2"- 1 S. IX. Mar. 31. 'CO.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



249 



Aitken's stock. (Cutting from Catalogue of 13th 

 December, 1859) ; 

 " 108 Native-Gold Coronation Medal of Charles I. 



" The Coronation Medal of Charles I. struck at 

 Edinburgh for his inauguration, June 7, 1663, is 

 remarkable as being the only one ever coined of 

 Scottish gold, and the first in Britain struck with 

 the legend on the edges. Of these Medals, only 

 three are known to exist, of which one is in the Mu- 

 seum." — Encyclopedia Britannica. 



" Very fine gold has been found in the rivers and 

 brooks of Scotland, whereof a few Medals were struck 

 at the Coronation of King Charles I. of England."— 

 Vide Brook's Natural History, vol. v. page 143., 

 1772. 



■ Another Medal was in the possession of Macin- 

 tyreof Steuartfield, Argyleshire. This one is sup- 

 posed to be the third." 



G.N. 



MONSIEUR TASSIES. 

 (2 nd S. ix. 102.) 



Fur a series of years, at the end of the last cen- 

 tury, the French readings of a Monsieur le Texier 

 were amon<* the fashionable amusements of the 

 higher classes. Is Tassies the mis-spelling of 

 Texier ? 



Boaden, in his Life of John Philip Kevtble, 8vo., 

 1825 (vol. i. p. 253.), has left us an interesting 

 description of these readings, which I extract : — 



" Le Texier was at this time (1785) attended by a 

 verv fashionable circle at his house in Lisle Street, Lei- 

 cester Square. My younger readers may thank me for 

 some description of the place and the performance. The 

 whole wore the appearance of an amusement in a private 

 house. On ascending the great staircase, you were re- 

 ceived in M. le Texier's library, and from that instant 

 you seemed to be so incontestibly in France (as Sterne 

 has it) that the very fuel was wood, and burnt upon dogs 

 instead of the English grate. You then passed into the 

 reading room, and met a dressed and refined party, who 

 treated him as their host invariably. His servants 

 brought you tea and coffee, in the interval between the 

 readings, silently and respectfully. Le Texier, too, him- 

 self came into the library at such pauses, and saluted his 

 more immediate acquaintance. A small bell announced 

 that the readings were about to commence. He was 

 usually rather elegant in his dress ; his countenance was 

 handsome, and his features flexible to every shade of dis- 

 crimination. Le Texier sat at a small desk with lights, 

 and began the reading immediately upon his entrance. 

 He read chiefly Moliere, and the petites pieces of the 

 French Theatre ; but how he read tliem as he did, as it 

 astonished Voltaire, La Harpe, and Marmontel, so it may 

 reasonably excite my lasting wonder. He marked his 

 various characters by his countenance, even before he 

 spoke; and shifted from one to the other without the 

 slightest difficulty, or possibility of mistake. In Paris 

 he had at first even changed the dress of the characters 

 rapidly, but still sulliciently : this, to our taste, was pan- 

 tomimic and below him. ' He had that within which 

 passeth show,' — a power of seizing all the fleeting indica- 

 tions of character, and ' with a learned spirit of human 

 dealing,' placing them in an instant before you, as dis- 

 tinct as individual nature, as various as the great mass of 

 society. He did all this, too, without seeming effort; it 

 was, in somewhat of a different acceptation, a play both 



to him and to his audience. There was no noise ; little 

 or no action ; a wafture of the hands to one side indicated 

 the exit of the person. T cannot assign a preference to 

 the reading of any one character in the piece : they all 

 equally partook of his feeling or his humour. To my 

 judgment, he was as true in the delicacy of the timid 

 virgin, as in the grossest features of the bourgeois gentil- 

 homme. I will venture to say, that no intelligent visitor 

 of Le Texier can think differently of his astonishing 

 talents." 



Comparing this account with the passage in 

 Michael Lort's letter, as quoted by J. Y., your 

 readers will agree with me in believing that M. 

 Tassies and M. le Texier are one and the same 

 individual. This fact established, it would be in- 

 teresting to know something more about M. le 

 Texier. Edward F. Rimbatjlt. 



LORD TRACTON. 



(2 nd S. ix. 26.) 



To open a way to the Querist's pedigree of 

 LordTracton. By his mother, AnneBullen, Lord 

 Tracton was of the Bullen, or Boleyn blood, — a 

 family, cr rather branch of that family, eminent 

 for numbering amongst its daughters the queen of 

 the Reformation, Anna Bullen (anciently Boleyn), 

 and (previously to her elevation) eminent for 

 their high alliances with Lord Hoo, the Duke of 

 Norfolk, and the Earl of Ormonde. The branch 

 from which Lord Tracton sprung were settled, 

 with diminished fortunes in comparison with their 

 former high aspiration?, and have remained, at 

 Kinsale, a small town (yet famous in history), for 

 some centuries, as gentlemen of certainly inde- 

 pendent property ; and the daughters of the Irish 

 branch have intermarried with the Dennises 

 (Lord Tracton' s family) ; with the Chappies (con- 

 nexions of Lord Grantley's family). Mrs. Edith 

 Chappie, remarkable for personal beauty, was 

 sister to my great grandfather, to whom Lord 

 Tracton was cousin german. Mrs. Elizabeth 

 Hayes was niece of Edith Chappie. 



The three last daughters of this branch mar- 

 ried, viz. Elizabeth, only surviving child of Joseph 

 Bullen by his first marriage with Miss Heard, 

 first cousin of the late M.P. for Kinsale, mar- 

 ried to the late Lieut. John Crosbie Fuller 

 Harnett, 27th Regiment, youngest son of Coun- 

 sellor Fuller Harnett, a relative of John Crosbie, 

 Earl of Glandore. This oflicer served through 

 the Peninsular war. 



Joseph Bullen's second marriage with the only 

 sister of the late Lieut-General Sir Thomas Ray- 

 nell, Bart , K.C.B. (who was himself married to a 

 daughter of the first Marquis of Waterford), was 

 without issue. 



Susan, Josep'.i Bullen's eldest daughter by his 

 third marriage with Miss Wakeham, married to 

 Noble Johnson, Esq., Rockenham, on the river 

 Lee. 



