Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/479

 9* 8. XI. JUNE 13, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

471

suffix dropped off in Germanic (except in Gothic), leaving no distinction between the two numbers. WALTER W. SKEAT.

PENRETH (9 th S. xi. 328, 411). I am obliged by O. O. H.'s reply relating to Penreth, and have long been acquainted with Mr. Watson's paper, but I cannot think that an obscure place in the Precelly Hills, such as Penrhydd or Penrieth, coula have been the place selected for title to a bishopric. There are besides Penrin in Gower, Penrhys near Hir- wain, Penrhos near Ragland (once given to a Bishop of Llandaff), Penrose near Caerleon, but all insignificant places for such purpose. The most probable place to my mind at pre- sent is Penrhys, in the Rhondda Valley, it having been the site of an old monastery, suppressed temp. Henry V., and subsequently a noted place of pilgrimage to a Holy Well of the B.V.M., whose image there was de- nounced by Latimer, and was sent up to Cromwell in London with all her apparel ; but a recent visit to the spot presented nothing in support. ALFRED HALL.

"ARCIERE" (9 th S. xi. 405). The Prince Regent of Bavaria has still his Hatschier guards (Leibgarde der Hatschiere) armed with hellebards. They can be seen every day at Munich. In the procession of Corpus Domini (ten days after Pentecost) they walk in splendid uniforms next the baldachin of the Archbishop as the bodyguard of the Regent, who follows also the procession. M.

Munich, Bavaria.

" THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF PRAGUE " (9 th S.

xi. 407, 450). I am happy to reply to D. H. that the author of the refrain which he slightly misquotes was the late lamented and beloved William Jeffery Prowse, who was born on 6 May, 1836, at Torquay, Devonshire, and died, barely thirty-four, of lingering decline at Cimies, near Nice, where he lies buried in the cemetery. With the Editor's kind permission I should like to tell of his other poems. ' The City of Prague ' and the rest first appeared in the pages of Fun, the most successful penny rival of Punch. It contains five stanzas, beginning : I dwelt in a city enchanted,

And lonely indeed was my lot ; Two guineas a week, all I wanted,

Was certainly all that I got. Well, somehow I found it was plenty ;

Perhaps you may find it the same, If a/you are just five-and-twenty, With industry, hope, and an aim : Though the latitude 's rather uncertain,

And the longitude also is vague, The persons 1 pity who know not the City, The beautiful City of Prague.

Playfully prefixed is the line, "Scene: Bohemia : a desert country near the sea. SHAKESPEARE." But, unlike Alfred Murger's 'Vie de Boheme,' which is spent in dear, delightful Paris, Prowse's " City of Prague " is the still dearer "Little Village on Thames." I give the correct version of 1870, with its past tense, agreeing with the ' L'Envoi ' (not the present tense, confusing "dwelt" and " got" of Fun, 1867 ; vide ante, p. 450). The ' L'Envoi ' marks the emergence from Bohemian poverty into success and com- petence :

But the days I was poor and an artist Are the dearest of days to me still.

It was reprinted in a shilling volume by George Routledge, containing Prowse's prose ' Nicholas's Notes ' ; ten pages of his poems ; a portrait ; and a memoir of him by Tom Hood the Younger, editor of Fun. Prowse died on Easter Sunday, 1870. All who knew that bright spirit loved him.

J. W. EBSWORTH.

The Priory, Ashford, Kent. [MB. S. J. ALDRICH sends the whole poem, which is at the disposal of the querist.]

REYNOLDS PORTRAIT (9 th S. xi. 347, 396). Miss Pott was a celebrated courtesan of the eighteenth century. She was variously called Emily Bertie, Emily Pott, and Emily Coventry, and no one seems to have known anything of her antecedents, and it seems doubtful as to which of the three names, if any, was her correct name. Reynolds painted her as ' Thais' in or about 1776, and the picture was purchased by the Hon. C. Greville ; it was in the Royal Academy of 1781. It was exhibited at the British In- stitution in 1817 by the Earl of Dysart, at Suffolk Street in 1833 by Admiral Tolle- mache, and at Manchester in 1857 by J. Tollemache ; it was recently purchased from Lord Tollemache by the late Baron Ferdi- nand de Rothschild. See Graves and Cronin's 'History of the Works of Sir Joshua Rey- nolds.' It was engraved by S. W. Reynolds as well as by Bartolozzi. Romney also painted her in 1781 (see Romney's l Memoirs,' pp. 178-9). She went to India with Mr. Pott, where they both died.

At the latter part of the eighteenth cen- tury there was the well-known family of Pott, of which the most distinguished mem- ber was Percival Pott, the eminent surgeon, whose portrait is at the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields. One of his daughters married another surgeon, Mr. (after- wards Sir) James Earle, whose grandson is the present Bishop of Marlborough. I do