2nd s. N" 90., Sept. 19. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



237 



residence of the late hospitable and warm-hearted 

 advocate, Mr. Edward Lothian. M. L. 



Allow me to correct an error. "La Festa 

 D'Overgroghi" was not published in The Court of 

 Session" Garland. A few copies were probably 

 printed in 8vo., and some possessors of The Court 

 of Session Garland bound it up with that volume. 

 The original edition, also privately printed, was in 

 12mo. ; and it is difficult to determine which of 

 the two brochures is the scarcest. 



Overgroghi was meant for Over Gogar, a small 

 property in Mid Lothian, which, at the date of 

 the drama, belonged to Edward Lothian, Esq., 

 advocate (now dead), a most worthy and hospita- 

 ble gentleman, who greatly enjoyed; the " Opera," 

 and joined in the performance, which actually 

 took place in the house of Andrew Skene, Esq., 

 Solicitor- General to Scotland, — an individual 

 whose unexpected demise was deeply regretted by 

 his brethren of all shades of political opinion. 



A considerable portion of the libretto was com- 

 posed by Patrick Robertson, Esq., afterwards 

 Dean of Faculty, and latterly a judge of the Court 

 of Session. The rest was written by gentlemen 

 some of whom still survive. 



No "Jury Court Opera" ever appeared. The 

 songs alluded to were generally allowed to be 

 very clever specimens of the judges represented 

 as the singers. J. Mt. 



The author of the " Scene from the Jury Court 

 Opera," is understood to be Douglas Cheape, Esq., 

 late Professor of Civil Law in the University of 

 Edinburgh. In my set of The Court of Session 

 Garland^ I cannot find " La Festa D'Overgroghi." 

 I suspect it was never printed in that collection. 



T. G. S. 



Edinburgh. 



Guelph Family : Saxe Cohnrg (2"^ S. iv. 189.) 

 — The present Saxe family first appeared in his- 

 tory as Margraves of Meissen, a district apparently 

 conquered from the Wends, and made a march of 

 by Henry the Fowler between 922—928. Conrad 

 Count von Wettin (whose ancestor Dedo, a famous 

 warrior who died in 1009, appears to have founded 

 the line of Wettin) succeeded as Margrave of 

 Meissen in 1130, on failure of a senior branch of 

 the family, which had enjoyed the title since 1046 ; 

 and on the failure of the Wittenberg line of An- 

 halt in 1423 (a junior branch of the present fa- 

 mily of Anhalt, raised to the Dukedom of Saxe 

 on the ruins of the Guelph power by the great rival 

 of that racei Frederic Barbarossa). Conrad's 

 descendant, Frederic Margrave of Meissen, bought 

 the Duchy and Electorate of Saxe from the Em- 

 peror Sigisraund for a hundred thousand golden 

 florins, in spite of the rightful claims of the Lauen- 

 burg, or junior branch of Saxe- Anhalt. 



As the name of Von Wettin merged in that of 



Von Meissen, so when the Margraves of a portion 

 became Electors of the whole of Saxe, they assumed 

 the greater name, and for four hundred years they 

 have been — to use a Scotch phrase — Saxe of 

 that ilk. Our future line of rulers will be intitled 

 the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line, the Guelphs being 

 now represented by the royal line of Hanover and 

 the ducal lines of Cambridge and Brunswick. 

 Von Hapsbourg is as much the family name of 

 the Austrian emperors, as Hohenzollern is of the 

 Kings of Prussia, Nassau of the Kings of Holland, 

 Hohenstauffen of the old Ghibeline emperors, or 

 Stewart of that line of kings of which her Majesty 

 is the senior Protestant representative in the fe- 

 male line. Territorial appellations were originally 

 all " of that ilk," the name and title only differing 

 in comparatively modern times. Signet. 



Hear Verstegan, edit. 1605, p. 294. : 



" Stock is in the Teutonic also understood for a staff, 

 and it is said to be the proper and ancient surname of the 

 great and Imperial House of Austria, in memory whereof 

 it beareth two ragged staves crossed saltire-wise, as be- 

 longing to the arms thereof." 



H. J. H. 



The Auction of Cats (2"^ S. iv. 171.) --In reply 

 to the inquiry of G. Creed, " The Auction of the 

 Cats in Cafeaton Street " is, in all probability, a 

 poem, or rather song, which I remember to have 

 heard sung when a boy. It is founded upon the 

 extraordinary sum which a tortoiseshell Tom-cat 

 brought at an auction. My recollection only re- 

 tains some of the first verse, but it was replete with 

 lusiis verborum on the word cat. It began thus : 



" Oh what a story the papers have been telling us. 

 About a little animal of monstrous price ! 

 Who would have thought of an auctioneer a-selling us. 

 For near three hundred yellow boys, a trap for mice ? 

 Of its beauty and its quality 'tis true he told us fine 



tales, 

 But as for me I would as soon have bought a Cat-oi' 



nine tails ; 

 I would not give for all the cats in Christendom so vast 



a fee, 

 To save them from the Catacombs, or Ca^aline's catas- 

 trophe ; 

 Kate of Russia, ^afafelto's cat, or Ca^alani." 



More I do not remember. Of the writer I know 

 nothing. ?• Q- 



This most probably refers to the song of 

 " Tommy Tortoise-shell," which is to be found in 

 most of the song-books of a quarter of a century 

 or more back. It describes very humorously, and 

 with a constant playing on the word cat, the sale 

 by auction of a tortoiseshell tom-cat ; wherein we 

 are told to " imagine Mr. Catseye, the auctioneer, 

 with his Catalogue in one hand, and a hammer 

 like a Catapulta in the other, mounted in his 

 Great Room in Cateaton Street ; and who, in ex- 

 patiating on the rarity of the lot, tells his auditory 

 that * the curioua concatenation of colours in that 



