Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/491

 12 s. vin. MAY 21, izi.i NOTES AND QUERIES. 401 LONDON, MAY 21. 1921. CONTENTS. No. 162. NOTES : An^English Comedian at the Court of Louis XIV., 401 Court-martial on a Duellist, Newfoundland, 402 English Army List, 1740, 405 Glass-painters of York, 406 Petty France, 407 Italian Exchange in Early Seventeenth Century The New Theatre, Hammersmith. 408 Epitaph in Lowestoft Churchyard Epitaph in Benson Church, Oxon, 409. QUERIES : " Beads of Castledowne "Timothy Con- stableViscount Stafford, 1680 Club Membership Long- evity A Relic of Napoleon Mr. Gordon, Philanthropist. near Blackheath Dr. Arndall, Hobart John Axford Engraving of Old Soldier Poem Wanted Professional Genealogist Lightfoot, 410 Pushkin and Dante Japanese Artists Charles Simpson Royalist and Round- head Rates of Pay The Centipede Clementina Johannes Sobiesky Douglass Franklin Nights (or Days), 411. REPLIES : Napoleon and London Wilson's Buildings, 412 Cherry Orchards of Kent " Honest " Epitaphs " Zoo " Churches of St. Michael Culver Hole, Gower Old Novels and Song-Books, 413 Epigrammatists Catherinot : Epigrammata, 414 Reference Wanted Sir Roger de Coverley Dance Robinson Crusoe's Island, 415 " He will never set the Sieve on Fire " The Thames Running Dry Venetian Window, 416 Book Borrowers Pictures of Covent Garden Archbishop Tillotson and the Last Sacraments Smallest Pig of a Litter ' Pericles ' on the Stage Tavern Signs : ' Quiet Woman ' " Mag- dalen " or " Mawdlen," 417 Lancashire Settlers in America Henry Bell of Portington " Four-Bottle Men " Fire Pictures Joseph Austin, Actor, 1735-1821 The Year's Round of Children's Games, 418 Mary Benson, aUas Maria Theresa Phipoe, 419. NOTES ON BOOKS : ' The Tdwer of London ' ' Norwich Castle ' ' John Dryden and a British Academy.' Notices to Correspondents. AN ENGLISH COMEDIAN AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. DISCREETEST of all the Sacred Nine, Clio is seldom gracious to her devotees. To those who supplicate she is the muse of sophistry and evasion ; to gain the truth one must tear it remorselessly from her bowels. No more remarkable instance of how theatrical history has suffered from her caprice exists than in the case of the first performance of * Le Bourgeois Gentil- homme,' an event which, so far from taking place publicly, occurred at Chambord in the presence of the Grand Monarque on October 14, 1670. For considerably over two centuries it has been a settled opinion among Moliere worshippers that on its ushering into the world the comedy was followed by an associated opera-ballet which distinctly glorified three nations, and three only. Nothing was lacking, seemingly, to lend assurance on that point. The published scenario of the ballet yields the information that none but France, Spain, and Italy had representatives at that festival of dance and song. But, as it happens, a fourth nation sent its am- bassador unbidden to the assembly, and to him, by an irony of circumstance, all the real honours fell. In other words, bril- liantly as the rtiditre de ballet planned, he was out -planned by Providence. By a curious synchronization, it chanced that in July, 1670, Charles II. had dispatched his prime favourite, the Duke of Bucking- ham, to Versailles, with the hope of nego- tiating a treaty for a joint war with Holland. The better to lighten the cares of his mission, Buckingham took in his train, as a sort of licensed jester, the facetious Joe Haines, that erstwhile secretary of Sir Joseph Williamson, whose blabbing tongue and irresponsible wit had launched him on an uproarious career of bohemianism and buffoonery. To think of Joe and his morris dance a-down the years is to cap the absurdities of a Charlie Chaplin film. Although sprung from goodness knows where, he contrived to get a liberal uni- versity education, and left Oxford an accomplished linguist. But he soon wearied of engrossing dull Latin documents in a deadening Government office, and took to the stage as instinctively as a duckling waddles to water. He had but a little time trodden the boards when that avid curiosity- monger, Samuel Pepys, discovered him and pronounced his dancing and his freakish- ness incomparable. In recording Joe's first appearance on the regular stage in 1668, after his apprentisage at the Nursery, the diarist dubs him " an understanding fellow," adding " and yet they say hath spent a thousand pounds a year." How" he managed to accomplish this feat while having no money of his own, deponent sayeth not. Such was the merry wight whom Bucking- ham thought proper to take with him to France, and, in fullness of time, to present to the Grand Monarque. Never, perhaps, was plenipotentiary so familiarly enter- tained as was old Rowley's favourite by the masque -loving Louis. " I have had more honours done me," he writes to Arlington, " than ever were given to any subject." In September he returned to England, accompanied by Endymion Porter and the Count de Grammont, the three