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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. m. APRIL is, m

" II nostro pittore Sig. Luigi Scotti ha veduta e esaminata essa capella, e avendovi scorta qualche traccia indubitata di pittura, egli stesso colla sua gia nota pazienza, non sarebbe alieno, qualora gli fosse ordinato, di far risorgere essa pittura, e con essa il Ritratto del nostro immortal poeta, di cui al certo non avremmo il piu antico ne il piu somi- gliante." 'Vita Dantis/ Florentine, 1828, pp. 123, 124.

Vasari, in his life of Giotto, says :

"Ritrasse, come ancor oggi si vede, nella capella del palagio del Podestk di Firenze, Dante Alighieri, coetaneo ed amicq suo grandissimo, e non meno famoso poeta che si fusse nei melesimi tempi Giotto

pittore Nella medesima capella e il ritratto,

similimente di mano del meclesimo, di ser Brunette Latini, maestro di Dante, e di messer Corso Donati gran cittadino di que' temiH."

Mr. Paget Toynbee, in his 'Dante Dic- tionary,' says :

"It is doubtful whether the well-known existing fresco in the Bargello is actually the work of Giotto."

Further information with regard to the discovery of the portrait of Dante will be found in the Examiner, 16 Aug., 1840 ; Athe- nwum, 25 Dec., 1847, pp. 1328-9 ; 6 May, 1848, p. 146 30 March, 1895, pp. 414-15.

JOHN HEBB.

"DEMON'S AVERSION" (9 th S. i. 387). Cds gan gythraul, " hated by a devil," is the Welsh name of a herb which is also called briw'r march, "horse's wound," or y dderwen fendi- gaid, "the blessed oak." Vervain is the equivalent English. See the Botanplogy at the end of Richards's ' Welsh-English Dic- tionary ' (Dolgelley, 1815).

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

BEDELL FAMILY (9 th S. iii. 149). Arthur Bedell, of Christ Church, was created Doctor of Civil Law, 6 July, 1569. " He was a very learned civilian of his time" (Wood, 'Ath. Oxon.,' vol. i. col. 731, Lond., 1591).

ED. MARSHALL.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Dictionary of National Bioyraphy. Edited by Sidney Lee.-Vol. LVIII. Ubaldim-Wakefield. (Smith, Elder & Co.)

As X and Z scarcely count in biographical dic- tionaries, Mr. Lee may be congratulated upon having reached what may be regarded as the penultimate letter of the alphabet, and having the end well in sight and also well in hand. The supple- mentary lives will not, it may be assumed, be on

pace Mr. A. Lang, will end at the close of the year 1900. The latest volume, with its Veres and Vil

lierses,its Vanbrughs, Van Dykes, Vanes, Vaughans, and Verneys, may be held representative. The most distinguished members of the family of Verney are in the hands of Lady Verney, the capable and brilliant historian of the family, whose initials M. M. V. have seldom appeared in the lists of con- tributors. That better hands to which to entrust them could not be found will readily be believed by those who have read her account of the Verney family, each succeeding volume of which has in due course been noticed in our columns. Once more, then, Lady Verney interests us in the successive occupants of Claydon House and in all the more creditable members of her family, leaving this time out of sight the less reputable representatives or connexions who brought it into collision with the proprieties and the laws of its country. The most important lives of which the editor has taken charge are those of Ephraim and Nicholas Udall, Sir Henry Unton or Umpton, Henry de Vere, eighteenth Earl of Oxford, John de Vere, sixteenth Earl, and Anthony Wadeson, the last named an obscure dramatist of Shakspearian times, concerning whom particulars and conjectures are now first supplied. Nicholas Udall is, of course, the author of ' Ralph Roister Doister,' and was at one time head master of Eton. A striking account is given of the manner in which he kept his preferments and emoluments under the reigns of Edward VI. and "bloody" Mary, and contrived to maintain his position as instructor of youth in spite of his avowals of shameful criminality. Much less known was Eph- raim Udall, whose death as a victim to the iniquitous proceedings against him is graphically described. The biography of Sir Henry Unton, now practically first told, shows him conspicuous for bravery at the Court and in the service of Elizabeth when almost all were brave. John and Henry de Vere are conspicuous among " the fighting Veres," and the latter is noteworthy for his steadily maintained animosity to Buckingham. Many of the most inter- esting lives in the volume are by Mr. Thomas Sec- combe. Perhaps the most interesting of all is that of Sir John Vanbrugh., to whom justice is at last being done. Others to which readers will do well to turn are those of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cro- marty, the immortal translator of Rabelais : Edward de Vere, the great seventeenth Earl of Oxford, a man of eminent attainments ; Isaac Vossius, the famous scholar ; and Thomas Griffiths Waine- wright, the poisoner and art critic. The last is described as, in the views of the modern school oJ criminologists, "a perfect example of 'the intuitive criminal' in his most highly developed state for- tunately a very rare phenomenon." The life of the first Duke of Buckingham is in the hands of Mr. Samuel Rawsori Gardiner, that of the second in those of Mr. C. H. Firth. A better arrangement could not have been made. Mr. Firth is also respon- sible for the lives of the two Sir Henry Vanes. Mr. Lionel Cust writes sympathetically and well on Van Dyke, and Dr. Garnett on Henry Vaughan the Silurist. It is interesting to see Vortigern treated as an historical character to which many M r eird legends have clung. Prof. Laughton, Col. Vetch. Sir E. Clarke, and very many other constant contri- butors supply lives 110 less brilliant than usual, might have been mentioned that James Sprent Virtue was at one time the proprietor of the Literary Gazette. We see by the appearance in the work oi the name of poor Frank Vizetelly that his latest disappearance is held to have been final,