56 NOTES AND QUERIES. dss.ix.n-i.rie, mi.
Queen Elizabeth and the French Ambassador (12 S. ix. 11).—The ambassador was the Duc de Biron, the place Basing Park or hard by, the year 1601. See the account in Stow's 'Annales' (1615), p. 796, col. 2, and vol. ii. of Nichols's 'The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth.' Edward Bensly.
REFERENCE WANTED (12 S. viii. 471).
" The most dangerous thing in the world is j
ignorance in motion." The attribution of|
this saying to Goethe is correct. His words j
are: " Es ist nichts schrecklicher, als eine ;
thatige Unwissenheit." The sentence isi
towards the end of the third division of his |
' Maximen und Reflexionen,' which form
part of the section ' Spriiche in Prosa,' vol.
x., p. 402, of Ludwig Geiger's edition of i
Goethe's ' Werke ' (1896).
EDWARD BENSLY.
"HOWLERS" (12 S. viii. 449, 497).
Presuming C. C. B. to quote from the ,
' N.E.D.' or, as perhaps better known, '
the ' Oxford Dictionary,' such authority j
defines the word also as "an animal that j
howls." My suggestion was that dogs ;
howl sometimes otherwise than with pain.
CECIL CLARKE.
Junior Athenaeum Club.
CLEMENTINA JOHANNES SOBIESKY DOUG- '
LASS (12 S. viii. 411, 497; ix. 17). The:
following note, taken from The Edin- 1
burgh Advertiser dated January 20, 1789, '
may be of value to those interested in the
children of the " Young Pretender " :
The Duchess of Albany, who is said to be soon
expected to visit this country by invitation from
the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, is natural
daughter of the late Pretender, by a Miss Walkin- 1
shaw. Notwithstanding the strong attachment j
which the Pretender had for Miss Walkinshaw, '
he refused, in opposition to repeated solicitations, j
to recognise the daughter, till the last year of his
life, when he sent for her from Prance to Florence,
where he resided, and by virtue of his royal
prerogative, admitted very kindly on the Continent,
created her Duchess of Albany. He also con-
stituted her his heir ; as such she has received
a very large fortune in the French funds, and a
considerable quantity of valuable jewels belong-
ing to the Crown of 'England, which were taken
from this country by James the Second on his
abdication.
I have always understood that the Pre-
tender had one daughter only by Miss
Walkenshaw the lady referred to in the
foregoing extract. It is, of course, quite |
clear that she could not have been the-
" Mysterious Princess " referred to in the
extract from The Barrow News.
It would be interesting to know whether
the Duchess of Albany came to this country
and stayed with the Duke and Duchess of
Gloucester. JAMES SETON-ANDERSON.
39, Carlisle Road, Hove, Sussex.
HORSE-RIDING RECORDS (12 S. viii.
509; ix. 32). Queen Elizabeth died on
the morning of Thursday, March 24,
1603, and the news was conveyed to
King James VI. of Scotland by Sir
Robert Carey, who galloped into the
quadrangle of Holyrood Palace on Saturday
evening, March 26, having accomplished the
journey from London to Edinburgh in about
54 hours a wonderful feat of dispatch for
the commencement of the seventeenth
century. I do not know how many horses
he used during the journey of 400 miles.
A Colonel Ross in September, 1789
undertook to ride on one horse from London
to York in 48 hours. He performed the
journey (202 miles) in 46 hours with ease,
for he had only 15 miles to travel in the last
5 hours. JAMES SETON-ANDERSON.
39, Carlisle Road, Hove, Sussex.
BONTE (12 S. viii. 151, 196). This surname
does not appear in Firmin Didot's ' Nouvelle
Biographie Generate,' but some medical
works are entered under the name of Bonte
in the British Museum Catalogue. The
works are C. L. Le Cat, ' Nouveau Systeme
sur la cause de 1'evacuation p6riodique du
sexe. Lettre suivie d'une reponse a des
objections faites contre ce systeme (by . . .
Bonte) (1768, 8vo) ; Q. T. Bonte, 'Disser-
tation sur la blennorrhagie chez 1'homme'
(Strassburg, 1799, 4to) ; Eugene Frangois
Bonte " Quelques reflexions sur les differentes
methodes de traitement de fievre typhoi'de *
(Paris, 1839) ; and August Bonte, ' Rela-
tion topographique et medicale d'une cam-
pagne sur les Cotes Occidentales au Mexique,
1864-1865 ' (Montpellier, 1866). There were
evidently three or four generations of the
same family in the medical profession.
The surname of Bonte also frequently
appeared as contributors to early nineteenth-
century Parisian journals, but unfortunately
French periodical publications so far back
are poorly represented in England's greatest
library. " ANDREW DE TERNANT.
36, Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W.