Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/519

 9's.x. DEC. <27,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

511

Oration, | on | The Influence | of | Italian Works of Imagination | on the | Same Class of Composi- tions in England ; | Delivered in Trinity College Chapel, | December 16, 1831. | Cambridge:'] Printed by W. Metcalfe, St. Mary's Street. | MDCCCXXXII. Fcap. 8vo, pp. 29.

My copy was presented by Mrs. Hallam, Arthur's mother, to Lady Callcott, and a letter which is inserted in it possesses a pathetic interest, as in it Mrs. Hallam writes to Lady (then Mrs.) Callcott, under date 31 July, 1833, that "Mr. Hallam is on the point of starting for Germany with Arthur." This was that "last fatal tour" from which her son never returned.

Another of Arthur Hallam's publications also very rare entitled 'Remarks on Prof. Rossetti's " Disquisizioni sullo Spirito Anti- papale,'" is in the Forster collection of pamphlets in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Lastly, I may refer any one who finds a difficulty in pro- curing the 'Remains' of Arthur Henry Hallam to Dr. John Brown's article which originally appeared in the North British Review for 1851, and was reprinted, with additions, in 'Horse Subsecivae.' In this admirable essay the most lovable of modern writers gives the cream of Arthur Hallam's verse and prose with his own inimitable comments. W. F. PEIDEAUX.

CHARLES J. MATHEWS (9 th S. x. 168). The following is to be found in 'Literary and Graphic Illustrations of Shakspeare and the British Drama,' London, 1831 :

" ' Bold Stroke for a Wife.' In August, 1823, this comedy was reduced to two acts, and, with the addition of a few songs, converted into a piece for the English Opera House called 'The Guardian Outwitted,' for the exhibition of the versatile talents and rapid changes of character of Mr. Mathews, in the part of the enterprising lover, and certainly, if so preposterous a scheme of delusion could ever have succeeded, that performer was the most likely individual in existence to render it successful. _

W - .D. n..

['The Guardian Outwitted' is the title of an opera in three acts, attributed to Arne, and pro- duced at Covent Garden 12 December, 1764.]

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY QUERIES (9 th S. x. 408).- 5. I should advise your correspondent to refer to the under-mentioned work, which he will find in the Guildhall Library,- E.G.:

" Return of all courts and other authorities in England and Wales which novr.are, or at any former period have been, empowered to grant pro- bates of wills, and letters of administration. 16 April, 1829. London, 1829. At the present time there is a District Registry at Oxford which includes the

University of Oxford and the counties of Oxford, Berks, and Bucks, but at what date the records commence I know not.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

HERRICK'S ' HESPERIDES ' : " LUTES OF AMBER " (9 th S. ix. 408, 471 ; x. 17, 95, 336). The reasons for considering that amber was intended in the apposite quotation from Aristophanes supplied at the last reference do not seem irresistible, for pegs of electrum may have been intended (cf. W. J. Hickie's translation in Bonn's series). One may compare this substance, too, with the com- ponent of the unbreakable shield of Herakles described by Hesiod ; and with the elektron in Sophocles ('Antigone,' 1037). The latter passage is, by the way, rendered "Sardis amber-metal " (Plumptre, 1865), " electrum from the mine of Lydia" (Campbell, 1896), "amber ye buy from Sardis" (Whitelaw, 1897), by various translators. But this is wandering away* from Herrick, .who in 'A Nuptiall Song ; also says :

She paces on,

Treading upon vermilion

And amber,

which seems to be a reminiscence of Homer (Epig. xv. 10). J. DORMBR.

CABINET MINISTERS AND UNIVERSITY HONOURS (9 th S. x. 427). Oxford, as far as I know, can claim no "first-class " men in the present Cabinet. Oddly enough, the only two members who did attain that distinction have recently retired : Sir Michael Hicks- Beach, who got a first in Law and History (1858), and Viscount Ridley, who got a first in Greats- (1865).

As to Cabinet Ministers who have achieved first-class university honours during the past sixty or seventy years, the compilation of a complete list would be a rather laborious task. The following enumeration is probably not complete, even so far as Oxford is concerned, but it may be of use as far as it goes. Double first classes: Sir Robert Peel (1808 : I think the first on record), W. K Gladstone (1831), Viscount Cardwell (1835). First classes (all in the Classical School) : Lord Westbury (1818), Lord Taunton (1820, Sir George Grey (1821), T. H. Estcourt (1822), Sir G. C. Lewis (1828), Lord Sherbrooke (1833), Earl of Selborne (1834), Sir Stafford Northcote (1839), Earl of Kimberl^ (1847), Earl of Carnarvon (1852), Herbert Asquith (1874). Hon. E. Stanhope got a first in Mathematical Moderations in 1861. _

As to Cambridge, I can only recall, hie et nunc, that Lord Lyndhurst was second