Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/141

 vm. AUG. 10, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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CIVIL LIST PENSIONS (9 th S. viii. 1, 29, 57, 66). Besides the wrong ascription in the case of Lady Hamilton (p. 38), whose hus- band's last appointment was the Governorship of Tasmania, and who should therefore more properly have been entered under the head of " Public Service (Governors)," I have noticed another slight slip. Mrs. Blanchard (p. 10) is the widow, not of Edward Laman Hlanchard, but of Edward Litt Leman Blan- chard, who was no relation whatever of the miscellaneous writer Lamau Blanchard.

It is stated (p. 37), apparently on the authority of 'Cassell's Biographical Dic- tionary/ that the late William Gifford Pal- grave was employed by the Government in Abyssinia. I do not think Mr. Palgrave ever actually visited Abyssinia. In the autumn of 1865, when the mission deputed to the Court of King Theodore, consisting of Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, Dr. (now Sir Henri) Blanc, and myself, could obtain no reply to their application for admission to the country, the Government, thinking a change of envoys might be more successful, commissioned Mr. Palgrave to proceed to Gondar. But in the meantime a letter was received from the king inviting us to his Court, and on the mission proceeding to Cairo for further in- structions, we found Mr. Palgrave at Shep- herd's Hotel, making his preparations for a start. The result was that the original mission was directed to proceed to its destina- tion, and Mr. Palgrave returned to England. I saw a good deal of him at Cairo, and met him occasionally in after years, and was always astonished at his wonderful command of colloquial Arabic. Not only could he converse in that language with extraordinary fluency, but his memory was stored with the numberless proverbial sayings which the Arabs are fond of introducing into their ordinary conversation. I do not think I ever met a man of higher intellectual powers, and had he served under any other govern- ment than our own he would undoubtedly have risen to very high distinction.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

Referring to these interesting notes, it is certainly a mistake (p. 10) for the name of my old friend the late James Frank Redfern to occur in Redgrave's 'Dictionary of Painters.' Redfern lived and died an archi- tectural sculptor pure and simple. He never ventured into the realms of fine arts at all, but devoted his talents to the decoration, by sculpture, of buildings, mainly those of an ecclesiastical character. Amongst his prin- cipal works may be mentioned the statues

upon the west front of Salisbury Cathedral and the reredos in the cathedral at Gloucester. He also did the 'Four Doctors' at Bristol Cathedral, that were afterwards removed upon the score of "idolatry," and are now, I believe, to be seen upon a church in York- shire. HARRY HEMS. Marseilles.

JOHN MARTIN (9 th S. viii. 64). The portrait about which CLIO inquires is that of John Martin, the painter of the ' Plains of Heaven,' 'The Great Day of Wrath,' 'The Fall of Babylon,' &c. In Evans's catalogue it figures as "Martin, John, R.A., modern artist, with autograph, Derby Thomson." His life and work will be found in any good book of bio- graphy. In my 'Men of Mark 'twixt Tyne and Tweed ' (for John Martin was a thorough Tynesider) are some particulars respecting his family, which may not appear elsewhere, as follows :

" Six of a family of eight children survived him. Isabella, the eldest, was for some time his secretary, but subsequently became joint manager, with Joseph Bonomi, her brother-in-law, of Sir John Soane's Museum, and died in 1879. Alfred, the eldest son, General Superintendent of Income Tax in Ireland, died in 1872. Jessie married Joseph Bonomi. Charles became an artist in New York. Zenobia, educated at a boarding school in Newcastle [upon Tyne], where she was named by her schoolfellows the ' Queen of Palmyra,' married Peter Cunningham, chief clerk in the Audit Office at Somerset House, London, and author of the ' Handbook of London,' ' Life of Inigo Jones,' ' The Story of Nell Gwynn,'and other well-known books. Leopold Charles (so named after Leopold, King of the Belgians, his godfather), author of 'Illustra- tions of British Costume,' ' Gold and Silver Coins of all Nations,' ' The Literature of the Civil Ser- vice,' &c., and of a series of recollections of his father, which appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, married a sister of [Sir] JohnTenniel, the artist of Punch, and died in London on the 5th of January, 1889."

RICHARD WELFORD.

Newcaste-upon-Tyne.

The John Martin referred to was the well- known historical and landscape painter (1789-1854). Of his many sensational pic- tures ' Belshazzar's Feast' is perhaps best remembered. The octavo portrait, with facsimile autograph, to which your corre- spondent alludes, heads the September number of the European Magazine, 1822, which gives a brief memoir of the painter. ROBERT WALTERS.

Ware Priory.

MACKESY (9 th S. viii. 46). -This surname is apparently one of the modern forms of O'Macasa. O'Heerin, the historian, who died A.D. 1420, in the continuation of O'Dugan's topographical poem, gives an account of the