Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/249

 9- s. VL SEPT. 15, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 203 It appears from this quotation that Lady Osspry had been estranged from her parents during her father's lifetime. From mentions of Lady Ravensworth in Horace Walpole's letters to Lady Ossory subsequent to Lord Ravensworth's death, it is evident that this estrangement was ended at his death, as Horace Walpole anticipated. If, therefore, Lady Ravensworth and Lady Ossory were estranged until 1784, it is unlikely that Wal- pole would write to Lady Ossory of her visit- ing her mother as a matter of course in 1777. Lord Ravensworth died in 1784, and Lady Ravensworth in 1794. This note must there- fore have been written between those dates, but it is not possible to assign a more defi- nite date to it. It should be added that there can be no question as to the identity of the Lady Ravensworth here mentioned, as Lady Ossory was an only child, and her fathers title became extinct on his death, and was not revived until 1821. 5. The next paragraph, after some remarks on Horace Walpole^ health, ends as follows : " I wish your ladyship joy on last night's vic- tory ; General Con way has just been here in great spirits and told me of it." This note was almost certainly written early in 1782, when General Conway, by his attacks on the American policy of the Government, was largely responsible for the fall of the North Ministry on 20 March, 1782. The " vic- tory" to which Horace Walpole refers was the Opposition victory of 4 March, 1782, so that his note was written on 5 March, and should be placed between letter 2,126 (4 March, 1782) ana letter 2,127 (8 March, 1782) in vol. viii. of Cunningham's edition. 6. "Thursday.—I cannot think of going to the play to-night, Madam ; nor can be out of the way of hearing the first news that shall come. I have done what was right; I approved and applauded Mr. Conway's going instantly ; but I cannot pretend to be easy now he is gone," ftc. This note appears to have been written in May, 1779. It refers to General Conway's departure from London for Jersey (of which island he was Governor) on hearing of a threatened invasion by the French. The cir- cumstances are detailed in Horace Walpole's letter to Mann of 9 May, 1779 (Cunningham's edition, vol. vii. p. 197), in which Horace Wal- pole again states, as in the passage already quoted, that General Conway set out with his (Walpole's) "approbation." 9 May, 1779, •was Sunday. General Conway set out on the previous Monday (3 May). Walpole's note to Lady Ossory was probably written on Thurs- day, 6 May, before the news of the repulse of the French at Jersey had reached London. It may be placed between letter 1,811 (24 April, 1779) and letter 1,812 (9 May, 1779) in vol. vii. of Cunningham's edition. HELEN TOYNBEE. SHAKESPEARIANA. ' JULIUS C.SSAR,' II. i. 204-5 (9th S. v. 393). —I find a helpful reference on the subject of my query in Mr. H. C. Beeching's " Falcon Edition " of the play, which was not known to me. Mr. Beecning illustrates from a work of earlier date than the play, and bearing the quaint title :— " A greene Forest, or a naturall Historic, Where- in may bee seene first the most sufferaigne Vertues in all the whole kinde of Stones and Mettals: next of Plants, as of Herbes, Trees, and Shrubs. Lastly of Brute Beastes, Foules, Fishes, creeping wormes and Serpents, and that Alphabetically: so that a Table shall not neede. Compiled by John Maplet, M. of Arte [sic], and student in Cambridge: en- tending hereby y' God might especially be glorified: and the people furdered. Anno 156?. Imprinted at London, by Henry Denham." On p. 106 Maplet devotes a section to the tiger, borrowing from Pliny (' H.N.,' viii. xxv.) an account of huntsmen carrying off her cubs, and, when she gives chase, dropping them one by one ; she returns to her lair with them singly, and then renews the pursuit, with the result that the hunter succeeds in getting away with some of her young. Maplet continues (p. 106, verso) :— "And the same [i.e., Pliny] saith also, that there is another waye that some huntesmen beguile hir with, as to bestrew and spreede in the way Glasse, by ye which she comming and espying there hir owne shadowe represented, weneth through such sight, that there were of hir yong, and whilst she here thus tarieth long time, deceiuing hir selfe, the Huntesman hieth him away and so escapeth." Maplet's work is avowedly a compilation, and he has drawn mainly upon Pliny. But I believe he is mistaken in referring this particular passage to Pliny. The British Museum copy of Maplet's work was formerly in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks (ob. 1820), President of the Royal Society, who bequeathed his books and herba- rium to the nation. On the title-page the name of " G. Steevens " occurs as that of a former owner. This is the Shakespeare commentator, whose friendly relations with Banks are duly recorded in the ' Dictionary of National Biography' in Mr. Sidney Lee's article on Steevens :— " In hig last years Steevens was a frequent visitor at the house in Soho Square of Sir Joseph Banks, one of the few acquaintances familiarity with whom did not breed contempt." Steevens, in writing his note on the line in 'Julius Csesar' now under discussion, probably