Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/421

 vii. MAY 25, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

413

is thrown upon the flat surface of whit plaster at the back of the portrait. On tb reverse of the frame is pasted the artist' advertisement in an ornamental oval ensignec by the arms of George III. prior to 1801. . I runs as follows :

By their Majesties Authority M r Rosenberg

of Bath

Profile Painter

to their Majesties & Royal Family

Begs leave to inform the Nobility

and Gentry that he takes most striking

Likenesses in Profile, which he Paints

on Glass in imitation of stone

that will never fade

Time of ? Minute

Price from 7. 6 to ? Family Pieces

whole lengths in various Attitudes

N.B. Likenesses for Rings, Lockets,

Trinkets & Snuff Boxes.

A full-length portrait in profile, cut in black and mounted upon white paper, was executed by J. Gapp, who describes himself modestly as under :

The original Prbfilist for cutting accurate Likenesses attends Daily at the Third Tower in the centre of the Chain Pier ; and begs to observe that he has no connexion with any other person, and that he continues

to produce the most wonderful

Likenesses, in which the expression

and peculiarity of Character are brought

into action in a very superior style

on the following terms :

Full-length Likenesses at 2s. 6d. each,

two of the same 4s., or in bronze 4s.

Profile to the Bust Is. two of the same

Is. 6d. or in bronze 2s. Ladies and

Gentlemen on horseback 7s. 6d.

Single Horses 5s., Dogs Is. Qd. N.B.

a variety of interesting small cuttings for

Ladies Scrap Books.

The " M r Rosenberg of Bath " mentioned above was, I suppose, Thomas Elliot Rosen- berg, a miniature and landscape painter, whose youngest son George Frederic Rosen- berg (1825-69) is noticed in the * Dictionary of National Biography.' I have also two family portraits in pastel signed (and dated 1740) by William Bellers, of whom there is a brief notice in the 'D.N.B.' The dates of his birth and death are unknown, and he is said therein to have flourished 1761-74. The portraits in question, though probably accurate likenesses enough of the sitters, have little artistic merit. A. R. BAYLEY. St. Margaret's, Malvern.

AN AMERICAN INVASION (9 th S. vii. 227, 293, 358). Your correspondent S. J. A. F. says that the Pilgrim Fathers carried the spelling theater to America. This seems to be rather a common assumption, but is it supported by

facts ? So far as my reading goes, the American spelling which is objected! to theater, center, .fiber, traveler, fec. dates only from quite re- cent times. I have looked over the first American editions of some of Lowell's works in my library his 'Poems,' 'Conversations on some of the Old Poets,' and others and I find that theatre, centre, metre, lustre, <fec., are invariably spelt as in English. Words enaing in our, such as humour, favour, armour, <kc., are spelt humor, favor, armor, but I believe some of his English contemporaries, including Dickens, followed this practice. In the cata- logue of Mr. W. H. Arnold's * Books and Letters,' which, before these lines are in print, will have been sold by Messrs. Bangs, of New York, there is a letter of Washington Irving, dated 24 February, 1835 (p. 95), in which he refers to " various travellers in the U.S." Per- sonally, therefore, I am inclined to give up the Pilgrim Fathers, and to ascribe the so- called American spelling to the spirit of in- novation which is natural to a young and aspiring nation. There is no reason why the Americans should not strike out an ortho- graphical line of their own, though we Eng- lish may quite as naturally like to stand on pur antiquas vias. I dare say, however, that it would puzzle that little Chauvinist, the English schoolboy, to explain why the last syllable of diameter or perimeter is spelt differently from that of metre.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

There is no room for surmises like that of MR. PAGE after the explanation I gave at the second reference. The whole of 'East Lon- don,' except the index, was put into type in America to secure copyright there, and stereo- type casts of the pages were sent hither to be )rinted off for the English edition. Neces- arily, therefore, every letter, point, and type- )lemish of the American edition have been reproduced with photographic fidelity in the English one. Our printers are wont to announce the fact when works are thus

rinted, but in this instance the caution was nadvertently omitted; otherwise the remark n your critique of the book (ante, p. 259),

We find it difficult to resist the conclusion hat it was originally designed for an American tublic," would have been needless. This nethod of printing is less costly than re- etting, in which process the English ortho- raphy could, and of course would, be sub- tituted for the Transatlantic. F. ADAMS.

ROBERT JOHNSON, SHERIFF OF LONDON, 617 (9 th S. vii. 228, 313). If, as W. I. R. V. upposes, Alderman Johnson resided in the jarish of St. Mary Stratford, Bow, Middlesex,