418
NOTES AND QUERIES. ^ s. xii. NOV. 21, 1903.
MRS. JORDAN IN DUBLIN (9 th S. xii. 285).
I venture to call attention to the fact
that there :is not the slightest reference to
this famous actress in the very full account
of Crow Street Theatre given at vol. ii. pp.
181-255 of 'A History of the City of Dublin,'
by J. T. Gilbert (Dublin, McGlashan & Gill,
1859) ; and at the same time to assume that
the following excerpt from the deeply inter-
esting description of the opposition house in
Smock Alley may not be found uninterest-
ing :
"In October, 1781, Daly opened Smock Alley Theatre, where John Philip Kemble, engaged at 51. a week, tirst appeared in November in ' Hamlet ' ;
after which he performed Sir < J. Touchwood in
the ' Belle's Stratagem ' ; but his negligent delivery and heaviness of deportment impeded his progress, until these defects were removed by the instruc- tion of his friend Capt. Jephson, in whose ' Count Narbonne' his reputation was first established. In this tragedy, which had a inost successful run of thirty nights, Kemble was supported by Manager Daly as Theodore; while the part of Adelaide was performed by the youthful Dorothea Francis, afterwards so celebrated as Mrs. Jordan." Vol. ii. p. 107.
To this information I take permission to add that in 'Mrs. Jordan: a Memoir,' by Townsend Young, LL.D., the editor of Sir Jonah Barrington's 'Personal Sketches of His Own Times,' vol. ii. p. 20 (Routledge & Sons, 1869), it is related that Mrs. Jordan was born in 1762, and that her parents were Welsh. The father, Bland, was a scene-shifter; the mother, Grace Phillips, was an actress. It is only supposed that their daughter Dora was born at Waterford. At the commencement of her career Mrs. Jordan used the names of Francis, Phillips, or Bland from time to time. Neither the place of her birth nor the date of her first appearance on the stage is known for a certainty ; but, in connexion with the matter, it may be remarked that if the cir- cumstances related by J. D. Herbert in his 'Irish Varieties' be accepted as absolutely correct, it is really improbable that Mrs. Jordan was born in Ireland, because Mr. Herbert distinctly declares that he met her family in 1780 on the Pigeon-house Wall a place in those days for disembarkment for picturesque Dublin when they had just landed from Wales, and were on their way with an introduction to Mr. Ryder, the manager of the theatre in Crow Street, Dublin. HENRY GERALD HOPE
119, Elms Uoad, Clapham, S.W.
LADY ARABELLA STUART : DR. FULTON (9 th S. xii. 347). I venture to suggest that the " Mr. Doctor Fulton," particulars of whom are desired, was Nicholas Felton (1556-1626), Fellow (1583) and afterwards Master (1617-19)
of Pembroke College, Cambridge, who took
the degree of D.D. in 1602. He was rector
of St. Mary le-Bow, Cheapside, from 1596
until 1617, when he became Bishop of Bristol.
He was translated to the see of Ely in 1619.
Further details of his career are given in the
'D.N.B.,' xviii. 308. Dr. Foster ('Alumni
Oxon., 1500-1714,' p. 491, No. 15) suggests
that Nicholas Felton, of Christ Church,
Oxford, M.A. 1615, was his son, and states
that this son became rector of Streatham-
cum-Thetford, Cambridge, in 1622. H. C.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
The Principal Navigation*, Voyages, Traffiqnex, and i Di-Moi'eriex of the English Nation. By Richard Hakluyt. Vols. I. and II. (Glasgow, MacLehose & Sons.)
AMONG the books which the scholar most eagerly craved was a new edition of Hakluyt's ' Voyages. The early editions are virtually inaccessible, bring- ing in the market even when soiled and imperfect, as they mostly are prices ranging from twenty to thirty pounds, and increasing in value from year to year as copies become absorbed in the great American libraries. The reprint (limited to two hundred and fifty copies) of 1809-12 is in demand at much enhanced prices, and that of 1885-90, con- cerning the authority for which we know nothing, brings a very long price in the sale-room. The boon of a handsome, trustworthy, and well-illus- trated edition now being conceded by Messrs. MacLehose & Sons is worthy of the most enter- prising of Scottish booksellers, the publishers to the Glasgow University. In addition to the matter contained in the three folio volumes of the original (second) edition, J 598-1600, and the five 4to volumes of the accepted reprint, the forthcoming issue, which will be in twelve 8vo volumes, will be accom- panied by * Purchas his Pilgrimes,' of which there is no modern reprint, a work of excessive rarity, compiled in part from the materials left by Hak- luyt. Further particulars concerning this projected addition will in time be supplied, and the work thus constituted must become the authoritative and accepted form in which this great record of travel will survive. Well known as he is and he has had, as the reader is aware, a society named after him, and formed for the purpose of printing and illustrating his writings Hakluyt has found, so far as we are aware, no Lamb or other inspired critic to immortalize him, and assign him a place in the same category with men so disparate as Malory, Chapman, and Camden. Froude in his ' Short Studies on Great Subjects' calls 'The Principal Navigations,' ordinarily known as 'The Voyages,' " the prose epic of the modern English nation," and praises in strongest terms the writings of the indus- trious cleric. Hakluyt, like Purchas, was a clergy- man, and was Archdeacon of Westminster and one of the chaplains of the Savoy. After the fashion of many writers of his time, Hakluyt is long-winded and sparing in the use of full stops. It must be borne in mind, however, that he is generally trans- lating, which may account for a style charged at times with Latinisms, or using the words of others.
