—Your correspondent who inquires where he can meet with the particulars of the life of Margaret, surnamed Maultasch, Countess of Tyrol, will find them in the Supplement of the Biographie Universelle, vol. lxxiii. p. 136.
The great heiress in question, though a monster of ugliness, was twice married: first to John Henry, son of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia (1331), from whom she procured a divorce on the plea of his incapacity; and, secondly (1341), to Louis of Bavaria, eldest son of the Emperor Louis IV., by whom she had a son, Mainard, who died without issue during his mother's lifetime.
I know not upon what authority rest the imputed irregularities of her life, but her biographer, in the article above mentioned, casts no such slur upon her character. Nor can I discover that the armorial bearings of the town of Halle, in Tyrol, have any such significant meaning as has been hinted at. They are to be found in Matthew Merian's Topographia Provinciarum Austriacarum, printed at Frankfort on the Maine in 1649, engraved on the view of Halle, at p. 139., and appear to be a cask or barrel, supported by two lions. There is no statue of Margaret Maultasch among those which surround the mausoleum of Emperor Maximilian (not Matthias) in the Franciscan church at Inspruck; but her ludicrously hideous features may be found amongst the historical portraits engraved in the magnificent work descriptive of the Museum of Versailles, published a few years ago at Paris, under the auspices of King Louis Philippe.
W. S.
Denton, July 28.
Pope's Translations or Imitations of Horace (Vol. i., p. 230.; Vol. iv., p. 58.).
—Is your correspondent C. correct in attributing A true Character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, in a Letter to a Friend, printed for Popping, 1716, to Oldmixon? In the Testimonies of Authors, prefixed to the Dunciad, and the Appendix, and throughout the Notes, Dennis is uniformly quoted and attacked as the author. Oldmixon's feud with Pope was hardly, I think, so early.
Assuming your correspondent's quotation from the pamphlet to be correct, the terms made use of will surely refer to Pope's Imitation of Horace (S. ii. L. i.), a fragment of which was published by Curll about this time (1716). It was afterwards republished in folio about 1734, printed for J. Boreman, under the title of Sober Advice from Horace to the young Gentlemen about Town, but in an enlarged state, and with some of the initials altered, and several new adaptations. Mrs. Oldfield and Lady Mary are not introduced in the first edition. I have both, but at present can only refer to the second one in folio. From this the Imitation was transferred to the Supplement to Pope's Works, published by Cooper: London, 1757, 12mo., and from thence to the Supplementary Volumes to the later editions. The publication of it formed an article of impeachment against Dr. Jos. Warton, by the author of the Pursuits of Literature, as all who have read that satire will well remember.
JAS. CROSSLEY.