Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/475

 12 s. ii. DEC. 9, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

469

IBSEN'S ' GHOSTS ' AND THE LORD CHAM- BERLAIN. Can any correspondent give the date on which the Lord Chamberlain forbade, or was alleged to have forbidden, the per- formance by a German company of Ibsen's ' Ghosts.' It was some time during the Boer War. I have a newspaper cutting, not dated, containing the following :

("From our own correspondent, Paris.")

" Mr. Chamberlain, who, in addition to being Minister of the Colonies, is also censor of plays, has forbidden the performance of Ibsen's Ghosts by a German troupe in London.

" In an article headed ' Chamberlain-Macbeth ' the Nineteenth Si&cle says : ' Mr. Chamberlain is not fond of the living, having made so many corpses whose bones whiten at the foot of the kopjes of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. He likes ghosts still less, and will not allow them to ap- proach him. A luckier man than Macbeth, Mr. Chamberlain has the power to prevent the spectre of Banco [sic] from seating himself at his side. Mr. Chamberlain is a happy man.'

" The Echo de Paris says ; ' Chamberlain is becoming terrible. He is declaring a new war. This time against Ibsen.' "

The back of the cutting comments on the ' Dance Macabre,' the prelude to Act III. of ' Lohengrin,' Mr. Percy Pitt's " pretty Air de Ballet,". . . .and " The vocal numbers interpreted by Miss Maggie Davies, Miss Jennie Goldsack, and Senor Paoli."

I have a considerable collection of carica- tures, &c., mainly French, concerning the ,Boer War, but this little extract, probably from The Standard, lacks its date.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

THE REV. JAMES CHELSUM. When and whom did he marry ? Where and when in 1801 did he die ? The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' x. 183, does not give the required information.

G. F. R. B.

SIR THOMAS ANDREW LUMISDEN STRANGE. I should be glad to ascertain the actual dates of his appointment as Chief Justice of Nova Scotia in 1789, and as Recorder of Madras in 1797. When and where did his second marriage take place ? The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' (Iv. 28) does not give the desired information. G. F. R. B.

NAPOLEON AND NICHOLAS GIROD. From a Louisiana source I learn that in various memoirs written by Napoleon's attendants at St. Helena, there are indications that the Emperor knew and approved of a plan of rescue which was being organized by Nicholas Girod, a millionaire ex-Mayor of New Orleans. A vessel was to be fitted out and a select crew was to effect a landing at night, and to carry' the prisoner away. The expedition was cut short by the news of the

Emperor's death, but Girod, in 1821, had already erected the house at New Orleans in which he intended that Napoleon should reside, and it remains to this d&y one of the show places of that city. Is the story an authentic one, and in whose memoirs is the suggested escape mentioned, or hinted at ? J. LANDFEAR LUCAS. Glendora, Hindhead, Surrey.

FELLOWS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. I shall be obliged to any reader who can, furnish me with information as to the dates of birth and death, and references to the works, of the undermentioned Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries :

John Chichley, an original Fellow.

William Sheldon, elected 1769.

John Motteux, 1770.

William Cooper Cooper, 1838.

Augustus William Gadesden, 1840.

E. BRABROOK.

Langham House, Wallington, Surrey.

SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES : UNDERGRADUATES. GOWN. Have the universities of Scotland any gown for their students, and if so, what is the colour ? If they have abolished the wearing of the gown what colour used it to be ? Dr. Venn in his ' Early Collegiate Life ' at Cambridge, says the Scots wore a red gown when they chose to put any on. Was that colour the same for all ?

A. G. KEALY.

A TARTAR'S Bow. Possibly some of your readers may be able to enlighten me on the following :

In ' A Midsummer Night's Dream ' (iii. 2) Puck is made to say :

Look how I go, swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow,

meaning that he will do the message of Oberon and be back instantly.

In the ' Advancement of Learning ' (Book II.), Bacon observes that :

" Words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment."

And in one of his speeches (on the ' Motion of a Subsidy ') says :

' Sure am I it was like a Tartar's or Parthiin's bow which shooteth backwards."

Was a Tartar's bow so constructed as to shoot in such a way that the arrow curved in its flight and returned in the direction of the archer ? And what was the source of this information upon which the poet and the philosopher drew the simile ?

RODERICK L. EAGLE.