I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
(Signed) J. E. EARDLEY WILMOT.
To Messrs. Butterworth,
Law Booksellers and Publishers,
Fleet Street, London.
We will but add one small fact. An author who had been applied to by another influential reviewer, the Rev. A. B. Clerk, directed his publisher to forward a copy of his book by post to the place specified. The publisher sent it by rail. The consequence was that the reverend reviewer complained that the book had not reached him: while the railway people returned it because no such person could be found in the place at which he professed to reside.
Notes.
PORTRAITS OF WOLFE.
As the readers of "N. & Q." seem to take an interest in everything connected with the celebrated and heroic Wolfe, I may mention that my family possess two small paintings of that distinguished general, but by whom painted is unknown, though they are supposed to have been executed by some officer present with him at the taking of Quebec. A description of them may not be unacceptable to your readers. One represents Wolfe in the act of tying a handkerchief round his wrist, after he had been wounded at the commencement of the battle on the Heights of Abraham; and, from its unfinished appearance, seems to have been but a première pensée of the artist,—Wolfe's figure being the only one finished. The other represents him leaning on a soldier, just after receiving the fatal ball which deprived him of life, and his country of one of her greatest heroes. The family tradition connected with both these paintings is that they were painted immediately after his death by one of his aide-de-camps, or by an officer in the forces under his command. On the panels of the latter painting is the following inscription, some of the words being partially effaced:
"This painting represents the death of my [here the words are effaced, but, as far as I can make them out, they are] friend General Wolfe, who fell on the Heights of Abraham on [nearly effaced][the 13th day of September] 1759, before he could rejoice in the victory gained that day over the French."
"H. C." or "G." are the initials attached to this inscription, and under it are written, in old-fashioned style, and in old paper, pasted to the panels, the following lines, which I transcribe, as I have never seen them elsewhere:
"In the thick of the Fight, Wolfe's plume was display'd,
And his [effaced] coat was dusty and gory,