?■»■! S. N« 60., Feb. 21. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



147 



Peg Woffington, after having been satisfactorily 

 demonstrated to be a mere daub, and not the least 

 likeness in the world, is proved to be the very 

 reality — the lady herself stepping in propria 

 persona from behind the canvass, through a hole 

 in which she had exhibited her face. The authors 

 (Messrs. Taylor and Reade) appear to have de- 

 rived their very striking and novel situation from 

 a French source ; for it is recorded of the Mar- 

 shal Luxembourg, that he took his mistress to the 

 house of a celebrated Parisian artist, in order that 

 she might see the likeness of the Marshal, and sit 

 for her own. When, however, she saw the por- 

 trait, she declared that she had never seen any 

 person like it. The Marshal knew that this Avas 

 mere prejudice, and persuaded her to go once 

 again to the painter's house, after the last sitting, 

 assuring her that if she should not then be per- 

 fectly satisfied, he would cease his importunities. 

 He had contrived, with the assistance of the 

 painter, to thrust his own face through a canvass 

 hung where the picture had before been placed ; 

 but she, on perceiving it, persisted in asserting 

 that it was no more like than before. Upon this 

 the Marshal could not keep his countenance, but, 

 by laughing aloud, discovered at once his stra- 

 tagem and her obstinacy. 



This anecdote was published thirty-five years 

 ago in Ramsay's New Dictionary of Anecdotes il- 

 lustrative of Character and Events. 



CUTHBERT BeDE. 



Inscriptions on Bells. — When in the London 

 Docks a day or two since, I noticed a bell sent 

 thither for shipment to the colony of Victoria. It 

 is intended for the church of St. Stephen, Port- 

 land, and bears the inscription — 



" Venite et cantate Domino." 



Mercator, A.B. 



BIBLIOTHECA HARLEIANA. 



After the death of Edward Harley, second Earl 

 of Oxford, in 1741, his invaluable collection of 

 manuscripts was purchased by the nation, and de- 

 posited in the British Museum. His library of 

 printed books was sold for 13,000Z. to Thomas 

 Osborne the bookseller, who employed William 

 Oldys, the earl's late librarian, and Samuel John- 

 son, afterwards our great lexicographer, to form 

 the Catalogus Bibliothecce Harleiance, after a classi- 

 fied plan which had been laid out by Michael 

 Maittaire. Of this catalogue two octavo volumes 

 were issued in 1743, and two more in 1744: (a 

 fifth, printed in 1745, which generally accompanies 

 the former, is not properly part of the work, 

 though issued under the same title, but rather 

 Osborne's catalogue for that year, containing 



many of the Harleian books, before catalogued, 

 but still remaining unsold). The books were 

 neither sold by auction, nor by prices printed in 

 the Catalogue, as usual with booksellers ; but the 

 Catalogue is wholly without prices, one copy only, 

 which was kept in the bookseller's hands, having 

 the prices written in it. That copy he afterwards 

 advertised for sale, in his shop catalogue for 1749, 

 No. 5954 : 



" Catalogue of the late E. of Oxford's Library, as it was 

 purchased (being the original), inlaid with royal paper, 

 in 16 vols. 4to., with the prices prefixed to each book, 

 price 10/. 10s. 



" N. B. There never was any other copy of this Cata- 

 logue with the prices added to it." 



The same article, at the same price, is repeated 

 in Osborne's Catalogue for 1750, No. 6583 ; and in 

 that for 1751, No. 6347 ; after which it was discon- 

 tinued in his subsequent catalogues, and had there- 

 fore probably found a customer. (These particulars 

 I gather from the fly-leaf of a copy of the Cata- 

 logue obligingly lent me by Mr. Bolton Cornet.) 

 Query, to whom was it sold ? and where is it now ? 

 It must form, if existing, so remarkable a record 

 of the market value of books a century ago, that 

 one cannot but wish that it were placed for general 

 reference in the library of the British Museum. 



J. G. NicuoLS. 



ANCIENT MURAL PAINTING. 



Some months ago, clearing the whitewash from 

 the walls of the church of this parish, I discovered 

 fifty or sixty mural drawings of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury, well drawn, very interesting ; among them one 

 the subject of which I am unable to make out. I 

 have been anxiously watching for some time your 

 " Notes on Punch," hoping that these might help 

 me; for the drawing represents a male figure 

 habited as a friar, with a head unmistakably re- 

 presentative of Punch ; in his hand is a long two- 

 handed sword, the blade of which he is holding at 

 the neck of a kneeling female figure, whose face is 

 one of great beauty. I am so far helped by your 

 Notes, that I am induced to think this must have 

 been a scene from some mystery play with which 

 Punch was connected. 



I am aware that it maybe the representation of 

 a martyrdom, the executioner being grotesquely 

 masked. Of the fifty or sixty drawings, this and 

 one other only are legendary ; the one other re- 

 presenting St. Francis preaching to animals of the 

 lower creation. 



Perhaps if I were to send a tracing of the 

 Punch-like countenance, &c., some of your friends 

 may be able to relieve me from my state of uncer- 

 tainty as to the subject. Chas. E. Birch. 



Rectory, Wiston, Colchester. 



