414
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.i. MAY 20,1916.
JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER, R.A. (12 S. i. 370). MR. GILBERT BENTHALL is to be congratulated on undertaking the Life of Mortimer, whose work is very little known outside of a few book-illustrations. When the history of English eighteenth - century -art is written, Mortimer will be appreciated. He was a pupil of Thomas Hudson, who was practically the father of the eighteenth- century English school of portraiture. I have most of Mortimer's etchings, and about thirty of his drawings. He was the master of William Blake, and some of his drawings in my collection go far to prove that he must have had great influence on his pupil.
There is a fine portrait of Mortimer in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, attributed to Richard Wilson. There is also in the same gallery a portrait group by Morti- mer of himself, Joseph Wilton, R.A., and a lad -named Thury, who used to sweep out the -rooms of the Royal Academy at Somerset House. The gallery is closed during the war, but I have photographs of both pictures which, together with any information that I can give, will be placed at the disposal of MR. BENTHALL if he will communicate with me. There are descendants of Mortimer living, and I think I shall be able to find their addresses. JOHN LANE.
The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.
BOOKWORMS : REMEDIES AGAINST THEM
- (11 S. xii. 138, 185, 208, 268, 308, 330, 370).
May I return to this subject, because I made it a matter of conscience to give the advice of putting cedar-oil on precious old books ? Now, as I turn over the leaves of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, I find this quoted -from a communication to The Times by M. A. Herbert Safford :
" My practice is to periodically wash the Tracks with soap and warm water, and at once to Tub in neat's- foot or porpoise oil ; the books are improved in appearance, and the cracking of the 'edges of the book is stayed."
It was used by the correspondent of JS. and D. N. and Q. to his complete satis- faction. P. TURPIN.
' THE STANDARD ' : EVENING PAPERS (12 S. i. 341, 363, 381). It is not quite accurate to say that The Standard " is the only instance in which an evening paper has been the fore- runner of a morning paper taking the same title." The history of The Edinburgh Courant, which came to an end in 1886 after a continuous existence of 168 years, furnishes -another instance. It was set on foot in 1718 as The Edinburgh Evening Courant, and continued to bear that title until January
1860, when, on its first appearance as a
morning j journal, the word " Evening " was
dropped. Oddly enough, the original title
was restored in November of the same year,
the editor giving this explanation :
- ' The slight anomaly involved in retaining the
' Evening ' part of our title is counterbalanced by other considerations of convenience, and will be pardoned in a country where such trifles have never weighed against the advantage of retaining identity of description and form."
Of course, it may perhaps be claimed that the Courant was never really an evening paper in the strict sense, and that the word was inserted merely to differentiate the journal from a still earlier Edinburgh Courant. It may be pointed out, however, that when the paper was for sale in 1871 the advertisement stated that " the Courant was established in 1718, under the editorship of Daniel Defoe, as an evening paper."
The Courant had a chequered and highly interesting career, and its story is told very fully in William Norrie's pamphlet ' Edin- burgh Newspapers, Past and Present ' (1891), and in Couper's ' Edinburgh Periodical Press,' vol. ii. (1908). M. GRAHAM.
Catheart.
AUTHORS WANTED (12 S. i. 348). The lines about " Downright Shippen " are from Pope's ' Imitations of Horace,' Satire I. Book II. v. 51-2. Shippen was sent to the Tower for saying, in 1717, that a paragraph in the King's Speech seemed rather calcu- lated for the meridian of Germany than of Great Britain. Landor, in his ' Moral Epistle ' (1795), called Shippen the one exception to
Walpole's well-inform'd advice,
Shake but the money, all men have their price.
But Landor or his printer misspelt the name " Shippon/' STEPHEN WHEELER.
Oriental Club, Hanover Square. [Several other correspondents thanked for replies.]
THE WITCHES OF WARBOYS (12 S. i. 283, 304). In John Camden Hotten's 'Hand- book to the Typography [&c.] of England and Wales' [1863] is:
2190. ^Nicholson (Rev. Isaac) against Witchcraft- Account of Anne Izzard, Witch of Warboys, &c. 8vo, 1808.
W. B. H.
SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOOLMASTERS (12 S. i. 321). " M. Simon Hunt major" matricu- lated at the University of Douay when Dr. Thomas Stapleton was Rector (see Knox, ' Douay Diaries,' at p. 276).
JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.
