Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/95

 XL JAX. 3i, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

87

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

" LUCID INTERVAL "Who first used the medical Latin phrase lucidum intervallum, which is found in English writers from 1581 onwards 1 Is it, like so many other medical Latin terms, a translation from Greek or Arabic ? The Anglicized form, lucid interval, was, so far as I know, first employed by Bacon in 1622. I should be glad of any earlier examples. It is noteworthy that the phrase was not originally, as in modern times (both in English and French), applied exclusively with reference to insanity, but was also used to designate a period of quiescence of any intermittent disease. HENRY BRADLEY.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

" SUCH SPOTLESS HONOUR," &c. I am anxious to learn the authorship and origin of the following lines, which I have recently come across in a MS. half journal, half commonplace book of the early part of last century :

Such spotless honour, such ingenuous truth, Such ripened wisdom in the bloom of youth. So mild, so gentle, so composed a mind,

To such heroic warmth and courage joined, &c. They are said to have been written by Pope (d. 1744) on the death of Capt. Thomas Gren- ville, of the navy (si. 1747), a statement clearly inaccurate. I do not believe they were written by Pope ; I do not know that they were written on the death of Grenville; but I shall be greatly obliged to any kind reader who will tell me something about them. Grenville lies at Wotton, and there is a monument to his memory at Stowe ; but the " &c." seems to preclude the idea of these lines being an inscription on either tomb or memorial. J. K. LAUGHTON.

King's College, London.

DUMONT FAMILY. The origin of several of the families Dumont has been traced to Flanders. Is it not possible that they, in turn, were all of Norman descent 1 There were Dumonts in Normandy so early as 1422, which may be seen from the ' Memoires Inedits de Dumont de Bostaquet, Gentilhomme Nor- mand,' pp. 327 and 329 (Paris, 1864). This work, by the way. forms a spirited and fas- cinating narrative of the " Glorious Revolu- tion of 1688." It merits an English translation in full. Accounts of certain of the families Dumont will be found in * Une Famille d'Artistes: les Dumont' (Paris, 1890), 'Die

Famillien Du Mont und Schauberg in Koln ' (Cologne, 1868), and in the American Genea- ^ist, i., June, 1899 (Ardmore, Pennsylvania, U.S.). EUGENE FAIRFIELD McPiKE.

Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

FELIX BRYAN McDoNOUGH. Can any of your readers give me information as to the birth and parentage and early life of Felix Bryan McDonough, who was initiated as a Freemason of the Somerset House Lodge, London, in 1793 ? He was educated at Oxford, and entered as an officer the 2nd Life Guards afterwards. CELT.

BISHOP FLEMING. Perhaps some of your correspondents can give me information regarding George Fleming, Bishop of Car- lisle from 1734 to 1747, as to his family and parentage. A. W. GRAHAM, Col.

67, Gipsy Hill, S.E.

PORTRAIT OF GENERAL MEDOWS. I shall be indebted to any of your readers who may name the painter of a full-length portrait of General Medows (afterwards Sir William Medows, K.B.), which was begun in 1792, and which was eventually hung in the Ex- change or Town Hall of Fort St. George, Madras. The Madras Courier of 7 June, 1792, records that a meeting was held on 21 May :

"The Meeting recollecting that there is at

this time a very eminent Portrait Painter here ; It is resolved that the Chairman of the Committee shall request Lord Cornwallis to sit for his picture

to be put up in the Town Hall Resolved also

that General Medows be requested to sit for his Picture to be put up with that of His Lordship in the Town Hall."

In the Supplement to the Calcutta Gazette of 23 August, 1792, it is stated that at a meeting held at Madras on 25 July "The Committee chosen at the Meeting held on the 21st May, having reported to this Meeting what has passed respecting the procuring the Picture of General Medows to be put up in this Hall with that of Earl Cornwallis ; This Meeting express their approbation on the occasion, and request the Committee will take the best steps in their power to have the Picture completed."

The difficulty alluded to was probably due to General Medows's departure for England in July.

The portrait of Lord Cornwallis was painted (and signed) by Robert Home. The picture of General Medows is unsigned. Probably, though not certainly, the latter was also by Home. The files of the Madras Courier for 1792 preserved at Madras, at Calcutta, in the India Office, and at the British Museum, are all imperfect, and no record has been traced in them of the name of the painter.