Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/16

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [MJS.VI. JAN., 1920.'.

NAPOLEONIC AND OTHER RELICS IN NEW ORLEANS. I am indebted to Miss Doris Kent, a contributor to The New Orleans Times-Picayune, writing under date Nov. 16, for the following notes :

Less than a year ago the City Association of Commerce recommended that the old French quarter, or Vieux Carre, particularly in the environs of Jackson Square, should be restored as the centre for the art life of the city.

The Women's Suffrage Party of Louisiana and the War State Thrift Campaign use as headquarters the old building erected to house the first Louisiana Bank in 1816, and in this residence Paul Charles Morphy, the world's chess champion, was born. He was the son of a Louisiana Supreme Court Justice and Mile. De Carpentier, a beautiful Creole belle. At the age of 10 he was a chess prodigy, and when, at 13, the renowned Hungarian chess-player Lowenthal visited the city Morphy easily beat him. At 20 he entered the First American Chess Congress at New York, winning 97 out of 100 games. Later he went to Paris and London, and on his return to Boston Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Agassiz, and Henry Wadsworth Long- fellow were guests at a great banquet given in his honour. New Orleans presented him with a set of chessmen in gold and silver. He died from a chill, when still a young man, in the house in which he was born.

The Petit Theatre de Vieux Carre embraces part of the once beautiful apartments designed by the Baronne de Pontalba, the brilliant Creole daughter of Don Almonaster y Roxas, the builder of the Cabildo, the old Spanish law court, which still exists. The lady, after jilting one of the most important citizens, left New Orleans for France, and married the Baron de Pontalba. On her husband's death, she returned to New Orleans and erected the house in Jackson Square so much admired by artists, with its exquisite wrought iron railings, bearing her monogram as the central design. She also laid out the square after a favourite garden of Marie Antoinette, which she had admired in Paris.

The old residence at 500 Chartres Street is called the battered monument to French loyalty. It was built by Nicholas Girod to shelter Napoleon in 1821, and he and his friends also constructed and fitted out a swift ship, the Seraphine, with which to rescue the Emperor from the British at St. Helena. Capt. Boissiere, a famous mariner, was placed in command, assisted by Dominick You, an ex-pirate. But when

all was nearly ready Napoleon died, and word reached America just in- time to prevent the sailing of the little ship on her mission.. A negro bar-room and tenements now occupy the house designed for the Emperor' s*- use.

Many other famous old houses still 'exist' in New Orleans, one containing the first newspaper pressroom remaining in! the- United States, now easily the greatest, newspaper country in the world.

J.f LANDFEAB" LXJCA.S.

Glendora, Hindhead, Surrey..

' PICTORIAL RECORDS 0** LONDON.' This rare thin quarto by James Holbert Wilson,, describing the contents of " Portfolio 17," actually prints and drawings relating to- Fleet Street, &c., has no identification ofV date.

I recently came across the author's copy in which the printers' account was pre- served. Dated May 7, 1862, Messrs. Strange- ways & Walden of 28 Castl& Street, Leicester- Square, charge :

Comp(ositio)n of 40 pp. and working

J5 copies on thick superfine paper ... 2913 0'

Corrections and cancelled matter ... 5 12 0"

Doing up 12 copies (Is.) 12 0-

35 17 0"

ALECK ABRAHAMS. 51 Rutland Park Mansions, N.W.2.

ARCHDEACON FRANCIS WRANOHAM, 1769 1842. I observe at 12 S. v. 288 a reference to Archdeacon Wrangham as the supposed! author of the epigram on Jowett and his- garden. An odd mistake as to the Arch- deacon has come recently under my notice in searching for an engraved portrait. Wrangham' s portrait was painted by J. Jackson and engraved by R. Hicks, and formed a plate in Jordan's set. Upon th& plate is the designation " F.S-A." A search shows no record that Wrangham was ever a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries or that he was ever proposed. He was elected a. Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. Tho British Museum Catalogue repeats the error, which can be understood. It is well to> record it in C N. & Q.' to prevent a repetition..

W. H. QUARRELL.

THE TRINITY HOUSE AT RATCLIFF. (See- 12 S. v. 171, 214.) I may state that the- Stepney Church of St. Dunstan's, painted " for the Gentlemen of the Stepney Vestry," with the " Trinity " Mansion, in Durham* Row on the left of the churchyard, is.