Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/459

 9*s. V.JUNE 9, woo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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was broken, and from that time she showed her interest in all that was said, and contributed her share to any conversation that was going on in the course of the evening."

Her last visit to Mrs. Gaskell was in May, 1854, immediately before her marriage with the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, when her mind was full of visions of quiet happiness visions fully realized in that brief union from which she was too early snatched by death, on 31 March, 1855. " Oh ! " she whispered forth, " I am not going to die, am I ? He will not separate us, we have been so happy."

Is there a house in England with more pathetic memories than Ha worth Parsonage 1 WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Moss Side, Manchester.

HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS EDITORS.

(Continued from p. 371.)

LETTER 1,412 (Cunningham's ed., vol. vi. p. 38), addressed to Lady Mary Coke, was first published in the 4to. edition of Horace Walpole's ' Works,' where it appears without date of place, month, or year. Cunningham has conjecturally assigned it to the year 1773. It seems, however, to belong to 1771, for the following reasons :

1. Horace Walpole refers to Lady Mary Coke's penchant for the society of royal per- sonages, and mentions Hesse as one of the places she might visit during her travels on the Continent. The reason for the mention of a visit to Hesse was Lady Mary Coke's friendship with Mary, Landgravine of Hesse- Cassel, and daughter of George II., whom she had previously visited there. But the latter died in January, 1772, and therefore there would have been no point in mention- ing Hesse in 1773 as an object of Lady Mary's travels.

2. Walpole mentions the Queen of Denmark (Caroline Matilda, sister of George III.), and compares her with Maria Theresa, stating that the former is " full as virtuous and three stone heavier " than the empress. The Queen of Denmark was divorced and exiled to Celle in the year 1772. Had he been writing in 1773 (the date assigned by Cunningham to this letter) Walpole would hardly have com- pared her favourably with Maria Theresa, especially in a letter to one as much pre- judiced in the empress's favour as Lady Mary Coke.

3. Horace Walpole mentions Otaheite, "lately discovered by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander." Banks and Solander landed on their return from the South Seas on 12 June, 1771. In 1773 their discoveries were tolerably

ancient history, certainly to one who, like Horace Walpole, was always in possession of the latest news.

The tone of the letter is that of one on good terms with his correspondent. In 1773, however, the relations between Horace Wal- pole and Lady Mary Coke were decidedly strained. Writing to Mann on 28 Nov., 1773 (vol. vi. p. 19), Walpole says of her, "She was much a friend of mine, but a late marriage which she particularly disapproved, having flattered herself with the hopes of one just a step higher, has a little cooled our friend- ship. Walpole explains in a note that the "late marriage" was that of the Duke of Gloucester to the Dowager Countess Walde- grave (Horace Walpole's niece), which was made public in 1772, while the marriage with which Lady Mary had "flattered herself" was her own hoped-for marriage to the Duke of York (the elder brother of the Duke of Gloucester), who died in 1767.

Lady Mary Coke visited Vienna for the second time in the autumn of 1771. She left England on 4 Sept., and reached Vienna on 22 Sept. it may be supposed a fairly rapid journey for those days. Horace Walpole seems to refer to this at the beginning of his letter where he mentions Lady Mary's " illus- trious exploits " and rapid expeditions. The letter, therefore, seems to have been written in the year 1771 and addressed to Vienna. Making due allowance for the time required for news of Lady Mary Coke's arrival in Vienna to^ reach England, the letter may be placed between Nos. 1,288 and 1,289 in vol. v., that is, at the end of October or the beginning of November, 1771. HELEN TOYNBEE.

TRASK'S ' HISTORY OF NORTON-SUB-HAMDON.' This book was reviewed a few months ago in the columns of the Athenaeum, where the views of Mr. Trask with regard to mediaeval serfdom met with scant sympathy and sup-

Ct. Since then I have carefully read the k through, and on p. 100 was surprised to find the following passage :

" The quatrefoil, so freely used in Perpendicular work, was an imitation of the primrose, as the harbinger of revived nature, and was adopted emblematically to signify that the Gospel was the harbinger of peace and immortality." Now this seems a right pretty piece of writing, requiring no close analysis put the quatre- foil " an imitation of the primrose " ! One would have thought that in the primrose- abounding country where Mr. Trask lives he would have noticed that all primroses were cinquefoil ! The old Perpendicular builders were not such lax imitators as that ; when