gad §, No22., May 31. °56.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
437 
an abundance of anecdote handed down by Lucian, and 
other writers of that age, which sufficiently proves the 
high opinion then entertained of them. Pantomime 
flourished in Rome, for about two centuries, with very 
great success, and finally sunk in the general annihilation 
of the sciences and literature in general, in that country. 
It lingered, however, and still does, in Italy. In our own 
country it has arrived to a great degree of perfection; 
and for the attainment of excellence in this art, we are 
indebted to the late Mr. John Rich, the original patentee 
and manager of Covent Garden Theatre. In this par- 
ticular department Mr. Rich was possessed of the greatest 
taste. He had acquired considerable reputation by his 
own performance of the motley hero under the assumed 
name of Lun, Junr. (being thus designated in the bills of 
the day, and in the titles of the pantomimes which he 
published); and it is most probable that the great reputa- 
tion he obtained as harlequin might have arisen, in some 
measure, from the splendour with which he produced 
these pieces, and from his being the first performer who 
had rendered the character at all intelligible in this 
country. Since the period of Mr. Rich’s exhibitions, 
pantomime has increased rapidly in popularity ; and, at 
Covent Garden Theatre more especially, has attained its 
chief eminence. This may be easily accounted for, as it 
is much easier to find both managers to comprehend, and 
actors to personate, the vagaries of harlequin and clown 
than the sublimities of Shakspears and Otway.” LY 
They were invented by John Rich, who pro- 
duced one annually under the assumed’ name of 
Lun, from 1717 till his death in 1761. See his 
life in the Georgian Era, vol. iv. p. 341., and 
Biographia Dramatica, ‘TuHomeson Cooper. 
Cambridge. 
THE LORD OF BUKLEIGH. 
(1* §. xii. 280. 355.) 
My two valued collaborateurs in the pages of 
“N.& Q.,” Messrs. C. M. Increpy and the clergy- 
man who adopts the pseudonym of CurHeertT 
Beng, will, I trust, pardon my endeavour to set 
them right where they have unintentionally lapsed 
into error. In the autumn of 1855 it was my 
good fortune to enjoy the hospitality of a dear 
friend resident at Stamford, Lincolnshire, in whose 
company I visited Burleigh Hall, the seat of the 
Marquis of Exeter; and I there learned some 
particulars relative to “the Peasant Countess,” 
with whose history the pages of my favourite 
Tennyson had long made me familiar. Her lady- 
ship’s portrait gives the spectator the idea of a 
buxom, ruddy-faced woman, stout and well pro- 
portioned, pust the last person whom I should 
suppose to have died of consumption; indeed her 
physique would rather indicate fever or apoplexy 
as the disease by which her life would be termi- 
nated, —a circumstance to which I shall have oc- 
casion to revert. 
The few corrections that I have to make are 
derived from an authentic source, Mr, Henry 
Cecil, afterwards Karl and Marquis of Exeter, 
was born March 14, 1754, and married, May 23, 
1776, Emma, sole daughter and heiress of Thomas 
Vernon, Esq., of Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire, 
by whom he had an only son, who died in the fol- 
lowing year. After fifteen years of married life, 
Mr. Cecil was divorced from his wife in 1791; and 
it is probable that he and_she had separated some 
time previously, prior to his commencement of 
proceedings at law for a divorce. During this 
time he retired to Bolas Common, disgusted with 
the world, or from a love of solitude; and feeling 
that legal proceedings would soon rid him of the 
vinculum matrimonii by which he was bound to 
his giddy and faithless wife, he paid attentions to 
Miss Masefield, which were discountenanced by 
her parents, in consequence of the mystery con- 
nected with his mode of life at Bolas Common, 
My rea§6n for thinking that his proposal for the 
hand of Miss Masefield occurred prior to the dis- 
solution of his marriage with Miss Vernon is that 
the latter event took place in 1791, by act of 
parliament, and he was married October 3, same 
year, to Miss Sarah Hoggins, of Bolas Common, 
whose pride, as one of the fair sex, would scarcely 
have allowed her to marry “Mr. John Jokes” 
immediately after his abrupt rejection by the 
Masefield family, a circumstance, and the causes 
leading to it, which must have been the subject of 
gossip at Bolas at the time. I am inclined to be- 
lieve that the “ debt,” if any, which Mr. Incresy 
mentions as the cause of Mr. Cecil’s hejira to 
Bolas Common, was produced by the extravagance 
of his first wife, and that he did not become free 
from pecuniary embarrassments until he was freed 
from their cause. But here arises a difficulty. 
All agree that his family was ignorant of his abode, 
and his means of ‘supporting himself were un- 
known or misinterpreted at Bolas Common; why, 
then, should he disappear thence periodically ? 
I say, in order to visit his steward, and receive 
money from the estate which he received at his 
marriage with Miss Vernon. I look on “ debt” 
as hardly connected with his reason for choosing 
a retreat at Bolas Common, and should rather as- 
cribe his residing there to a wish to avoid the un- 
enviable notoriety which follows injured husbands. 
I now proceed to another point. Miss Sarah 
Hoggins, ‘‘ The Peasant Countess,” was married 
to Mr. Cecil, Oct. 3, 1791; her husband succeeded 
to the earldom of Exeter December 27, 1723; and 
the countess died January 18,1797. ‘The earl 
married August 19, 1800, a third wife, the Dow- 
ager Duchess of Hamilton, who survived him and 
died January 17, 1837, exactly forty years after 
the death of “The Peasant Countess.” The Earl 
of Exeter was created a marquis February 4, 
1801, and died May 1, 1804, leaving no issue by 
his first wife or by the Duchess of Hamilton, By 
the Countess of Exeter he had four children, not 
