HI. MAE. 25/99.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
233
Such misapprehensions of the sound of foreign
words are common enough.
HENRY BRADLEY.
Clarendon Press, Oxford.
PRISON REFORM (9 th S. iii. 129). It may safely perhaps be stated that the first public attempt to advocate a prison reform was the devotion to the cause which took John Howard into the prisons at home and abroad in the humane wish to bring about a reform in the treatment of prisoners. The earliest publication which Lowndes mentions is : 'The State of the Prisons in England and Wales : with Preliminary Observations, and an Account of some Foreign Prisons,' 1777. ED. MARSHALL.
DUKE OP ALBANY (9 th S. iii. 125). There is some difficulty in accepting MR. W. GRAHAM EASTON'S assertions as to the representation of the dukedom of Albany. Well -known genealogists deny that any of Sir Walter Buchanan's known issue were by his marriage with Lady Isabel Stuart, amongst others the late Lyon Mr. George Burnet. Lady Isabel's parents' ante -nuptial contract is dated .7 Feb., 1391/2, and her supposed second son, Maurice Buchanan, is described as a Master of Arts in 1427. Though these dates do not necessarily preclude the possibility of the fact of the three sons Patrick, Maurice, and Thomas being the sons of the marriage in question, the two dates are sufficiently near to excite suspicion. There is still left the almost insuperable difficulty that none of these Buchanans are taken into considera- tion in connexion with the partition of the Lennox earldom. It is scarcely conceivable that any attainder of Duke Murdoch and his issue would have obliterated the mention of such rightful heirs, had they existed. As an eminent writer has said, the Buchanans would probably have been sufficiently power- ful to make the weight of their position felt in the matter. Assuming, however, that they were the children of Lady Isabel, it is surely necessary to extinguish all the de- scendants of daughters of the later Buchanans of that ilk, after the Spital family branched off, before it can be asserted that Mr. Buchanan Hamilton is the heir of line of Albany and Menteith. Has MR. GRAHAM EASTON succeeded in doing this? Has he ever considered from his point of view the possibility that the sequence in which Auchmar gives the names of Sir Walter's issue is incorrect? Patrick, the eldest, may have been born as late as 1425. If the ' Chronicle of Fortingall ' is correct in giving the date of his son Walter's death as 1526,
it is improbable that the latter was born
before 1445, as he was married before 26 Nov.,
1463. The son whom Auchmar places third
(Thomas) was living in 1496, and may have
been born as late as 1432, as his eldest son
Robert married about 1472, and died about
1518. Had either of these two been born
mach earlier than these suggested dates, it
would make them both marry rather later in
life than the custom of the period rendered
usual. On the other hand, unless Patrick
had been born at least as early as 1410, he
could scarcely have had a younger brother
an M.A. in 1427.
JOHN PARKES BUCHANAN. Union Club, S.W.
" PARLEY'S PENNY LIBRARY " (9 th S. iii. 145). This serial terminated on the completion of the ninth volume, when the publishers issued an address stating that the work "constitutes a whole course of education, as well as a complete embodiment of all that is most valuable in Literature, Art, Science, and Natural History ; amongst which will be found Analytical Reproductions of a number of costly works, which would at least involve an outlay of One Hundred Guineas to procure, but which have been presented to our readers in Nine closely printed and beauti- fully embellished volumes, divested of all the book- maker's verbiage, and thereby calculated to save time as well as money, for the astonishing low charge of One Shilling per volume. A Library for Nine Shillings!!!"
They also announced "an improved con- tinuation" of the publication in question, entitled " Parley's Illuminated Library."
There were not many numbers of this latter issued. It was conducted much on the same lines, but was not such a big pennyworth. Tales by the leading novelists of the day " analytically reoriginated," and weird poems round the borders in pearl type, such as ' The Old Woman of Berkeley,' constituted features in its contents.
The tales " analytically reoriginated " were Prom Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, J. F. Cooper, Dumas, &c. I believe it was Dickens who restrained them from encroaching on his copy- right, and thereby provoked their most un- reasonable resentment. The little periodical was published at Craven Yard, Drur} T Lane, and was a source of great delight to a host of readers for whom the price of new books, and even newspapers, was then prohibitive.
B. D. MOSELEY. Burslem.
The REV. MR. PICKFORD'S communication on this subject induces me to say that when [ was a small boy my dear mother -presented me with a copy, three or four years in suc- cession, of * Peter Parley's Annual.' As I only
