Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/369

. vii. MAY ii, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

361

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1901.

CONTENTS. -No. 176.

NOTES : Adam Buck, 361 Plough Monday Mummeries, 363 The Cam Bell Inscription Hereditary Officials, 365 Forty-Shilling Day Witch Superstitions Fortune- telling at Bideford, 366.

QUERIES : Hately Family Nelson's Death Jean le Manique Great Britain or England St. Giles's, North- ampton N. or M. "Pamina and Tamino " Sir Simeon Steward, 367 Latin Motto Canadian Boat Song Somer- set Ballad Arms of Scotland Ring of Elizabeth Walker and Stackhouse Arbuthnott, 368 The Dukery Crutten- den Authors Wanted, 369.

REPLIES : Bernard and Bayard, 369 'Bijou Almanack' Jones the Regicide, 372 Scudamore Gospel of St. John as a Charm "Lattermint" " Mary's Chappel," 373 Author of Verses Herne, Sheriff of London "Wh8m"= Home Powdering Gown Worcester Folk-lore Throg- morton, 374 " Twopenny Tube " Latin Motto "Bougees": "Buggies" St. Clement Danes, 375 The Bellman Nell Gwyn Passage in Pope" To sit bodkin," 376-Lemaistre ' Child's Own Book ' Chaucerian Pas- sage, 377 Confidential War Dispatches The 42nd at Fontenoy Author of Recitation, 378.

NOTES ON BOOKS: Aitken's ' Swift's Journal to Stella' Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

grit*

ADAM BUCK.

SUFFICIENT interest has lately been shown in the works of this deceased artist to induce me, in the interest of collectors, to try to find out something more about him than the few dry lines given us in Redgrave, Bryan, Graves, the ' Kiinstler Lexikon,' &c. The re- mark by Dr. Nagler that " the day of Adam's death being unknown must satisfy " only made me more decided on discovering it, with the result that, though the day cannot be fixed, at least I nave the year and place. My query naturally began in ' N. & Q.,' but to that in 8 th S. vi. 107 no reply came. On the very kind suggestion of Mr. Catterson-Smith. of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, to whom I am indebted for the pains taken by him in research into Adam Buck's work, I put my query in the hands of the editor of the Cork Constitution, and through his courtesy much which had been forgotten has been recovered. The ' Curiosities of Literature ' and those of history have been written. And surely those of fashion in all tastes may be of equal interest; and so I hope some readers of 'N. & Q.' will find it of service to know something more about the artist I write of.

Allowing for a certain hardness of draw- ing the fashion of his day with his pencil, Adam Buck's work abounds in feeling, not- withstanding Redgrave's assertions to the con- trary ; and before his composition is blamed, we must remember the stiffness that encircled the Greek period as reproduced in this country, in female dress, architecture, and furniture. When we look on such examples of Buck's as ' Mama at Romps,' and note the exquisite touch, truthful drawing, and high finish, the charm that surrounds such a refined work must be admitted. Curiously enough, the
 * Diet. Nat. Biog.' has no note of Adam Buck.

Adam was the elder of the sons of Jona- than Buck, a silversmith of Castle Street, Cork, and was born there in 1759. There >/ were also two sisters : one lived and died a maiden lady at Cork ; the other became Mrs. Morrison, and resided in London. Adam's brother Frederick appears to have studied portrait painting in small, as did Adam,* but, as we shall see, it was Adam's coming over to London that brought him into notice as a miniature painter. He was then thirty-six. Still the subject of my sketch was busily employed in his native town in painting portraits in small in water colours, with strongly marked outlines, and containing spaces filled, in flat washes. He never ex- hibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy ; in fact until 1795, when he was in London, he never seems to have exhibited either in Ireland or England. And indeed only once was he represented at all in Ireland, and then it was at the third exhibition of the Hiber- nian Society, which was held in the Parlia- ment House during 1822, in a "portrait," No. 174. Amongst the miniatures in the Sheepshanks Gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a portrait of himself, in which he is shown as a man about forty-five years old, haying intelligent eyes of a kindly expression ; this is dated "1804," and signed, as his habit was, "Adarn Buck." In 1795 we find him residing at No. 174, Piccadilly-, and thence he sent his first exhibited pictures to the Royal Academy, then under the presidentship of Benjamin West. For the thirty -eight years succeeding 1800 the only exception he annually exhibited there, the total number of works sent being 171. During those years he lived in London, and we find him exhibiting also at the British Insti- tution (six) and at the Society of British

painter, as also does Mr. Proper t in his admirable introduction to the Burlington Fine- Arts Club cata- logue of their miniature exhibition of 1889.
 * Redgrave mentions Frederick as a miniature