Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 | Page 9

the close of her life. In the Tollemache collection at Ham House is a miniature of her, however, when about twenty, which shows the same taste as existing at that age. She is here depicted in a black dress, trimmed with a double row of pearls. Her point-lace ruffles are looped with pearls, &c. Her head-dress is decorated in front with a jewel set with pearls, from which three pear-shaped pearls depend. And, finally, she has large pearl-tassel earrings. In the Henham Hall portrait (engraved in vol. vii. of Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England), the ruff is confined by a collar of pearls, rubies, &c., set in a gold filagree pattern, with large pear shaped pearls depending from each lozenge. The sleeves are ornamented with rouleaus, wreathed with pearls and bullion. The lappets of her head-dress also are adorned at every "crossing" with a large round pearl. Her gloves, moreover, were always of white kid, richly embroidered with pearls, &c. on the backs of the hands. A poet of that day asserts even that, at the funeral procession, when the royal corpse was rowed from Richmond, to lie in state at Whitehall,--
"Fish wept their eyes of pearl quite out, And swam blind after,"
doubtless intending, most loyally, to provide the departed sovereign with a fresh and posthumous supply of her favorite gems!]
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MINOR QUERIES.
St. Dominic.--Was St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican order, a descendant of the noble family of the Guzmans? Machiavelli wrote a treatise to prove it; but in the Biographie Universelle it is stated (I know not on what authority) that Cardinal Lambertini, afterwards Benedict XIV., having summoned that lawyer to produce the originals, Machiavelli deferred, and refused at last to obey the order: and further, that Cuper the Bollandist wrote on the same subject to some learned men at Bologna, who replied that the pieces cited in Machiavelli's dissertation had been forged by him, and written in the old style by a modern hand.
A BOOKWORM.
"Will" and "shall."--Can you refer me to any grammar, or other work, containing a clear and definite rule for the distinctive use of these auxiliaries? and does not a clever contributor to "N. & Q." make a mistake on this point at Vol. vi., p. 58., 1st col., 16th line?
W. T. M.
Hong Kong.
Sir John Fleming.--What was the coat of arms borne by Sir John Fleming, or Le Fleming, of St. George's Castle, co. Glamorgan, A.D. 1100? Where is it to be found sculptured or figured? And does any modern family of the name of Fleming, or Le Fleming, claim descent from the above?
CARET.
Deal, how to stain.--I should be much obliged if some one of your correspondents would inform me what is the best composition for giving plain deal the appearance of oak for the purpose of church interiors?
C.
Winton.
Irish Characters on the Stage.--Could any of your correspondents inform me of the names of any old plays (besides those of Shadwell) in which Irishmen are introduced? and which of the older dramatists have enrolled this character among their dramatis person?? Was Shakspeare an Irishman?
PHILOBIBLION.
Arms on King Robert Bruce's Coffin-plate.--Can any of your heraldic readers give me any information as to whom the arms found on King Robert Bruce's coffin-plate in 1818 belonged? They are a cross inter four mullets pierced of the field. They are not the arms given in Nisbet to the families of Bruce; neither does Sir. Wm. Jardine, in his report to the Lords of the Exchequer on the finding of the king's tomb, take any notice of them further than to mention their discovery.
ALEXANDER CARTE.
Chaucer's Prophetic View of the Crystal Palace (Vol. iii., p. 362.).--
"Chaucer it seems drew continually, through Lydgate and Caxton, from Guido di Colonna, whose Latin Romance of the Trojan War was, in turn, a compilation from Dares, Phrygius, Ovid, and Statius. Then Petrarch, Boccacio, and the Proven?al poets, are his benefactors; the Romaunt of the Rose is only judicious {357} translation from William of Lorris and John of Meun; Troilus and Creseide, from Lollius of Urbino; The Cock and the Fox, from the Lais of Marie; The House of Fame, from the French or Italian: and poor Gower he uses as if he were only a brick-kiln or stone quarry, out of which to build his house."--Representative Men; Shakspeare or the Poet, by R. W. Emerson.
From what sources in the French or Italian is "The House of Fame" taken? And ought not an attack on Chaucer's claim to be the original author of that beautiful poetical vision to be grounded, especially by an American, on some better evidence than bare assertion?
AN OXFORD B. C. L.
Magistrates wearing Hats in Court.--What authority is there for magistrates wearing their hats in a court of justice, and is it an old custom?
PARVUS HOMO.
West Chillington, Hurst,