Page:Angelo's Pic Nic.djvu/23

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THE ANGELO FAMILY Milan, Naples and Rome, and he lived for a time at Venice, where, having also studied painting himself, he was intimate with Canaletto. At the age of twenty-seven or thereabouts he came to Paris, where he is said to have spent ten years in close study of the art of fence under various masters of the Académie, but especially the elder Teillagory, with whom also he constantly rode in the manige. That master was porhaps the most celebrated swordsman of the age. He was likewise the most scientific horseman in Europe, and occupied as prominent a place in the Manège Royal as he did in the Académie d' Armes. In better hands the Angelos (for I believe the brothers kept together) could not have been. There Domenick became the favourite protégé of the Duke de Nivernais, that amiable and courteous nobleman who subse- quently visited this country at the close of the Seven Years War in the character of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from His Most Christian Majesty Louis XV. From Paris "Domenick Angelo" passed on to London, at the instance of Peg Woffington, his chère amie for some two years, where he founded that renowned family of masters which made the"Angelo School of Arms" a household-word among men of rank and fashion in the days of our grandsires. It is not necessary in this placc, however, to make mention of all the recorded episodes which distinguished the career of the elder Angelo, as he came to be called. For these episodes the reader muşt consult the present volume, and Henry Angelo's larger work, The Reminiscences, recently re-issued uniform with it. We pass on to Domenick's marriage. His wife was named Elizabeth Johnson and Peg Woffington herself has the credit of having brought the two together. She was a step-daughter of Captain Master of the Royal Navy, then XV