Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/485

 9* s. xii. DEC. 12, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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told who, besides those 1 have named, were in it. C. C. B.

['Home' was produced by Sothern at the Hay- market, 14 January, 1869. See ' D.N.B. 5 for Robert- son's many other plays.]

Agreeing most heartily with every word of MR. CECIL CLARKE'S graceful communication on this subject, and as a lover of a good play, and as one who never on any occasion failed in his admiration of the genius of Miss Marie Wilton, from the time of her appearance in 1 The Maid and the Magpie ' in the little, unadorned Strand Theatre to the period of the regime of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft in the artistically decorated theatre in the Hay- market (I fully remember when the few stalls therein were protected from the pit by a coarse wooden partition surmounted by a row of iron spikes), at the same time I venture to confess, as a visitor to the little house in Tottenham Street from 1865, that I was one of the many persons who regretted the migration of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft and their famous company to the West - End. Additional fame and fortune were reaped in the grander house ; but although the plays there were in every sense of the word beauti- fully produced, yet to my mind they appeared to require that Meissonier-like perfection that was inherent in the charming comedies that delighted the crowded audiences of "the old Prince of Wales V

HENRY GERALD HOPE.

119, Elms Road, Clapham, iS.W.

KINGSLEY'S VERSES : ' A FAREWELL ' (9 th S. xii. 409). In the song 'My Fairest Child,' composed by A. H. Behrend, Kingsley's words appear according to MR. GEORGE STRONACH'S first quotation.

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND NEW HALL, ESSEX (9 th S. xii. 208, 410). The inscription copied by MR. HOOPER is on the porch of the main entrance, which forms part of the building erected by Henry Ratcliffe, third Earl of Sussex, in 1575 on the site of some older rooms. I should be greatly inclined to attri- bute the inscription to Lord Sussex himself, or else to his kinsman Philip, third Lord Wharton. Both seem to have been well acquainted with Italy, and Lord Sussex him- self, at all events, was a most obsequious courtier, and in 1561 had offered to propose Queen Elizabeth's marriage with Leicester at a Chapter of the Order of the Garter. With reference to the epithet ** Divina," it is curious that the Inquisition in Spain often prosecuted Englishmen for styling Queen

Elizabeth "Defender of the Faith." Both Sussex and Wharton were, however, Catholics, though lukewarm.

A curious analogy, though an unconscious one, with this use of the word " Divina " was lately furnished by the Westminster Gazette, which published a Latin epigram in which Mrs. Patrick Campbell was styled " Coeli Regina," in entire forgetfulness of the fact that this is the proper title of the Blessed Virgin.

Does not Erasmus somewhere rebuke the Latin writers of his time for styling kings "divine " ? Is it not here meant for a trans- lation of " sacred " 1 H.

THE GIPSY QUEEN, MARGARET FINCH (9 th S. xii. 407). Robert Malcolm, in his ' Curiosities of Biography' (1860), devotes a couple of paragraphs to Margaret Finch. Thence I gather that she was born at Sutton, Kent, in 1631. Her death and burial are thus re- corded :

" From a constant habit of sitting on the ground with her chin resting on her knees, generally with a pipe in her mouth, and attended by her faithful dog, her sinews at length became so contracted that she was unable to rise from that posture. Accordingly, after her death, it was found necessary to inclose her body in a deep square box. She died in October, 1740, at the great age of 109 years. Her remains were conveyed in a hearse, attended by two mourning coaches, to Beckenham, in Kent, where a sermon was preached on the occasion to a great concourse of people who assembled to witness the ceremony."

See also * Old and New London/ vi. 314. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

TRINITY SUNDAY FOLK-LORE (9 th S. xi. 224, 298). Atcharya Hdryu Toki, the illustrious Mantranist Bishop of Togano-o, Kyoto, re- cently communicated to me the following :

" Mount Yudono [in a northern province of Japan] has this tradition attached to it. People say should one earnestly pray towards the east from its summit before sunrise, the sixteenth of the seventh moon [of lunar calendar], he would see on the sun, just appearing above the mountain-chains in its front, distinct figures of the Buddhist Trinity, the Buddha Amitabha and the Boddhisattvas Avalokites'vara and Mahasthama. So even nowadays credulous visitors crowd there in that dawn."

In Ramusio's 'Navigation!,' torn. L, I re- member I once read one of F. Xavier's letters making mention of the then current belief among the Japanese Buddhists that they could see in a certain mountain the figure of the most supreme of all the Buddhas, Dai- nichi (literally, Great-Sun, or Vairotchana in Sanskrit). Whether or not it is definitely stated therein, the Buddha's name impels us to believe in the said manifestation having