218
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. SEPT. 12, im
FOUNTAIN PENS (9 th S. xu 390, 428, 450 ;
xii. 32). On 20 December, 1819, James Henry
Lewis, of No. 104, High Holborn, professor of
stenography, obtained a patent (No. 4,426) for
" An improvement or substitute for or addi-
tion to pens as usually employed in the art
of writing, which he denominates ' caligraphic
fountain pen.' " Lewis was born in Gloucester-
shire in 1786, and died at Gravesend in 1853.
He was a very well-known teacher of writing,
shorthand, and book-keeping, and a short
account of his life is given in Mr. Boase's
'Modern English Biography.' R. B. P.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
The, Love, of an Uncrowned Queen : Sophie Dorothea, Consort of George I. By W. H. Wilkins, M.A., F.S.A. (Longmans & Co.)
BY the methods of the painstaking and conscientious
investigator Mr. Wilkins, in a second edition, has
given his ' Love of an Uncrowned Queen ' the right
to take its place as a permanent and abiding his-
tory. In addition to its claims to romance and
seldom, surely, has a royal story of so recent a date
contained so many elements of tragedy the life
which Mr. Wilkins depicts forms an integral and
essential portion of English history. To understand
aright the lives of the early Georges and the manner
in which the throne of Britain passed to the house
of Hanover, and, most of all, to comprehend the
coarseness and debauchery of the Courts of the
first successors of the Stuart monarchs, it is indis-
pensable to know the method of life at Celle and
Hanover, and to see in their right colours the
obstinate, crapulous, mistress-ridden existences of
the princes of the House of Brunswick, who supplied
Britain and Germany with a line of kings. Of
Sophie Dorothea Mr. Wilkins says, in his con-
cluding words, "Her love and her sorrows plead
for her her sorrows most of all, for it may be
doubted if either history or romance can offer a
parallel to the long-drawn agony of the life of this
uncrowned queen." Again, in the concluding lines
of his preface he institutes a parallel, justifiable
enough, between Sophie Dorothea and Mary Stuart.
The imprisonment of Sophie Dorothea "in the
lonely castle of Ahlden was longer and more
rigorous than Mary's captivity in England, and the
assassination of Konigsmarck was as dramatic as
the murder of Rizzio." To this we would add that,
while the story of the sufferings of Mary Stuart has
been told hundreds of times, and is perhaps the
most familiar in history, that of Sophie Dorothea
is scarcely known and imperfectly understood, and
we know not in what English work, until the
appearance of Mr. Wilkins's volume, the full
tragedy can be read. Even now the authenticity
-of the letters which Mr. Wilkins discovered and
brought for the first time within our ken is in
some quarters disputed. It should be so no longer.
Apart from any other cause, the bulk of the corre-
spondence is too great to permit of the assumption
that it is a forgery. Fear and malignity combined
could alone have prompted the manufacture of the
letters. Of the latter there was enough in the
putrid heart of the Countess Spaten, perhaps the
nost obscene of all royal mistresses, and even in
- he more philosophical breast df the Electress
Sophia, but of, fear there was none. The beautiful daughter of Eleonore de Celle, who brought her French vivacity, passion, and love of admiration to lighten the dark depravity of the Hanoverian Court, was a mere child in the hands of her enemies and persecutors, and in her distress for the fate of icr murdered lover signed away her freedom. One can scarcely understand how one so bright, co- quettish, and unambitious, albeit so wanton, could lave begotten animosities so implacable. The letters which Mr. Wilkins traced to their obscure resting-place in the University of Lund, in Sweden, and which, in the face of innumerable difficulties, he classified and arranged with an insight so pene- trative it looks like inspiration, have to be accepted, and the book Mr. Wilkins has written concerning them has to be read and studied. Familiar as we are with the letters of Marianne Alcaforada, given bo the world by the shameless egoism and vanity of her lover, and other ebullitions of passion, real or feigned, we find those of Sophie Dorothea among the most veracious and human documents we possess. We cannot enter further into this matter. Mr. Wilkins has rendered a real service to scholarship, and tardily, as we know, since the present year has exercised an almost unparalleled pressure on the small space we can devote to books we counsel those who have not already done so to read his volume. Few tasks are likely to involve an equal measure of advantage and delight.
Sally Wister\s Journal: a True Narrative. Edited by Albert Cook Myers. (Philadelphia, Ferris & Leach ; London, Headley Brothers.) THIS interesting little volume belongs to a class of personal memoirs of a kind in which America has not hitherto shown itself rich. It is the diary, during two years of the War of Independence, 1777-8, of a Quaker maiden of much spirit and vivacity, who was thrown into enforced, but welcome, intimacy with officers of what is called " the Con- tinental Army." Considering the supposedly peace- ful character of her co-religionists, Sally Wister shows a rather " unregenerate " disposition to flirtation with her military associates, and she seems to have set her mind upon subjugating a certain coy Major William Truman Stoddert, who, though not proof against her allurements, and showing, indeed, at times something of a " coming on disposition," escapes her wiles, and ultimately marries some one else. Sally is an attractive creature, and her confidences repay study. Thanks to the supplementary information afforded by the editor, the book is to some extent a genealogical treasure, and it gives by letterpress and illus- tration a picture of life among the hills of Gwynedd and on the Wissahickon in the period succeeding the battle of the Brandy wine which is unlike anything else we possess of the period. At the time of the action Sally Wister was twenty-six years of age. The nearest approach to the charm of her recollections and observations we find in the early writings of Fanny Butler (Kemble), which are also, of course, widely different. With the British army, though it is often near at hand, she makes, unfortunately for us, no acquaint- ance, and the nearest we get to it is in seeing the handsome coloured picture of a British Grenadier which serves as frontispiece. A figure of the sort we are not sure whether it is this or another
