Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/445

 2nd s. N 22., MAY 31. 'o

NOTES AND QUERIES.

437

an abundance of anecdote handed down by Lucian, and other writers of that age, which sufficiently proves the high opinion then entertained of them. Pantomime flourished in Rome, for about two centuries, with very great success, and finally sunk in the general annihilation of the sciences and literature in general, in that country. It lingered, however, and still does, in Italy.* In our own country it has arrived to a great degree of perfection; and for the attainment of excellence in this art, we are indebted to the late Mr. John Rich, the original patentee and manager of Covent Garden Theatre. In this par- ticular department Mr. Rich was possessed of the greatest taste. He had acquired considerable reputation by his own performance of the motley hero under the assumed name of Lun, Junr. (being thus designated in the bills of the day, and in the titles of the pantomimes which he published) ; and it is most probable that the great reputa- tion he obtained as harlequin might have arisen, in some measure, from the splendour with which he produced these pieces, and from his being the first performer who had rendered the character at all intelligible in this country. Since the period of Mr. Rich's exhibitions, pantomime has increased rapidly in popularity ; and, at Covent Garden Theatre more especially, has attained its chief eminence. This may be easily accounted for, as it is much easier to find both managers to comprehend, and actors to persanate, the vagaries of harlequin and clown than the sublimities of Shakspeare and Otway."

J.Y.

They were invented by John Rich, who pro- duced one annually under the assumed name of Lun, from 1717 till his death in 1761. See his life in tlie Georgian Era, vol. iv. p. 341., and Biographia Dramatica. THOMPSON COOPER.

Cambridge,

THE LORD OF BUELEIGH.

(1 st S. xii. 280. 3.55.)

My two valued collaborateurs in the pages of " N. & Q.," Messrs. C. M. INGLEBT and the clergy- man who adopts the pseudonym of CUTHBERT BEDE, will, I trust, pardon my endeavour to set them right where they have unintentionally lapsed into error. In the autumn of 1855 it was my good fortune to enjoy the hospitality of a dear friend resident at Stamford, Lincolnshire, in whose company I visited Burleigh Hall, the seat of the Marquis of Exeter ; and I there learned some particulars relative to " the Peasant Countess," with whose history the pages of my favourite Tennyson had long made me familiar. Her lady- ship's portrait gives the spectator the idea of a buxom, ruddy-faced woman, stout and well pro- portioned, just the last person whom I should suppose to have died of consumption ; indeed her physique would rather indicate fever or apoplexy as the disease by which her life would be termi- nated, a circumstance to which I shall have oc- casion to revert.

The few corrections that I have to make are derived from an authentic source. Mr. Henry

Cecil, afterwards Earl and Marquis of Exeter, was born March 14, 1754, and married, May 23, 1776, Emma, sole daughter and heiress of Thomas Vernon, Esq., of Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire, by whom he had an only son, who died in the fol- lowing year. After fifteen years of married life, Mr. Cecil was divorced from his wife in 1791; and it is probable that he and she had separated some time previously, prior to his commencement of proceedings at law for a divorce. During this time he retired to Bolas Common, disgusted with the world, or from a love of solitude; and feeling that legal proceedings would soon rid him of the vinculum matrimonii by which he was bound to his giddy and faithless wife, he paid attentions to Miss Masefield, which were discountenanced by her parents, in consequence of the mystery con- nected with his mode of life at Bolas Common. My reason for thinking that his proposal for the hand of Miss Masefield occurred prior to the dis- solution of his marriage with Miss Vernon is that the latter event took place in 1791, by act of parliament, and he was married October 3, same year, to Miss Sarah Hoggins, of Bolas Common, whose pride, as one of the fair sex, would scarcely have allowed her to marry " Mr. John Jokes " immediately after his abrupt rejection by the Masefield family, a circumstance, and the causes leading to it, which must have been the subject of gossip at Bolas at the time. I am inclined to be- lieve that the " debt," if any, which MR. INGLEBY mentions as the cause of Mr. Cecil's hejira to Bolas Common, was produced by the extravagance of his first wife, and that he did not become free from pecuniary embarrassments until he was freed from their cause. But here arises a difficulty. All agree that his family was ignorant of his abode, and his means of supporting himself were un- known or misinterpreted at Bolas Common ; why, then, should he disappear thence periodically ? I say, in order to visit his steward, and receive money from the estate which he received at his marriage with Miss Vernon. I look on " debt " as hardly connected with his reason for choosing a retreat at Bolas Common, and should rather as- cribe his residing there to a wish to avoid the un- enviable notoriety which follows injured husbands. I now proceed to another point. Miss Sarah Hoggins, " The Peasant Countess," was married to Mr. Cecil, Oct. 3, 1791 ; her husband succeeded to the earldom of Exeter December 27, 17f * ; and the countess died January 18, 1797. The earl married August 19, 1800, a third wife, the Dow- ager Duchess of Hamilton, who survived him and died January 17, 1837, exactly forty years after the death of "The Peasant Countess." The Earl of Exeter was created a marquis February 4, 1801, and died May 1, 1804, leaving no issue by his first wife or by the Duchess of Hamilton. By the Countess of Exeter he had four children, not