78
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. ix. JAN. 2*.
Iranians in Ancient Times,' 1885, vol. i.
pp. 56 f . For the custom among the
modern Parsis, see Dosabhai Framji
Karaka, ' History of the Parsis,' 1854, vol. i.
pp. 161 ff. ; ' Bombay Gazetteer,' vol. ix.
pt. ii. p. 229 (1899).
There are numerous references to these customs scattered through Indian anthro- pological literature, which I shall be pleased to supply to M. GAIDOZ if the books quoted above do not furnish sufficient information.
EMEHITUS.
CHRISTMAS EVE (11 S. viii. 501). To the literature of the Midnight Mass quoted by ST. S WITHIN add ' Les Trois Messes Basses,' one of the best of Daudet's ' Contes de Lundi.' It is the tale of a greedy priest who hurried over his Masses while his tlio lights were with the reveillon supper afterwards, and of his punishment.
It does not seem to me quite impossible that Mistral may be right in describing supper as before Mass in his country. There would be hardly any communicants among those who were going to attend, and in any case the fast before Communion only begins at midnight, so that even the celebrating priest would be committing no technical fault if he partook of the supper first. The only difficulty is that the supper would have to be maigre. Perhaps somebody who knows Provence well could enlighten us on this point. S. G.
A LOST PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHING- TON (US. viii. 487). On 28 June, 1791, the Earl of Buchan wrote to Washington :
" I beg your Excellency will have the goodness to send me your portrait, that I may place it among those I most honor, and I would wish it from the pencil of Mr. Robertson."
The artist was Archibald Robertson, who reached America late in 1791. On 1 May, 1792, Washington wrote to the Earl of Buchan :
" My portrait has just been finished by Mr.
Robertson (of New York), who has also undertaken to forward it."
On 8 Nov., 1793, Robertson wrote to thfe Earl of Buchan that the portrait had been sent in charge of Col. Tobias Lear, Wash- ington's secretary.
" Colonel Lear delivered the picture safely at its destination. In a subsequent letter of thanks to the artist the Earl expressed his entire satisfaction with the result."
Besides the above - mentioned portrait, Robertson painted miniatures of Washington and of his wife, and a portrait of Washington " in water-colours on a marble slab," owned
(in 1890) by Mrs. M. M. Craft, a daughter of
the artist. In an undated account written
by Robertson himself we read :
" The original one painted for Lord Buchan was in oils, and of a size corresponding to those of the collection of portraits of the most celebrated worthies in liberal principles and in useful litera- ture in the possession of his lordship at Dryburgh Abbey, near Melrose, on the borders of Scotland."
All the above extracts are taken from an interesting article by Edith Robertson Cleve- land on ' Archibald Robertson, and his Por- traits of the Washingtons,' in The Century Magazine for May, 1890, xl. 3-13. In 1897 Mr. Charles H. Hart stated that " the large picture is still in Scotland " (McClure's Mag., viii. 291-308). If the portrait is not now at Dryburgh Abbey, it would be interesting to- know when it disappeared.
ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, Mass.
GODS IN EGYPT (US. ix. 8). Although Egypt is not referred to in the following passage from Petronius, it seems as if we had here the ultimate source of the saying in Gibbon :
" Utique nostra regio tarn prsesentibus plena est numinibus, ut facilius possis deum quam homiuem invenire." ' Sat.,' cap. xvii.
EDWARD BENSLY.
Gibbon quoted from memory. The au- thentic passage relates to gods in Cam- pania, and is to be found in Petronius,.
- Satyricon,' xvii. (" Loeb Classical Library,"
p. 22) : " The gods walk about so commonly in our streets that it is easier to meet a god than a man." S. REINACH.
Boulogne-sur-Seine.
LISTS OF BISHOPS AND DEANS IN CATHE- DRALS (US. ix. 7). There is a list of the Bishops and Deans of Norwich at the west end of the Cathedral there ; and I see by the Roman Catholic papers that a list of the Bishops and Archbishops who have ruled over the diocese of Westminster has been affixed to one of the pillars of Westminster Cathedral. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.
23, Unthank Road, Norwich.
" SS " (11 S. viii. 350, 397, 475). Let me recommend your correspondent and others to read * The Collar of SS, a History and a Conjecture,' by Arthur P. Purey-Cust, D.D., Dean of York (Leqds, Richard Jack- son, 1910). In spite of this interesting monograph, I think the subject deserves still further research ; and that it will doubt- less get from another generation.
ST. SWITHIN.
