2"<is.x\oii6.,MAu.20.'58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



^31 



With English whuds lets no more be sham'd, 



We're free and undisputed, 



Let no man doubt it, 

 So 3'ou master forger be damn'd." 



Here follows the couplet of the song : — 



" Quhen truth and justice umpires doe become. 

 The forger and false Judge must then be dumb." 



" Since justice now the umpire has become, 

 Hell's boldest rogues, even Atvvood, must be dumb." 



Anderson, erroneously styled an " Advocate" 

 and " Writer to the Signet," in the folio Catalogue 

 of the Library of the British Museum, wrote a very 

 able answer to Atwood's attack on the Scotish 

 Supremacy. J. M. 



MILTON S PORTRAITS. 



The statement contained in the letter written by 

 that eminent engraver Vertue, in 1721, to Lord 

 Henley, that Milton's daughter had " told him 

 (Vertue) her mother-in-law, living in Cheshire, 

 had two pictures of him, one when he was a school- 

 boy, and the other when about twenty," fully ac- 

 cords with the notice of two pictures of Milton 

 mentioned in the inventory of the widow's effects, 

 taken shortly after her death in August, 1727, and 

 annexed to her will. One of these pictures is said 

 to have passed, on Mrs. Milton's decease, to a young 

 Oxonian student named Wilbraham, of Townsend 

 in Nantwich (a member of the ancient Cheshire 

 family of that name). And if this tradition be 

 correct, it is probable this identical portrait is still 

 possessed by some member of that family ; but 

 what became of Milton's other picture, I have not 

 been able to learn, although it is likely the same 

 was not removed far from Nantwich. A head of 

 a young man, stated strongly to resemble Milton, 

 by Walker, is in the Royal Collection of pictures 

 at Kensington Palace, which possibly may turn 

 out to be a real portrait of our bai'd. In " N. & 

 Q." (1*' S. X. 8.), the then depository of two beau- 

 tiful drawings on vellum of Milton, by Richardson, 

 Jun., is inquired after ; but I have not noticed 

 either in that or any of the subsequent volumes 

 a reply to the querist. For the reason assigned 

 in my answer to the Milton autograph Query, I 

 hope all your readers, able to supply any parti- 

 culars relative to Milton's portraits not already 

 known, will speedily transfer such particulars to 

 your pages. T. W. Jones. 



Nautwich. 



THE OPERA IN THE TIME OF THE PROTECTORATE. 



On Friday, May 14, 1656, was performed at the 

 Charterhouse an entertainment, by Sir W. Dave- 

 nant, entitled in the bills The Entertainment by 

 Musick and Declarations Iqy . Declamations?'] after 

 the Manner of the Ancients. Five shillings a head 



was the charge for admission, and 400 persons 

 were expected, but we learn that there appeared 

 no more than 150 auditors. The scene was 

 Athens, and the following description I quote 

 from a contemporaneous MS. : 



" The roome was narrow ; at the end thereof was a 

 stage, and upon either side two places railed in, purpled 

 and gilt. The curtains also which drew before them were 

 of cloth of gold and purple. After the Prologue (which 

 told them that this was but the narrow passage to the 

 Elysium their Opera) up came Diogenes and Aristo- 

 phanes, the former against the opera, the latter for it. 

 Then came up a citizen of Paris, speaking broken Eng- 

 lish, and a citizen of London, who reproached one another 

 with the defects of each city in their buildings, manners, 

 customs, diet, &c. &c. And in fine the Londoner had the 

 best of it, who concluded he had seen two crocheteurs in 

 Paris, both with heavy burdens on their backs, stand 

 complimenting for the way with Cest u votes, Monsieur ; 

 Monsieur, vous vous mocquiez de moy, &c., which lasted till 

 they both fell down under their burdens. 



" The music was above, in a looner hole, railed about 

 and covered with sarcenets to conceal them : before each 

 speech was concert musick ; at the end were songs relat- 

 ing to the Victor (The Protector). The last song ended 

 with deriding Paris and the French, concluding thus : 



" ' And tho' a shipp her scutcheon bee, 

 Yett Paris hath noe shipps at sea.' 



"The first song was made by Hen. Lawes, y" other by 

 D"" Coleman, who were the composers. The singers were 

 Capt. Cooke, Ned Coleman and his wife, another woman, 

 and other inconsiderable voices. It lasted an* hour and 

 a halfe, and is to continue for ten dayes, by which time 

 other declamations will be ready." 



What is a looner hole ? and what opera is here 

 alluded to ? Raymond Delacourt. 



[This piece was published the same j'ear, and is en- 

 titled An Entertainment at Rutland House, by Declainution 

 and Music, after the manner of the Ancients, 4to., 1056. 

 The vocal and instrumental music composed b_v Dr. 

 Charles Coleman, Captain Henry Cook, Henry Lawes, 

 and George Hudson. Rutland House was in Charter- 

 house Yard, near what is now called Charterhouse 

 Square. Sir William Davenant, on being liberated from 

 the Tower, through the interest of Bulstrode Whitelock 

 and Sir John Maynard, opened at Rutland House a kind of 

 theatre with this musical drama as an experiment. What 

 he intended to represent he called an Opera ; but when 

 brought upon the stage it appeared quite another thing. 

 This being Davenant's introductory piece at the revival 

 of the drama, it required some tact to make it answer 

 different intentions : it was not only to be pleasing, so as 

 to secure applause, but to be as remote from the very ap- 

 pearance of a play, as not to offend that pretended sanc- 

 tity then in fashion. Some curious extracts from this 

 racy piece of Sir William Davenant's are given in I'he 

 British Bibliographer, iv. 234. The looner hole is no doubt 

 the louvre or loover (Fr. L'ouvert), that is apertus, a place 

 open to let out smoke, sound, or anything else.] 



flatu0r iiateS, 



Byron Note^ — I observe in The Times of 

 March 10. the death of the lady, Mary Duff of 

 Hatton, who certainly lighted the first flame in 

 the too susceptible heart of my illustrious name- 



