824 



" My days once numbered, should this homage past 



Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre 

 Of hitn, who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast, 

 Such is the most my memory may desire ; 

 Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require.' 



Lady Bacon died in March, 1880, at the age of 79, and it may interest some 

 of our members to see this portrait of " the Young Peri of the West," who thus 

 inspired the poet to enshrine her memory in such beautiful lines. 



These notes of this conpicuous family were rendered more interesting by 

 the many prints of members of the family which Mr. Lloyd has been fortunate 

 enough to have in his possession; also "the volume of historical interest" 

 presented to Lady Henrietta by " her lord." All these were handed round to the 

 members during the reading of the notes. 



The souvenir of Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holies, Countess of Oxford and 

 Mortimer, is a copy of " Boscobel, or the compleat History of the Most Miraculous 

 Preservation of King Charles II., after the Battle of Worcester, September the 

 3rd, 1651, published by Mrs. Anne Wyndham ; fourth edition, adorned with cuts : 

 London ; printed for J. Wilford, at the Three Golden Flower-de-Luces, in Little 

 Britain, MDCCXXV.," bearing the lady's autograph, beautifully written in old 

 English hand, also the elegant book-plate engraved for Lady Oxford by George 

 Vertue, described in the list of works by this artist in Walpole's Anecdotes of 

 Painters as "a plate to put in Lady Oxford's books." The plate is inscribed : — 

 " Henrietta Cavendish Holies, Oxford and Mortimer. Given me by (my Lord 

 1726") — the last two words, with date, being inserted in MS.— and is thus 

 described in " A Guide to the Study of Book Plates, by the Hon. J. Leicester 

 Warren, M.A." who gives an engraving of it. "The charming book-plate of 

 Henrietta Cavendish Holies, Countess of Oxford, is peculiarly valuable, as 

 showing the precise point of transition between the Jacobean and the allegoric 

 style ; and well illustrates, moreover, how easily the living allegoric figure sprang 

 from the dead carved image of the Jacobean frame. The book-plate gives us, so 

 to speak, an allegory within an allegory. There is the picture of Minerva as 

 schoolmistress to a college of Amorini. Then there comes the frame. Two 

 youthful heads which appear at its sides among the carvings are clearly wooden 

 ornaments. But how about the Mercury and Archimedes at the top ? Are these 

 carved upholsterers, or waifs and truants of Minerva's school within. Vertue 

 spent a good deal of his time with Lord Oxford, in whom he found a congenial 

 Moecenas. The Peer used to take the engraver with him on tours about England 

 to sketch the various objects of interest in their route. His patron's death in 1741 

 seems to have been a severe loss, in every sense, to George Vertue. The frontis- 

 piece to the Auction Book of the Harleian collection was also George Vertue's 

 work. Design of the plate : — A library interior, with book -shelves to the ceiling ; 

 in the centre an arched doorsvay, with Corinthian columns on each side, and the 

 usual curtain and bell-rope draped above. Through tlie archway we are shown a 

 charming vista of landscape outside. We see a straggling country-house in a park 



