Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/86

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JAN. 26, 1907.


has likewise a good property, hut is uncommonly fond of horses, and to indulge this propensity has bought a share in some of the Oxford stages, one of which he constantly drives. I enquired of him if he had any prints of his ancestor, hut found he had not, though he said a brother who is a hosier at Woodstock has a very fine painting of him."

Part of this biographical memorandum is given by Bray in his foot-note to Evelyn's 'Diary,' 24 October, 1664 (vide the recent edition in 4 vols., ii. p. 171). A copy of the print was in the Sykes Sale, March, 1824, lot 849, bought by Grave for 61. 85. Qd.

" Fran9ois Le Pipre, 15s. Of/. The mezzo tinto of Le Pipre is an anonymous print, and very little known to either printsellers or collectors. It is a small .quarto in the manner of Vaillaint's prints, and represents a rough-looking man without hat or cap, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned, and upon com- parison with Wai pole's print is known to be Le Pipre. Coram has bought 3 or 4 lately in sales, with many other prints in a lot for 2s. M. or 3*., though young Grave and many printsellers of note have oeen in the room at the time, but did not know this print. According to the impression, it will bring from 15-s. to 11. 1-s. Qd."

"Louise, Dutchess of Portsmouth, 6/. 6*. Od. The plate of the Dutchess of Portsmouth by Baudet must be at Paris among the plates of Basan, though here the print is so rarely met with that it sells for .5 or 6 guineas. Paris is a place that has never been visited by any other than gentlemen collectors who know not how to seek after scarce prints Mr. Wai- pole and Ant" Storer only excepted, who certainly met with many of their most curious prints while in France."

Jf these few excerpta from Caulfield's jottings are found of sufficient interest, I shall be pleased to give a further selection at a later date. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

39, Hillmarton Road, N.


RAJA-I-RAJGAN : INDIAN TITLE. There is an amusing blunder in the January number of The Nineteenth Century. The Raja of Kapurthala, who contributes an interesting article on ' The Education of Indian Princes,' is described in the table of contents as " H.H. the Raja I. Rajgan of Kapurthala." This looks as if the printer thought Rajgan was a surname. Of course the proper way to write this title is Rdja-i- Rdjgdn. It means " King of Kings." The vowel i in Persian denotes the possessive case ; compare King Edward's title, Kaisar- i-Hind, which no one would dream of writing " Kaisar I. Hind."

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

STATUES or THE GEORGES. Three of the four Georges have statues in London, which .are all impartially ignored in the list in the ' Dictionary of Dates.' Those who fre- quently visit the great hive of learning in


Great Russell Street, and all whose avoca- tions of any kind take them often to Blooms- bury, must be familiar with the sight of George I. on the top of St. George's Church ; but the old jokes about making the king the head of the steeple are forgotten, and probably few who look up at the statue know whose it is. The figure of George III. on horseback in Pall Mall is known to multitudes who pass that way. But I find that con- spicuous as is the equestrian statue of George IV. in Trafalgar Square (the horse's tail turned towards the National Gallery), many persons do not know it to be of that not exactly popular king. Perhaps this is partly because there is no name on it, which it seems to me every statue should have. It is by Chantrey, as I mentioned in 10 S. hi. 448. By a curious pleonasm, Marochetti's statue of Richard Coeur de Lion in Old Palace Yard is mentioned twice in the list in Haydn. W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

SHAKESPEARE'S RESIDENCE NEW PLACE. In Mr. Sidney Lee's ' Life of William Shakespeare ' a work which, in my opinion, should be universally studied we are told, on the authority of Halliwell-Phillipps, that New Place was purchased in 1675 by Sir Edward Walker, through whose daughter Barbara, wife of Sir John Clopton, it reverted to the Clopton family. In 1702 (eighty-six years after Shakespeare's death) Sir John rebuilt it. On the death of Sir John's son, in 1752, it was bought by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who died in 1768, having in 1759 demolished the " new building."

I have just discovered that in the follow- ing year, namely, in July, 1760, a letter appeared in The London Magazine, written by a lady on a journey from Stratford-upon- Avon to her friend in Kent, from which the following is an extract :

" There stood here till lately the house in which Shakespeare lived, and a mulberry tree of his planting ; the house was large, strong, and hand- some ; the tree so large that it would shade the grass-plat in your garden, which I think is more than 20 yards square, and supply the whole town with mulberries every year. As the curiosity of this house and tree brought much fame, and more company and profit, to the town, a certain man, on some disgust, has pulled the house down, so as not to leave one stone upon another, and cut down the tree, and piled it as a stack of fire-wood, to the great vexation, loss and disappointment of the in- habitants; however, an honest silversmith bought the whole stock of wood, and makes many odd things of this wood for the curious, some of which I hope to bring with me to town. I am," &c.