94
NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.iv. JULY 29,1911.
Sir Walter Armstrong in his ' Memoir
of Peter de Wint,' 1888, says that early
water-colour painters were almost left to
starve in Prance, while in England they had
hard times and were compelled to live
mostly by teaching. He makes, however,
the one great exception of Constable.
Mr. B. W. Leader's account, given in an interview recorded in The Morning Post of 11 March, 1911, p. 5, modifies this idea. The great octogenarian R.A. says :
"My father, however, was very fond of art, and lie and John Constable used to go out sketching together. I remember the great painter coming to our house in Worcester. He was a sadly dis- appointed man. The highest price he ever received for a picture was 100, and works by him now fetch thousands of pounds one, ' Stoke by Nay- land,' recently realised 8,800gs. at Christie's. Yet he was not morose. When staying with us he would return from the country with an armful of branches and flowers and say to my mother as he threw them on the table : ' There's beauty for you.' My father got up an exhibition at AVorcester and Constable sent a number of pictures, but none of them was gold. The artist was very much upset, and he asked my father to keep them for a time." Then, with reference to his father, his brother the late Sir E. Leader Williams (Mr. Leader tells how he came to adopt the nams by which he is now known), and another brother, Alfred Williams, a dis- tinguished engineer at Sydney and my brother-in-law, he says :
"I, too, began life as a civil engineer, but I told my father that I would never follow engineering as a profession. I wanted to be an artist, and in this desire I was backed by the late Serjeant Thomas, who invited me to London and gave me rooms in Chancery-lane."
Perhaps I may be allowed to add this, as it is short, and of particular interest to me. RALPH THOMAS.
" J'Y suis, J'Y RESTE " (11 S. iv. 44). MacMahon's phrase " Je suis ici et j'y reste " was not sent from the trenches before the Malakoff, but from inside the work itself, in answer to an order to withdraw, given in the belief that he had failed. It was well known at the time, and to attribute it to 1873 is absurd.
R. PHIPPS, Colonel late R.A.
ST. SWITHIN'S DAY (11 S. iv. 45). Another, perhaps Swiss, version of the French prognostication is :
S'il pleut k la Saint-Medard,
II pleuvra six semaines plus tard ;
A moins que Saint-Barnabe"
N'ait tout raccommode.
T. F. D WIGHT. La Tour de Peilz, Vaud, Switzerland.
'ALPINE LYBICS' (US. iv. 30). In the
1899 edition of the Catalogue of the Library
of the English Alpine Club (23, Savile Row)
the author is said to be W. Bainbridge.
W. A. B. COOLIDGE.
Chalet Montana, Grindelwald.
The author of c Alpine Lyrics ' was the Rev. R. Gregory, and at the time of the publication of his book he was living at 10, Lambeth Terrace, Lambeth.
W. H. PEET.
'LYRICS AND LAYS' (11 S. iv. 48). The author of these poems was a well-known solicitor in Calcutta named W. H. Abbott, who died, I think, in the early seventies, a great personal friend of mine. I cannot at the moment put my hand on my copy, but I shall find it on my return to town. If W. B. H. wishes for any names of the numerous persons referred to in the book, I can supply him with a great many if he will write to me. J. H. MATTHEWS.
54, Parliament Street, S.W.
AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. iv. 28). With respect to G. H. J.'s first quotation, "wonder, which is the seed of knowledge," see Plato, ' Theset.,' 155 D, ov yap aXXr] Q-pyjl <j>iXocro<j>iai<S ?} avrrj (sc. TO dav^dfeiv), and Aristotle, ' Met.,' i. 2, 982b, 12 (Ritter and Preller, ed. 7, pp. 237, 295).
T. NICKLIN.
SHERIDAN'S ' CRITIC ' : THOMAS VAUGHAN (11 S. iv. 47). A short notice of Vaughan is in [Dr. Rivers' s] ' Literary Memoirs of Living Authors,' vol. ii., 1798, which men- tions two farces ' The Hotel, or the Double Valet,' and ' Love's Vagaries ' and a novel entitled ' Fashionable Follies.'
W. D. MACE AY.
D'URFEY AND ALLAN RAMSAY (US. iii.
467 ; iv. 58). Full justice is not done to Ramsay's record when it is said of him that " he was scarcely known as a poet when D'Urfey died." He began to write about 1711 ; in a poetical epistle to his friend Smibert the painter he says that his muse was very active " frae twenty-five to five- and-forty." An original member of the Edinburgh " Easy Club," established in 1712, Ramsay in that year addressed the members in spirited verses which have been preserved. In 1715 he was elected Poet Laureate of the Club. Presently his occa- sional effusions, published at a small price, were in great demand, mothers sending their children into the street to buy " Ramsay'a
