Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/505

 s. vm. DEO. 21, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

497

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER M, 1901.

CONTENTS. -No. 208.

NOTES : Desborough Portraits and Relics, 497 Casano- viana, 498 Christmas Bibliography Christmas Customs, 1610 "Brattle," 500 " Jetsam ": " Lagan " Jewish Recognition of Tolerance Portraits by Dance " As mad as a tup" G. D. Grundy, 501 Proof-reading and Mis- takesBurial of a Suicide Saville Faucit Family, 502.

QUERIES : Majolican Bacini on Old Churches, 503 Van- couver Kinborough as a Female Christian Name Pedi- gree Forms Lewis Ken First Christmas Card Heraldic ^Lyly " UlHg "=Christmas in Manx, 504 Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford Inwood " High-faluting "Keys to Novels' Palatine's Daughter 'Lady Louisa Stuart "Mine host of the Tabard "Cross near Builth Ince, 505.

REPLIES : Obelisk at St Peter's, 505 Motto on Venetian Coin Knifeboard of an Omnibus" Ask nothing more of me, Sweet" Sir John Fryer Ancient Boats, 507 " Wage "=Wages " Byron's tomb "Armada Quotation, 50 S ' Castle of Kilgobben ' London Coffee - houses Napoleon's Last Years " Halsh " Fairy Tales, 509 "Play the goat" "Kell" or "Keld" Needle Pedlars Staunton Ouckland Song Wanted Renzo Tramaglino Spanish Bibliophile Crosdill, 510 "Week-end " "There is a day in spring" St. Teilo Spider-eating Green Crise Castor-Oil Plant, 511 Sweeny Todd Sir I. Pennington Birthplace of Lord Beaconsfield 'The Tempest' Anagram "Ben-clerk" Paris Catacombs, 512 Havre de Grftce Thurlow and Grafton Strawberry Leaves Greek Pronunciation, 513 Prisoners of War Clock and Watch Figures "Parver alley," 514.

NOTES ON BOOKS -.Nichols's 'Epistles of Erasmus' 'Les Portraits de 1'Enfant ' ' Northern Genealogist.'

Notices to Correspondents.

DESBOROUGH PORTRAITS AND RELICS. IN the great sale at Stowe about 1843 a pair of portraits, purporting to represent General and Mrs. Desborough (sister of Cromwell), were sold to Messrs. Dent, and are, I believe, now at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. They had been engraved by S. Cooper for the Duke of Buckingham, and these engravings are now extant as portraits of the above personages. Some of these engravings of the general are in the Bodleian Library, and one of them forms the frontispiece of an edition of * Hudibras.' The engraving of Mrs. Desborough is in the British Museum, but not this engraving of the general. Many years ago I happened to come across this engraving of the general, and at once recognized it as exactly repre- senting one of a pair of portraits I nad known from childhood, which hung in a house where my aunts and grandmother had lived since the early part of last century. They may now be seen at the South Ken- sington Museum, to which they have been lent by my brother, Mr. Richard Du Cane, their present owner. The man is dressed in a black robe or gown, with white falling

collar and tassels, the lady in a black dress with pearl necklace. They are about three- quarters length. There was always some uncertainty in our family as to whom these portraits represented, but the name of General Desborough was mentioned in con- nexion with them, though with much doubt. These portraits came into our family through my grandmother, whose grandfather was Cromwell Desborough, grandson of General Desborough and Jane Cromwell. Cromwell Desborough's wife was Cornelia, daughter of Cornelius and Sarah van den Anker, and with her he acquired an estate called Trim- nals in Essex, which was left her by her father. This property afterwards came into possession of my grandmother Mrs. Henry Du Cane, and with it these portraits. As too commonly happens, the tradition as to the originals of these portraits seems to have been lost, but it was natural that the name Desborough should be, though hesitatingly, connected with them.

I could not understand how exactly similar pictures should be at Stowe, definitely said to represent General and Mrs. Desborough, and it is curious that Mr. Foster, who edited the Stowe catalogue, should have put in it a note saying that they certainly did not represent those personages, but "a worthy Dutch couple."

A note in Noble's 'House of Cromwell,' where he refers to the descendants of General Desborough, seemed to furnish a possible solution of the question whom our portraits represent, for he says that at Trimnals are two three-quarter portraits of Mr. and Mrs. van den Anker, also some relics of General Desborough, armour, &c. A note made in 1860 by my late brother, the Rev. A. Du Cane, in his copy of Noble's ' House of Cromwell,' a copy of which I have lately come across, seems to furnish an explanation of the whole matter. He records that the aunts to whom, as above stated, these pictures belonged Used to say that they had been reduced in size to suit a small room, and that the man who thus reduced them made copies of them and sold them as portraits of General and Mrs. Desborough. This probably is the origin of the Stowe copies, and it may thus be con- sidered certain that the engravings do not represent General and Mrs. Desborough, but Cornelius and Sarah van den Anker.

As regards the armour and relics referred to by Noble, the same note says that my grandmother gave them to the Leverian Museum. I have ascertained, by the kindness of Sir Maunde Thompson, that this museum was collected by Sir Ashton Lever in the