Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851, page 49 by Various Authors
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uch surprised and gratified to find in my own house, framed and glazed, a very clever small-sized portrait in crayon, which at once struck me a a fac-simile (or nearly so) of the engraving I had seen at Lansdowne Lodge.
Your correspondent C. in p. 219. appears very sceptical about this female Methuselah! and speaks of a reputed portrait at Windsor "as a gross imposition, being really that of an old man"--
"Non nostrum tantus componere lites:"
but I would remind your correspondent C. that such longevity is not impossible, and the traditions of the Countess of Desmond are widely diffused. The portrait in my possession is not unlike an old man; but old ladies, like old hen pheasants, are apt to put on the semblance of the male.
A BORDERER.
Aristophanes on the Modern Stage (Vol. iii., p. 105.).--In reply to a Query of our correspondent C. J. R., I beg leave to state, that, after having made inquiry on the subject, I cannot find that any of the Comedies of Aristophanes have ever been introduced upon the English stage, although I agree with him in thinking that some of them might be advantageously adapted to the modern theatre; and I am more confirmed in this opinion from having witnessed at the Odéon in Paris, some years since, a dramatic piece, entitled "Les Nuées d'Aristophane," which had a great run there. It was not a literal translation from the Greek author, but a kind of mélange, drawn from the Clouds and Plutus together. The characters of Socrates and his equestrian son were very well performed; but the scenic accessories I considered very meagre, particularly the choral part, which must have been so striking and beautiful in the original of the former drama. Upon my return to England I wrote to the then lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, recommending a similar experiment on our stage from the free version by Wheelwright, published some time before by the late D. A. Talboys, of Oxford. The answer I received was, that the manager had then too much