228 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 255. 



HAT!mAH MGHTFOOT. 



(Vol. vii., p. 595. ; Vol. viii., pp. 87. 281.) 



A Query respecting this lady, whose history 

 and fate appear shrouded in great mystery, ap- 

 peared in the Monthly Magazine for April, 1821, 

 and drew answers from various correspondents 

 which will be found in vol. li. p. 532., vol. lii. 

 pp. 109. 197. It is affirmed on one hand that she 

 was married to one Isaac Axford ; with whom, 

 however, " she never cohabited ; being taken away 

 from the church door the day they were married, 

 and never heard of afterwards." In another place 

 it is doubted whether such an event as her mar- 

 riage to Axford ever took place. It is farther 

 stated that the prince, having become enamoured 

 of the " fair Quakeress," employed Miss Chudleigh, 

 afterwards the notorious Duchess of Kingston, to 

 " negotiate for him ;" and that a place of meeting 

 for the royal lover and his inamorata was furnished 

 by " one Perryn of Knightsbridge." The last 

 communication on the subject purports to be from 

 a cousin of the lady, who states that — 



" None of her family have seen her since, and that her 

 mother died of grief . . . The general belief of her friends 

 was, that she was taken into keeping by Prince George 

 directly after her marriage to Axford, but never lived 

 with him." 



Axford, it is asserted, presented on his knees a 

 petition respecting her to the king ; but, being a 

 quiet man, allowed the matter to drop. Mention 

 is made of a gentleman named Dalton (Galton ?), 

 who had married a daughter of Hannah Lightfoot 

 by the prince, and who, being left by her with 

 four daughters, was shortly expected in England, 

 and might throw some light on the matter. Very 

 different is the testimony of the octogenarian 

 Beckford : 



" ' Perceiving (records the reminiscent of his conversa- 

 tions) a fine copy of Junius's Letters, 1 asked him (Beck- 

 foi"d) if he thought those forcible productions were from 

 the pen of Lord Chatham ? ' 



" ' Most decidedly not : none of us (for he always spoke 

 of the Pitt family as if he were one of them) ever for a 

 moment thought that they were, and, if they had been, 

 we should have certainly known it. There is much in 

 them which resembles the peculiarities of Burk« ; and 

 many of his admirers entertained the opinion so positively, 

 that Burke felt himself called upon solemnly to disclaim 

 the imputation. My opinion is. Dr. Wilmot was the 

 author.' 



" ' Dr. Wilmot ! ' I reiterated with surprise. 



"'Ay, Dr. Wilmot; no man had better opportunities : 

 he was a good scholar, a sincere Whig, and a most inti- 

 mate friend of Lord Chatham. He had opportunities of 

 being fully acquainted with everything, from his enjoying 

 such an exclusive confidence of George III., which arose 

 from the following singular affair: — George III., when 

 Prince George, fell in love with a beautiful Quakeress of 

 the name of Hannah Lightfoot. She resided at a linen- 

 draper's shop, at the corner of Market Street, St. .James's 

 Market. The name of that linendraper was Wheeler. 

 As the prince could not obtain her aft'ections exactly in 

 the way he most desired, he persuaded Dr. Wilmot to 



marry them ; which he did at Kew Chapel, in 1759 — 

 William Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, and Ann Taylor, 

 being the parties witnessing ; and, for aught I know, that 

 document is still in existence.' 



" * You astonish me.' 



" ' Ah, ah I when j^ou have lived as long in the world 

 as I have, you will cease being astonished at anything.' " 

 — "Conversations with the late Mr. Beckford" (New 

 Monthly Magazine, vol. Ixxii. p. 216.) 



I do not know how far these alleged conversa- 

 tions have been faithfully reported ; if the mar- 

 riage took place as described by Beckford, it 

 would undoubtedly have been valid, the Royal 

 Marriage Act being of subsequent enactment. 



William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



PASSAGE IN COL£RIDG£ : EAINBOWS. 



(Vol. vii., pp. 330. 393.) 



No account of a phenomenon similar to that 

 quoted from the Memoirs of the Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society having hitherto 

 been supplied, your correspondents will perhaps 

 be interested in the passage in UUoa's Voyage, 

 referred to by J. H. M., translated from the 

 Spanish original : 



" At the time of day-break, the hill was enveloped in 

 very thick clouds, which tipon the rising of the sun were 

 dispersed, and some thin vapours only remained which 

 the eye could not distinguish. At the side of the moun- 

 tain opposite to that from which the sun rose, and distant 

 about ten toesas [GO feet] from the spot where we stood, 

 there was to be seen an image of each of us represented 

 as in a mirror, with three concentric rainbows, the head 

 being the centre. The last colours of one rainbow touched 

 the first of the following ; and exterior to all these rain-- 

 bows was to be seen a fourth, formed of one single white 

 colour. All of them were perpendicular to the horizon ; 

 and as any one moved from side to side, the phenomenon 

 accompanied him in the same disposition and in the same 

 order ; but what was most remarkable in this appearance 

 was this, that being six or seven together, each of us saw 

 the phenomenon in himself, not in the others. The mag- 

 nitude of the diameter of these bows varied successively, 

 in proportion as the sun rose above the horizon : the 

 colours all simultaneously disappeared, and the image of 

 the body by degrees becoming imperceptible, the pheno- 

 menon after a while totally vanished. At first the dia- 

 meter of the interior rainbow, taken from the last colour 

 which belonged to it, was of 5^ degrees, more or less ; and 

 the diameter of the white exterior circle, at some distance 

 from the others, was 67 degrees. When the phenomenon 

 began, the rainbows appeared in an oval or elliptic figure 

 corresponding to the disk of the sun ; then it perfected 

 itself, until the rainbows were all perfectly circular : each 

 of the smaller arches consisted of flesh colour or red, this 

 faded into the orange, to which succeeded the yellow, and 

 this afterwards faded into straw-colour: then came the 

 green, the exterior colour to all being red." — Vol. i. 

 book vi. 



" In peculiar positions, a complete circle may be beheld, 

 as when the shower is on a mountain, and the spectator 

 in a valley ; or when viewed from the top of a lofty pin- 

 nacle, nearly the whole circumference may be embraced 

 Ulloa and Bouguer describe circular rainbows, frequently 



