404
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. xn. NOV. 20. 1015.
in London ; the observable difference was, that the
impression was somewhat lighter, and the body of
ink less than usual. In reply to further inquiries,
the correspondent at Berlin could only discover that
the secret was said to be in the hands of a person
at Erfurt. He had seen a facsimile of an Arabic
MS. of the 13th century; and another facsimile
of a leaf of a book printed in 1483 both such close
copies as hardly to be detected from the originals,
and both taken without injury to the originals. It
was also stated that a prospectus was issued at
Berlin, of a pirated edition of The Athenaeum, to
be produced in a similar way, and sold at a low
price.
" In January, 1845, The Athenceum was enabled t."> announce that the inventor or discoverer of the method was a M. Baldermus, who had communi- cated the discovery to a person in London ; and, to convince the proprietors of that journal of the reality of the method, a page of U Illustration, a French journal, was to be faithfully copied in a quarter of an hour. The method became known by the name of Anastatic printing ; and many of the London journals directed attention to the subject. In the Art Union for February, 1845, pages 40 and 41 of the number are printed from zinc plates obtained by the Anastatic process."
Faraday explained the rationale of the process in 1845 at the Royal Institution. It all depends on a few known properties of the articles employed. Water attracts water, oil attracts oil ; but each mutually repels the other. The invention, or an almost similar discovery, has been claimed by more than one person, notably Mr. Jobbins, litho printer, 1840 ; while a Mr. Cocks of Fal- mouth stated that he had introduced a very similar method in 1836.
HERBERT B. CLAYTON.
[A full reply by MR. HUMPHREYS will appear on
TOMB OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT (11 S. xi. 361 ; xii. 37, 148). The two correspon- dents at p. 148 seem to have been misled by " Sarcophagus of Alexander " ; the one at Constantinople has so little to do with Alexander that even the portrait thereon has not his features. The matter is fully dis- cussed and illustrated in Taylor's translation of Furtw angler and Uhlrichs's ' Greek and Roman Sculpture,' pp. 133-48. An in- teresting account of the finding of this sarcophagus was in The Neat East, 28 Nov., 1913, p. 109. When found, the colours -were very brilliant and beautiful, but now they have faded into " classic coldness."
The burial-place at A exandria was well treated by Thiersch in ' Kaiserlich-deutsches archaologisches Institut, Jahrbuch,' Band 25, Berlin, 1910, 55-97, ' Die alexandrinische Konigsnekropole.' This is said to have been digested in The Journal of Biblical Archaeo- logy, 1911. ROCKINGHAM.
Boston, Mass.
PORTRAIT OF Miss THAYER, AFTERWARDS
MADAME THIEBAULT (11 S. xi. 360; xii.
139). The portrait of Miss Thayer by Sir
Thomas Lawrence was exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1813 (Gent. Mag., vol. c.,
pt. i., 634). The picture was engraved by
W. R. Worthington in 1828 and by E.
Wehrschmidt in 1899. The lady married a
M. Thiebault.
Lady Holland, writing from Holland House to Mrs. Creevey at Brighton in the spring of 1814, tells her that there is a report of a marriage between Sir Harry Mildmay and Miss Thayer (' The Creevey Papers,' i. 190). The marriage, however, did not take place. Does Lady Holland refer to the Miss Thayer of Lawrence's beautiful picture ? I am anxious to identify her and also her husband. HORACE BLEACKLEY.
19, Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.
FRENCH " OF STRATFORD-ATTE-BOWE " (11 S. xii. 301, 366). Was Prof. Skeat right in his opinion that Chaucer intended no slight upon the French " of Stratford-atte- Bowe " ? It seems clear that Ben Jonson took it to mean a kind of French inferior to that of Paris. See ' The New Inn,' II. ii. (Lord Latimer is inquiring about Fly, " a parasite of the inn, one that has been a strolling gipsy ") :
Lord Latimer. Is he a scholar ?
Host. Nothing less ;
But colours it as you see ; wears black, And speaks a little tainted, fly-blown Latin.
Lord Beaufort. Of Stratford o' the Bow, For Lillie's Latin is to him unknown.
H. DUGDALE SYKES.
Enfield.
CHURCHES USED FOR THE ELECTION OF
MUNICIPAL OFFICERS (11 S. xii. 360). Here
is an example from Street's ' Notes on
Grantham,' pp. 121, 122. In the Corporation
books
"the most ancient existing record of the ceremony observed in the Election of the Alderman of Grantham is of the year 1634 ; it is as follows :
Villa siveBurgus de Grantham in Com. Line.
An assembly holden by John Mills, Gent., Alder- man of the Borough and Soke of Grantham in the County of Lincoln, and the Comburgesses and Burgesses of the same, in Corpus Christi Guild in the Prebendary Church of Grantham, aforesaid, upon Friday next after St. Luke's Day, being the 21st day of October, 1634.
First the said Mr. John Mills, being Alderman, did sit down in the said Corpus Christi Quire within the Prebendary Church aforesaid.
Then next to him did sit upon the cushion o place of election two Comburgesses, viz. Mr. Gile Andrew and Mr. Richard Coney. Then ther were three Comburgesses sent down into the body
