2«'» S. VII. Feb. 26. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



167 



private gentleman in Pall Mall ; and here, in the 

 year 1755 or 1756, the Countess Branizky was 

 delivered of a girl, who afterwards became the 

 Countess Broglio Solari, the heroine of this bio- 

 graphy. The child was privately baptized by an 

 Irish priest named Plunket, then a dependent of 

 the Duke of Norfolk. The wife of Moses Hyams 

 had recently been brought to bed of a daughter ; 

 the Countess left her own child to her care, and 

 returned to Poland. On her return she found 

 that Hydrasky had, during her absence, been 

 assassinated. The Countess never heard anything 

 more of her child ; the two infants were put out 

 together to nurse ; the cliild of Hyams died ; the 

 wife of Hyams brought up the daughter of Coun- 

 tess Branizky as her own child, and died without 

 knowing the truth. Moses Hyams only disclosed 

 to Madame Solari the secret of her birth a short 

 time before his death, which took place in August, 

 1796. 



The young Catherine was thus brought up as one 

 of the children of Hyams ; but his circumstances 

 being embarrassed, she was patronised by Lady 

 Mary Duncan, who admired her musical talents, 

 and who induced the Duke of Norfolk to take charge 

 of her education. She was sent to a convent in 

 France, where she became acquainted with a musi- 

 cian named Sacchini : he introduced her to the 

 Princesse de Lamballe, and to the Duke of Or- 

 leans. Here she became acquainted with an Eng- 

 lishman named Plomer, with whom she con- 

 tracted a secret marriage ; but he turned out to 

 be an adventurer and a swindler, and they were 

 soon separated. Afterwards she went to London, 

 where she obtained an engagement at the Hay- 

 market Theatre, and made her first appearance as 

 Euphrosyne in Milton's Comus. At the close of 

 the season she engaged herself at the Dublin 

 Theatre, of which a Mr. Daly was manager. 

 After some stay in Dublin she returned to France, 

 where she had some interviews with Marie An- 

 toinette near the end of her life. She left Paris 

 in August, 1792, on a mission to the Court of 

 Naples, with letters from the queen to be delivered 

 to her sister Queen Caroline ; but the execution 

 of the king and queen prevented her return to 

 France. Some years afterwards, living at Venice, 

 she became acquainted with the family of the Mar- 

 quis Solari, a Venetian, and in October, 1799, she 

 married his son Antony Broglio Solari, her first 

 husband, Plomer, having died in the interim. 

 Here she lived with her husband in ease and 

 splendour until 1812, when Napoleon confiscated 

 his property, and deprived him of an Office which 

 he held. The marquis died in great poverty at 

 Venice in 1828. The marchioness went to Eng- 

 land in 1820, and resided in London, where she 

 gave lessons in music and languages. She died 

 at London in January, 1844, having nearly at- 

 tained the age of ninety. She had, after the peace 



of 1815, obtained from the Austrian government 

 a pension of about three shillings a-day. 



Itmiy be assumed that a lady who went through 

 the adventures attributed in this narrative to Ma- 

 dame Solari was brought up among the daughters 

 of Moses Hyams ; but the account which she 

 gave of her parentage, and of the family of her 

 supposed mother, is a fiction of the clumsiest con- 

 struction. The Honourable Thomas Villiers, who 

 signed the treaty of Dresden in 1745, was the son 

 of the second Earl of Jersey. It was not until 

 1752 that he married Lady Charlotte Capell, the 

 eldest daughter of William, third Earl of Essex, 

 and of Lady Jane Hyde, his wife. As the brothers 

 of Lady Jane Hyde died unmarried, and the title 

 of Earl of Clarendon of the first creation thereby 

 became extinct. Lady Charlotte Capell became 

 the representative of the eldest female branch of 

 the Hydes. For this reason her husband, Mr. 

 Villiers, was in 1756 created Lord Hyde, and was 

 in 1776 created Earl of Clarendon. But in 1745 

 neither was he " Lord Hyde Clarendon," nor 

 could he know that, seven years afterwards, he 

 would marry Lady Charlotte Capell, that eleven 

 years afterwards he would be created Lord Hyde, 

 and that thirty-one years afterwards he would be 

 created Earl of Clarendon. It is, therefore, clear 

 that the offspring of his alleged private marriage 

 with Princess Schavorinska, born soon after 1745, 

 could not have been named from him " George 

 Augustus Hyde," which name, we are told, was 

 afterwards Polonised into " Hydrasky." Mr. Vil- 

 liers was not created Lord Hyde until after the 

 date of the death of the supposed Hydrasky. This 

 is not the only chronological absurdity in the story. 

 " Hyde " or " Hydrasky," the supposed son of 

 " Lord Hyde Clarendon " and of the Polish prin- 

 cess, was born not later than 1745. But Catherine 

 Hyde Solari, the supposed daughter of this Hyde 

 and the Countess Branizky, was born in 1755 

 or 1756, when her supposed father was not more 

 than ten or eleven years old. These two chrono- 

 logical impossibilities are decisive as to the false- 

 hood of Madame Solar i's account of her parentage, 

 and render it unnecessary to dwell on the various 

 improbabilities involved in other parts of the story. 



ITALY DANCING ON THE KOPE, FRANCE AND SPAIN 

 WATCHING TO CATCH HER IF SHE FALLS. 



Referring lately to Captain John Stevens's 

 quaint translation of Quevedo's Fortune in her 

 Wits, or the Hour of all Men, my attention was 

 arrested by the following passage, which I think 

 merits insertion in "N. & Q.," from being so 

 strangely applicable to the question now agi- 

 tating the public mind on the subject of Italy. 



T. C. Smith. 

 " Italy, once the Mistress of the World, an4 now only 



