W. P. Storer.
Olney, Bucks.
Album.—What was the origin, and where do we find the earliest notice of the kind of friendly
memorial book so well known among us as an album? Was it not first used by the learned men of Germany as a repository for the complimentary tributes of their foreign visitors? Is there any mention of it in any English author earlier than Izaak Walton, who tells us that Sir Henry Wotton, when ambassador at Venice, wrote in the album of Christopher Flecamore a Latin sentence to the effect that "an ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country?" Where is the earliest specimen of an English album, according to the modern form and use of the scrapbook so called?
D.
The Lisle Family.—Can any of the readers of "N. & Q." give me some fuller information than is to be found in Lyttleton's History of England, or refer me to any authorities for such, concerning the family and connexions of the following personages?
There was a Lady Lisle, who, temp. Jac. II., was tried at Winchester by the notorious Judge Jeffries, and afterwards executed, for harbouring two rebels after the battle of Sedgemoor. I believe she was beheaded as a favour, instead of being burnt. She was the widow of one of the judges who consented to the death of that ill-fated monarch Charles I.
I observe the barony of Lisle has been extinct, or in abeyance, on four or five different occasions; was either about this time? The present peerage appears to have been created circa 1758. Are these descendants of that family?
I possess portraits of Lord and Lady Lisle (size six feet by four), and much wish to learn the above, together with any other particulars relating to the family.
John Garland.