Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/195

 12 8. III. MARCH 10, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

189

eccentric ; but a miniature in my possession shows a normal mouth, and I have been unable to ascertain that he was in any way deformed. S. V. COOTE.

109 Sloane Street, S.W.

REFERENCE WANTED. Will any reader oblige me by giving chapter and verse for the following quotation?

" I do not believe that any London tradesman would feel the slightest interest in selling anything which was what it pretended to be." The passage may not be quoted accurately* as it is quite fifteen years since I read it, and I can only give it from memory. It seems to come from either Dickens or Thackeray, but I have vainly ransacked the works of those authors to refind it.

CEO. AlNSLIE HlGHT. 22 Bardwell Road, Oxford.

CBETTSOT. I have in my possession a pastel portrait of a lady, apparently aged about 30, belonging to the period of Louis XVT. On the back is written in an old hand in ink " Comtesse de Creusot, Habitant Paris."

Can any reader inform me as to this family, and whether or not it still exists ? Possibly it was connected with Creusot, the place where the great works of Schneider are located. FRANK WARD.

JOHN VICKERS. Can any correspondent give particulars of the parentage of John Vickers, of Fulham, Middlesex, who died 1672 ? He apparently had (inter alios?) by

his wife Margerie ( ?) John, died on his

voyage home from India, 1673 ; James, Jacob, and Mary. WM. JACKSON PIGOTT.

Manor House, Dundrum, co. Down.

[See for John Vickers, Jun.,ante, p. 81.]

FIRST STEAMER TO AMERICA. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic did so not from Europe to America, but in the reverse direction. On May 20, 1819, the ss. City of Savannah Capt. Moses Rogers left Savannah, Georgia, and arrived at Liverpool on June 20. Which was the first steamer from Europe to make the journey ? J. LANDFEAR LUCAS.

Glendora, Hindhead, Surrey.

[The honour seems to belong to the Sirius, which left the Cove of Cork (now Queenstown), on April 4, 1838, and arrived at New York on April 21 or 22. The Great Western left Bristol on April 8, and reached New York on April 23. The New York Weekly ^Herald of April 28 gives the whole credit to the Sirius. See the extracts from it printed by MR. EVEBAKD HORNK CoLEMAN at 9 S. vii. 16 and viii. 307.]

BRISTOL CHANNEL FROZEN OVER. In ' Lorna Doone ' there is a picturesque account of the Bristol Channel being frozen over so that people were able to cross on the ice from Clevedon to Penarth. This event is fixed towards the end of the seven- teenth century. To me it seems very improbable. Can any one kindly refer me to some authority where the occurrence is noted or described ? ARTHUR MEE.I

Cardiff.

GAMBARDELLA.

(12 S. iii. 50, 114.)

SPIRIDIONE GAMBARDELLA was born^ at Naples, and was a political refugee, having escaped from Italy on board an American man-of-war. After leaving Boston he spent some years in London and Liverpool. He seems to have been very popular, especially with many Liberal families in England. From 1835 to 1840 he lived in Boston, U.S.A. ; in 1842 at 59 Devonshire Street, London ; and in 1842-3 at 8 Michael's Place, Brompton Square (George Fownes was the owner and occupier of this house. He was a notable chemist. See ' Diet. Nat. Biog.'). In 1845 Gambardella lived at 4 Chatham Place, Edge Hill, Liverpool: in 1846 at 24 Gower Street, London ; in 1851-2 at 28 Sussex Place, Kensington. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1842 to 1850 ; at the British Institution, 1842 to 1852 ; and at the Liverpool Academy, 1842 to 1850. He is duly recorded by Mr. Algernon Graves in his works, and by Benezit in his ' Dictionnaire des Peintres,', vol. ii. p. 368. He was an excellent painter, and is represented in the Musee d' Arras. I append a list of his exhibits : Royal Academy : 1842, ' Portrait of a Lady,' ' London Beggars,' ' La Vestale ' ; in 1850, ' Venus and Adonis.' British Institution: 1842, 'Aspirations'; 1843, 'The Beggars'; 1845, J The Two Friends,' ' Alice.' Liverpool Academy ; 1842, ' Aspiration ' ; 1843, three separate portraits ; 1844, three separate portraits, Portrait of Edward Rushton,' ' Portrait of the Rev. John Hamilton Thorn,' ' An Italian Boy' (six works in all in 1844) ; in 1845, three exhibits, two portraits and a study ; in 1850, a portrait, a group of portraits, ' The Marchioness of Douro ' (wife of the 2nd Duke of Wellington), ' The Music Grinders.'