Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/210

 286 [9'" S. IV. Oct. 7, '99. NOTES AND QUERIES. social side of Anglo-India in former days, and belonging, therefore, to the genre of which Dr. Busteed's 'Echoes of Old Calcutta' and Sir W. W. Hunter's ' Thackerays in India' are perhaps the most conspicuous examples. His last paper deals with the career of Kitty Kirkpatrick, "the original, so far as there was an original, of Blumine in Carlyle's ' Sartor Resartus.'" Carlyle, as readers of his 'Diary'do not need to be told, first met this charming creature at the house of Edward Irving, and retained a tender recollection of her till his death. Mr. Cotton, in introducing this lady, moralizes a little on the small chance of immortality that Anglo-Indian heroines obtain, and instances among the few that are still remembered Madame Grand, the wife of Talleyrand, Sterne's " Eliza," and the fair and unfortunate Rose Aylmer. To this slender list the name of "Lucia" may, thanks to Mr. Kipling's genius, be added. But though the circumstances may be true, the facts, as related by Mr. Kipling, are imaginary. Mr. Cotton shows that Lucia was no factor's wife, but was married to Robert Palk, the judge of the Court of Cutcherry, who, in 1772, arrested the Maharajah Nuncomar for contempt of Court. She was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Stonehouse, and, as the inscription on the tombstone tells us, was born, not in Kent, but in Northamptonshire. Mr. Cotton adds that there is an elaborate engraving of the tomb of Lucia's mother in Dr. Hervey's well- known ' Meditations.' Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q.' may be able to supplement these details by a fuller account of her family and of that of her husband. W. F. Prideaux. Perseus as "Masculine Virtue" in 'The White Devil.'—Dyce in his edition of Web- ster finds a difficulty in a passage of 'The Arraigneraent of Vittoria,' sig. E 4 of the 1612 quarto of ' The White Devil.' Vittoria is the speaker :— Humbly thus. Thus low, to the most worthy and respected Leigier Embassadors, my modesty And womanhood 1 tender; but withall So intangled in a cursed accusation That my defence of force like Perseus Must personate masculine vertue. Dyce gives this up, and cites a suggestion that for "Perseus" we should read "Portia," with reference to the trial scene in ' The Merchant of Venice.' The text is correct as it stands. In Ben Jonson's 'Masque of Queens' the scene of the masque proper is the House of Fame, " in the top of which, were discouered the 12. masquers, sitting vpon a throne tiiumphall, erected in forme of a pyramide, and circled with all store of light. From whom a person, by this time descended, in the furniture of Perseus, and expressing heroique and masculine vertue, began to speake." In a marginal note on the hero's equipment Jonson adds :— "The ancients expressed a braue and masculine Vertue in three figures (of Hercules, Perseus, and Bellerophon). Of which wee chose that of Perseus, amid as we haue describ'd him, out of Hesiod., Scuto. Here. See Apollodor, the Grammarian! 1. 2 de Perseo." The date of this masque is 2 Feb., 1609 ; the date of ' The White Devil' is uncertain, Mr. Fleay putting it " probably " in the winter of 1607-8 ('Chronicle of the English Drama,' ii. 271). The point deserves further investi- gation, for Vittoria's allusion looks very like a reference to Jonson. It was in the preface to this play that Webster paid a tribute to " the labor'd and vnderstanding workes of Maister Iohnson." Percy Simpson. " The Black Death." — The ' H.E.D. ascribes the origin of this expression to Mrs. Markham, in 1823. It is worth notice that Scott used it in 'Castle Dangerous,' written in 1831-2 : '"Ay, I understand,' said Dickson, 'your son hath had a touch of that illness which terminates so frequently in the black death you English folk die of?"' (chap, xxii.) Edward H. Marshall, M.A. Hastings. Carriage of a Sword-belt.—The 'His- torical English Dictionary' gives under Carriage, iv., means of carrying, " 30, t a. The loop attached to the sword-belt, through whichonepassedhissword. Obsolete. Perhaps only an affectation." The quotation is dated 1602, and is from ' Hamlet.' Horatio has spoken of " six French rapiers and poniards with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so on : three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of liberal conceit." Hamlet. What call you the carriages ? Horatio. I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done. Osric. The carriages, sir, are the hangers. From Dr. Murray's remarks this would seem to be the first and last appearance of these carriages in literature. Shakespeare must have considered the term uncommon, or he would not have allowed Hamlet to ask the question. Yet though the terra may be little known to literature, it is well known to the makers of such "assigns." Common or not in 1602, it is not obsolete in 1899. It is pro- bably to be found in the current vocabulary of military stores ; but I have at hand three modern quotations:—