42
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. JULY is, 1914.
purported the document to have been
drawn up by the Countess at Lake's house at
Wimbledon, in the presence of Diego, Lord
Roos's foreign servant ; besides, it was stated
that one Sarah Swarton, Lady Lake's maid,
standing behind the arras, had overheard
Lady Exeter's reading of the document after
it was signed. The trial proceeded from
January, 1618, to February, 1619, during
which time 17,000 sheets of paper were used
by the counsel of both parties.
This extraordinary case, and the wicked- ness of Lady Lake, countenanced by her devoted servant Sarah Swarton, certainly suggested to Webster the apparently in- credible scheme of the unnatural mother Leonora and her accomplice Winifred. What is more striking still is the conclusion of this plot, for which Webster is indebted to no other person than King James I. himself.
In the play, Leonora's supposed lover of yore is Crispiano, whose portrait is produced in Court, when the judge turns evidence and discloses himself to be Crispiano in person. Thus had King James in 1619 de- livered from the Bench the positive con- viction of Lady Lake's falsehood. As he happened to hunt in the neighbourhood of Wimbledon one day, he bethought himself of going and ascertaining the conditions under which the confession had been drawn up ; and, having been shown the room in ques- tion, found that the arras was too short by 2 ft. for allowing Sarah Swarton to stand concealed behind it. None but the canny Scottish king had been a match for the cunning lady.
It was, therefore, after February, 1619, that Webster undertook his tragi -comedy, or at least the latter part of it. Three months before (November, 1618) had taken place the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh whose firmness in death is alluded to in Act V. sc. iv. Webster, however, was so slow in composition that the play was not completed till the summer of the next year, after the news of the Anglo - Dutch conflict at Sumatra in August, 1619, had reached England (Act IV. sc. ii.) and the Mompesson scandal (Act III. sc. i.).
It is possible that Webster began the portion of the play dealing with Contarino, Jolenta, Ercole, and Romelio before 1618 ; for this he is indebted to some Spanish novel, perhaps to Don Diego Agreda's ' El Hermano Indiscreto '* (The Unwise
Brother).' He, however, found it impossible
o make up a whole play out of this subject,
and forced it into the subsequent plot of
L,eonora's scheme. Unless some earlier law-
suit may be found that obviously influenced
The Devil's Law Case,' I shall maintain
hat this part of it was suggested by the
Lake affair. It is likely that Shakspeare
was no favourite of Lady Lake, who else
might have pondered over the lines in
Hamlet ' (II. ii.) about stage-players :
"After your death you were better have a. bad
epitaph, than their ill report while you live."
B ON A. F. BOURGEOIS.
- This novel was dramatized by Alexandre
Hardy, whose play, however, is unknown except for the account of the scenery in Mahelot's MS.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CASANOVA.
THE splendid recognition M. Charles- Samaran has given of the work done by N. & Q.' in his excellent study ' Jacques Casanova, Venitien ' (Paris, Calmann-LeVy), Drompts the notes which follow :
II. (Edition Gamier) 343. Le Due de Matalone, at Paris. M. le Comte Dufort de iheverney, 1751-2, p. 140, says :
" J'avais attire dans la raaison de Madame-
B les etrangers les plus distingues, les Princes
de Corsini, dont un depuis a etc cardinal, et le- duc de Matalone de Naples."
II. 384. Le Comte de Melfort, Louis Drummond, Comte de Melfort (1722-88); see ' The Scots Peerage,' vi. 69. He was [Dufort de Cheverney, i. 128)
" de petite taille, mais fait comme un modele- et fort comme Hercule, suivait la chasse, quand il ne faisait pas sa cour & Versailles."
II. 406. Prince de Saxe-Hildbourghausen. Ernst Friedrich III. (1727-80). Suc- ceeded his father in 1745. Married : l r Louise of Denmark, died 1756 ; 2, Christiane of Brandenburg-Baireuth ; 3, Auguste of Saxe-Weimar.
III. 106. Maria da Riva. See Rinato Fulin, ' Maria da Riva, Studi. '
III. 435. L'Abbe Galiani. See Swin- burne's ' Letters,' 20 June, 1777, and ii. 295.
III. 493. Madame la Gouvernante, mere du Stathouder. Anna, daughter of King George II. of Great Britain, widow since 1751 of William IV. of Orange, mother of William V., died 12 Jan., 1759. Her son was born in 1748.
IV. 228. L'electeur de Cologne. Clement Augustus of Bavaria (1723-61).
" His electoral Highness has a just Title to be called Clement Aur/usdm, for he is of stately mien, is handsome, and of easy Access, and loves Pleasures and particularly Hunting, as much as-
