Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/331

 viii. OCT. 19, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Henry Lidell, a London merchant, took place shortly before he embarked with his bride for America. This was probably not long before the breaking out of the Revolutionary war. Ramage was hostile to the cause of the colonists. It is mentioned by a writer of the period that ' John Ramage, an artist and goldsmith,' was made a second lieutenant of the Royal Irish Volunteers, formed in Boston by the Irish merchants of that city in 1775. The next spring saw Boston evacuated, and John Ramage followed the flag of the British to Halifax. He is next heard of in 1780, a time when the British were hard pressed, as living in New York, where he was commissioned by General Patterson a lieutenant in Company Seven of the City Militia. That he remained in the city after the evacuation in 1783 appears probable.

It was on the morning of October 3, 1789, that the first President walked down to No. 25, William Street, then the studio of the artist, and gave him a sitting for a portrait, which was, when completed, to become the possession of Mrs. Washington. Betty Washington, afterwards Mrs. Lewis, subsequently became the custodian of the miniature, and she in turn left it to her granddaughter, Otwanna Carter, who married Dr. W. O. Carter, of Lynchburg, Va. By him it was bequeathed to Jenny Latham, the mother of Mr. H. S. Stabler, of Baltimore, in whose keeping the relic now is.

"The miniature is in a time-worn oval case, at the back of which is a lock of Washington's hair. The President is painted in the full uniform of a general, except that he wears no hat. The hair, of course, is powdered. On his breast is the Order of the Cincinnati. A high white stock surrounds the neck, and the tie of white lace fills the space left open by the unbuttoned waistcoat. The carmines of the face and the blue and buff of the uniform are remarkably fresh and clear against a background of blended blue and green ; and, indeed, all the tints and shadings of the features are as fresh as though the work had just been completed, The portrait bears every mark of having been done with the utmost care, the detail being little short of marvel- lous. The face, with its lines of indomitable energy and determination, shows us the Washington of Valley Forge rather than the Washington of the serener days of the Presidency and the retirement. Surrounding the miniature is a beautiful frame of gold made by the artist, who was quite as skilled in the art of the goldsmith as with his brush. It is richly chased, in a rare design, and adds much to the beauty of the relic.

"In the possession of Mrs. Moses S. Beach, of Peekskill, N. Y., is another and scarcely less artistic miniature of Washington by Ramage. It was picked up by her husband in 1884 in a jewelry shop in Montreal, whither the artist having become heavily involved in debt in New York, largely through readiness to assist impecunious friends fled to escape imprisonment, and where he subsequently lived until his death. In a memo- randum which the artist left he wrote several times that his health was excellent and that he was able to do work which, even to his most severe critic (himself), appeared remarkable, in view of his age and discontented mind. He appears to have found friends in plenty among the members of several well-known French families.

" At the time Mr. Beach secured the miniature he learned something of its history. It had been sent to the shop by a Frenchwoman to be sold, the

artist having given it to her father in gratitude for some kindness in Ramage's last illness. Lifelike though the portrait is, it was almost certainly painted from memory.

" While fortune smiled on Ramage in New York he dressed in the height of fashion. This descrip- tion was given of him by a writer of the time : ' A handsome man of middle age. He wore a scarlet coat with mother-of-pearl buttons, white silk waist- coat, embroidered with colored flowers, black satin breeches with paste knee-buckles, white silk stock- ings, large silver buckles on his shoes, and a small cocked hat on the upper part of his powdered hair, leaving the curls at his ears displayed. His costume was completed by a gold-headed cane and a snuff- box.' His first wife died in 1784, and being urged by her father to marry again, he espoused in 1787 the daughter of John Collins Catherine, one of the belles of the city."

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

Portland, Oregon.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

ARMS ON MUG. On a large china mug, Looking a hundred years old, lately bought at Banbury, is a coat of arms, the left half gold with a bugle horn, with strings below and two black six-pointed stars above ; the right half white, with a green tree slanting from left (its roots) to right (its head) ; and across this right half, from left to right, is a red band with three gold crosslets on it. The motto is " Love conceals as well as conquers." Crest, a stag cou chant. The coat is not in Papworth. My friend the great G. E. C. cannot find it. Can any reader tell me whose it is 1 F. J. FURNIVALL.

E. MARSTON & Co., PUBLISHERS, 1833. I have lately seen a work in two volumes entitled " The Modern Cymon, from the ' Jean ' of Paul de Kock. London : E. Marston and Co., 3, New Broad St. Court. 1833." As I was but a small boy of eight in those days, it is perhaps needless to say that I am not the publisher there mentioned ; nor could he have been any family connexion of mine. My late partner Sampson Low commenced business in 1819, and he may possibly have known that E Marston,buthenever mentioned him to me. I am curious to know what was the beginning and what the end of that firm; or whether this ' Modern Cymon ' was the only work issued by them. The translator promises in his preface " to give a translation of all his best works, carefully weeded from indelicacy and impiety, &c." As a matter of