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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIIL OCT. 26, 1901.

May hew, the author of ' London Labour and the London Poor,' and was first performed at the Royal Fitzroy Theatre (which was one of the numerous aliases of the theatre in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road, which afterwards became famous as the Prince of Wales's Theatre under the manage- ment of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft) on Thursday, 16 January, 1834. The farce was transferred to the Grecian Saloon, City Road, and it was Robson's performance of Jem Bags, " the wandering minstrel," at this theatre which led to his engagement at the Olympic Theatre. The creator, as the French say, of the part of Jem Bags was Mr. Mitchell, an actor unknown to fame, and it is to be noted that the part of the lover, Herbert Carol (with a song), was originally played by a lady, Miss Crisp.

Robson's first recorded appearance as an amateur, according to the ' D.N.B.,' " was in a once well-known little theatre in Catherine Street, Strand, where he played Simon Meal bag in a play called 'Grace Huntley." 5 See also 9 th S. vii.' 268 ; viii. 194.

JOHN HEBB.

A SPANISH BIBLIOPHILE. Some years ago I procured a copy of Peter Victorius, Florence, Junta, 1569. It is handsomely bound, and stamped with a rich coat of arms : legend, " J. Gomez de la Cortina et Amicorum. Fallitur hora legendo." Sometimes I have thought I must ask 'N. & Q.' about this Gomez. Then I accidentally ran across the Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1883, and learned that Don Joaquin Gomez de la Cortina, Marquis de Morante, was born in Mexico in 1808. He became Rector of the University of Madrid, and was a great collector of books. His library was dispersed about thirty years ago. Mr. Richard Copley Christie wrote a notice of him for private circulation. I should like to own a copy of it. Gomez died, as the result of a fall from a ladder in his library, about the year 1868.

RICHARD H. THORNTON. Portland, Oregon.

LUTHER : CANDLES BEFORE HIS PORTRAIT. In Blackwoods Magazine, vol. xxiv. p. 541 (1828), allusion is made to candles burning around a portrait of Martin Luther. Is this truth or fable ? There are other examples on record of reverence of this kind being paid to representations of persons who are not

M m w 0n i&i, rep. Uted fco have been sain ts. Mr. W. Miller, in an article contributed to the August number of the English Historical lteview,szys that when the Oriental Christians entertained hopes of deliverance from the

rule of the Moslem by Napoleon I., "the women of Maina kept a. lamp lighted before his portrait, as before that of the Virgin " (p. 454) ; and Ficino the Renaissance Platonist (1433-91), is said to have kept a lamp ever burning before the image of Plato (Lupton's 'Two Treatises of the Hierarchus of Dionysius,' p. xxxii). Dr. Ludwig Pastor in his ' History of the Popes ' tells his readers that at the time of the Renaissance Plato " was made by these fanatical admirers the object of a veritable cultus, as though he had been a saint : lamps were burned before his picture, he was ranked with the Apostles and Prophets, and feasts were celebrated in his honour. It was even seriously proposed to add extracts from his writings to the homilies which were read in the churches on Sundays" (Father Antrobus's trans., vol. v. p. 154). N. M. & A.

INDEX EXPURGATORIUS. The Pope has removed from the Index the two works of Galileo, ' De Revolutionibus ' and ' The Dia- logues on Motion.' The sentence against these was pronounced on 22 June, 1633.

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.

OCEANIA. When and by whom was this geographical term introduced? It does not appear to be recognized by the l Penny Cyclo- paedia' in 1840, but is used in 'Chambers's Information ' in 1857. Lyell in 1832, Prichard in 1842, used Oceanica. The adjective " Oceanian " occurs in the Westminster Review of January, 1831, in a review of a French work of M. Lesson, by whom Oceanien was applied to the South Sea islanders. The adjective may been earlier than the substantive, and may have suggested the latter. I should like also to know about the first appearance of oceanography, oceanographer, ana their kin, which seem to be hardly twenty years old, although, according to Godefroy, oceanogra- phie was used in French in the sixteenth century. J. A. H. MURRAY.

Oxford.

MASTER OF THE MUSICK. It has been announced that Sir Walter Parratt has been reappointed by the King as Master of the Musick. Perhaps Mr. Shedlock can tell us when such an official was first appointed.