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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. xn. A, u, 1915.
I have never seen any " Toy Theatre "
prints of Will Watch, only " theatrical por-
traits " for colouring and tinselling. These
I enumerated at 11 S. iii. 492.
M r. William Douglas has been for many years compiling a Dictionary of English Plays ; it is now the fullest there is, but is only in MS. He has in his list the follow- ing : " Will Watch, melodrama, by J. H. Amhurst, Surrey Theatre, 17 March, 1823." I do not find this in any printed list of plays, but it appears to be the one that inspired the prints. Most likely it was published by Hodgson & Co. in 1823, and reprinted by their successor Cole, with his own name only, in 1824. RALPH THOMAS.
SIGNOR ANTONIO CACCIA(H S. xii. 85). A Signor Caccia and his family resided in Florence alongside of the Church of the Annunziata 30 or 40 j-ears ago ; they mingled with the English colony, and I visited them, but remember no detail of the wife's relatives in England.
WILLIAM MERCER.
THE IDENTITY OF ISABEL BIGOD (Jl S. xi. 445, 465; xii. 16). Judging by the conclusion at which PROF. G. C. MOORE SMITH has arrived at the last of the above references, I am afraid he has not honoured me by a very careful perusal of the com- munication which you did me the favour of printing in the columns of your valuable journal at the first two of the above refer- ences, for had he done so he could hardly have failed to notice the opinion expressed by the learned author of ' The Marshal Pedigree,' Mr. Hamilton Hall, F.S.A., that the assertion that Isabel was the daughter of Ralph Bigod is an impossible one, for she was certainly older than he or his brothers ; that by the dates of her issue she was born about, if not actually in, the year 1205 ; and that, therefore, for her to have been a daughter of Ralph Bigod and Bertha de Furnival was a chronological impossibility.
By quoting a portion only of the Latin passage I laid before your readers, and eliminating that part which, I am not alone in thinking, practically refutes his argument, and the order of words in the original, the learned Professor has been enabled to arrive at a conclusion diametrically opposed to that I adduced. I would, however, very respectfully submit that it would, in these circumstances, have been fairer to both of us had he quoted the passage from " qui Hugo " to " Isabelle de Lacy " in its en- tirety, and thus have enabled the readers
of his reply to have formed an opinion
whether upon that wording he was justified
in drawing the conclusion to which he has
given expression.
I venture to think that to bear out the learned Professor's contention we ought to have found the passage worded
" qui Hugo generavit Radulphum Bigod, patrero Joannis Bigod et Isabelle de Lacy, qui fuerunt films et filia Domine Berta de Furnyvall," instead of as we find it in Gilbert, which, by the kindness of the Librarian of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, has been compared with the original in Laud MS. No. 526,
" qui Hugo generavit Radulphum Bigod. patrem Joannis Bigod, qui fuit filius Domine Berta de Furnyvall, et Isabelle de Lacy," &c.
To my mind, and in the minds of others from whom I have received communications direct, it is just the way in which the original passage is worded, supported by Mr. Hamil- ton Hall's opinion, that justifies me in arriving at the conclusion that Isabel was daughter of Hugh Bigod, and an elder sister of Ralph. FRANCIS H. RELTON.
8, Lansdowne Road, East Croydon.
' JUSTICE,'- BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (US. xii. 85). This figure is, I think, one of the " Seven Graces " contained in the great west window of New College Ante- Chapel at Oxford. This window was painted by Jervai?, between 1777 and c. 1784, from finished cartoons furnished by Reynolds. The cartoons for the seven allegorical figures which fill the lower compartments of the window were purchased in 1821 by the Earl of Normanton, who paid over 5,OOOZ. for them. The present Lord Normanton, I believe, still possesses them.
A. R. BAYLEY.
LEVANT MERCHANTS IN CYPRUS (11 S. xi. 263, 499). The fifst line of my note should have run : " The oldest grave of a merchant of the Levant Company in Cyprus,' * &c., is dated 1692. This is implied by a separate reference to the graves of English seamen. I did not discover the grave of William Balls. It must be remembered that the late Mr. Cobham made his tran- scripts about thirty - seven years ago (I made. mine some three or four years ago), and that inscriptions in the soft gypsum graveslabs, laid flat on the ground and exposed to the open air in this rigorous climate, last but a few years. This will account for the disappearance of the poetic effusion on the child of Niven Kerr at the end of epitaph No. 11. The older epitaphs (eighteenth century) are inscribed on huge
