIRE.

(To be sold at the Red Cross Sale at Christie's

on Friday, April 28.)

(11 S. v. 888; vi. 15.)

" PRO captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli," wrote Terentianus Maurus about A.D. 100, in a ' Carmen de Literis, Syllabis, Pedibus et Metris,' of c which this line 1286 is perhaps the only one ever quoted, except by Prof. Saint sbury. Letters, too, have their fates, and the one written by Voltaire, of which a portion is here offered in facsimile, has met an unusually perverse fate less in attracting than in eluding readers. With an almost Voltairean irony, it has remained inedite long after being published in part and whole, fragmentary as it is. On Aug. 3, 1888, I purchased at Sotheby's Auction Rooms lot "164, Voltaire, A MS. (in English), 6 pp. 4to," for one guinea. This was printed verbatim, with a com- mentary by myself, in The Athenceum of Aug. 6, 1892. I should mention that Messrs. Sotheby have lately informed me that the letter was the property of Thibaudeau, the well-known autograph dealer, who became a bankrupt before his death, and I have been unable to ascertain its provenance.

Soon after I learnt from Prof. Churton 'ollins's ' Voltaire in England ' (1886), and Mr. Archibald Ballantyne's ' Voltaire's Visit to England ' (1893), supplemented by Prof. Lucien Foulet's later researches, that Dart of the letter had been quoted by Varburton in the notes to his edition of Pope's works (London, 1751, vol. iv. pp. 38 ind 170), in both of which.notes he gives the date of the letter as Oct. 15, 1726.

On Sept. 20, 1892, practically the whole Athenceum article appeared, under the title of Une Superbe Lettre inedite de Voltaire en Anglais,' in M. Octave Uzanne's review L'Art t VIdee (p. 179). This agreeable surprise was from the pen of M. Ch. Hettier, to whom

had sent a copy of The Athenceum. In

905 M. Hettier, then President of 1'Aca-

lemie Nationale des Sciences, Arts, et Belles-

l.ettres de Caen, republished in the Memoires

if the Academy his translation but this

ime accompanied by the English text.

Although he must have had The Athenceum

article before him for this purpose, he made

10 allusion to its previous publication either

n that journal or in L'Art et VIdee, and he

nly states that the original belonged to an