Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/405

 9" S. XL MAY 16, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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4 The Cottagers.' This work was engraved by Bartolozzi in a large plate, and later, and smaller, by S. W. Reynolds (1835) and Mr. R. B. Parks (1876) severally. Miss Potts was so extremely intimate with the family of Macklin, the publisher of the once-famous Bible, that when, in 1788, the latter com- missioned Reynolds to paint his wife and daughter on a large canvas and at life size, the young lady was included in the group of figures. The picture was exhibited at the British Institution (North Room, No. 23) in 1813, the property of Mr. W. Gosling, as ' The Gleaners.' It was at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1873, as No. 280, and at the Grosvenor Gallery, 1884, as No. 185. In the Catalogue of the latter this example is described thus : it " represents an Arcadian scene, before the door of a cottage, with the

Sublisher's wife and daughter seated in omestic happiness with Miss Potts, a dear and beautiful friend of theirs, standing with a sheaf of corn on her head ; the last-named figure claims the greatest interest from all who admire the works of the Landseers, because in a short time after she sat to Sir Joshua in this guise she was married to John Landseer, the young engraver, and thus became the mother of Thomas, Charles, Edwin Henry (i.e., Sir Edwin), and four daughters. Bartolozzi engraved, in 1792, the portrait of Miss Emily Pott, after Reynolds, as 'Thais' ['in haste to destroy']. This was not the lady now in question." The fact is that this Miss Emily was a well- known courtezan of the period, whose relations with the Hon. C. Greville were notorious, and occupied an interlude in her career which included residence, in a pro- fessional capacity, in India, where she died young, as Northcote (the best possible authority) asserted. In 1884 * The Gleaners ' belonged to Mr. Robert Gosling, who lent it to the Grosvenor Gallery. ' Thai's ' formerly belonged to Lord Tollemache, and from his hands passed to those of the late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. Miss Emily Pott seems to have been otherwise known as Emily Bertie and Emily Coventry, if, indeed, three several damsels of uneasy virtue were not thus variously designated. A text from Thomson's * Seasons ' is said to be illustrated by * The Gleaners.' O.

Miss Emily Pott as Thai's, a " courtezan of the day," whole-length mezzotint by S. W. Reynolds, after the picture by Sir J. Rey- nolds, 4 in. by 6|in., published by Hodgson & Graves in 1837, price about 10s. 6d. The same picture engraved by Bartolozzi, price of engravings about 211., photographs from

1*. to 12s. Qd. Miss Pott (mother of Sir E Landseer, R.A.), small engravings from the picture by Reynolds about 10s. Qd. In Sir Joshua Reynolds's picture of 'The Cottagers' are three figures, Mrs. Macklin, Miss Mack- lin, and Miss Pott, engraved by Bartolozzi in 1794 ; good impressions from this plate now fetch from 101. to 12. ; photographs, Is. to 3s. 6d. The above we take from our cata- logues and notes of engravings.

WHITEHOUSE & JAMES. Hyde Park Gallery, 30, St. George's Place, S. W.

"HONEST" EPITAPHS (9 th S. x. 306. 375 ; xi. 178). I have a copy of the somewhat rare 'Theater of Mortality,' by Monteith, 1704, which gives a number of inscriptions to be found at that date on monuments in the chief burial-places in Edinburgh. Among them are several " honest " epitaphs.

Sir Hugh McCulloch, of Pilton, who died in 1688, aged seventy, is described as having been " pietate in Deum, honestate in proxi- mum, nemini secundus." Dr. Thomas Kin- kaid, an Edinburgh surgeon, who died in 1691 at the age of seventy-two, is praised as having been in all his actions " prudens et honestus." George Foulis, laird of Ravils- toun, and Master of the Mint, who died in 1633, aged sixty-four, has a tribute paid to his "honestam vitam." On a monument erected in 1676 to the memory of the wife of Capt. Broun it is said that she "pie honesteque vixit."

I have also a copy of a guide to the palace and abbey of Holyrood, "published by Duncan Anderson, Keeper of the Chapel Royal," wherein mention is made of a stone with the inscription "Heir lyis ane Honest man Robert Votherspone, Burgis and Deacon of ye Hammermen in ye Canogait, R.V. 1520," and of another stone with this inscription, "Heir lyis ane honest woman calet Marget Baxter spous to Bartel Hamelton Dakmaker Burges of ye Canengait." W. S.

Ruskin's father is buried in the churchyard of Shirley, near Croydon. On the memorial stone he is described as " an entirely honest merchant." Note Ruskin's favourite adverb, which, one might almost say, appears on every page of his writings. I have been told by a friend of his that he once described the mother of a certain notorious ill -doer as "an

entirely d ble old woman."

C. B. MOUNT.

There is in Chiswick Churchyard, on the right side of the gate leading from the main street, and resting against the wall, a stone to the memory of " Honest Tom Shepherd." P. J. F. GANTILLON.