3. In general the salts of iron are more adapted for positives, and weak pyrogallic acid solutions for negatives; say one and a half grain of pyrogallic acid, twenty minims of glacial acetic acid, and an ounce of distilled water.]
Replies to Minor Queries.
London Fortifications (Vol. ix., p. 174.).—In last week's Number is an inquiry as to "London Fortifications" in the time of the Commonwealth.
There is a Map by Vertue, dated 1738, in a folio History of London; there is one a trifle smaller, copied from the above; also one with page of description, Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1749. I subscribed to a set of twenty etchings, published last year by Mr. P. Thompson of the New Road; they are very curious, being facsimiles of a set of drawings done by a Capt. John Eyre of Oliver Cromwell's own regiment, dated 1643. The drawings are now I believe in the possession of the City of London.
A Constant Reader.
[The drawings referred to by our correspondent are, we hear, by competent judges regarded as not genuine. Such also, we are told, is the opinion given of many drawings ascribed to Hollar and Captain John Eyre, which have been purchased by a gentleman of our acquaintance, and submitted by him to persons most conversant with such drawings. Query, Are the drawings purporting to be by Captain John Eyre, drawings of the period at which they are dated?]
Burke's Domestic Correspondence (Vol. ix., p. 9.).—In reference to a Query in "N.& Q." relative to unpublished documents respecting Edmund Burke, I beg to inform your correspondent N. O. that I have no doubt but that some new light might be thrown on the subject by an application to Mr. George Shackleton, Ballitore, a descendant of Abraham Shackleton, Burke's old schoolmaster, who I believe has a quantity of letters written to his old master Abraham, and also to his son Richard, who had Burke for a schoolfellow, and continued the friendship afterwards, both by writing and personally. When Richard attended yearly meetings in London, he was always a guest at Beaconsfield. Burke was so much attached to Richard, that on one of these visits he caused Shackleton's portrait to be painted and presented it to him, and it is now in the possession of the above family. I have no doubt but that an application to the above gentleman would produce some testimony.
F. H.