Various - Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 стр 2.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Dec. l6. 1850.

It is, I confess, very agreeable to me, amidst the interest of association created by the world-wide fame of the "Swan of Avon," to record this pleasing tribute to the character of the genius loci at so interesting a period. In a passage on a subsequent page, Mrs. Walker, referring to some spiritual troubles, says:

"My father's sister, my dear aunt Quiney, a gracious good woman, taking notice of my dejected spirit, she waylaid me in my coming home from the morning exercise then in our parish."

This was in London: but it is impossible to have read attentively some of the minuter memorials of Shakspeare (e.g. Hunter's, Halliwell's, &c.) without recognising in "Aunt Quiney" a collateral relationship to the immortal bard himself. I am not aware that any Shakspearian reader of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" will feel the slightest interest in this remote branch of a genealogical tree, which seems to have borne "diverse manner of fruits;" but assuredly the better portion of those who most justly admire its exuberance of dramatic yield, will not disparage their taste should they equally relish the evangelical flavour of its "holier products," exemplified in the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Walker.

OLD ENGLISH ACTORS AND MUSICIANS IN GERMANY

The following extracts furnish decisive evidence of the custom of our old English actors' and musicians' professional peregrinations on the continent at the beginning of the seventeenth centurya subject which has been ably treated by Mr. Thoms in the Athenæum for 1849, p. 862.

In September, 1603, King James I. despatched the Lord Spenser and Sir William Dethick, Garter King-at-arms, to Stuttgart, for the purpose of investing the Duke of Würtemberg with the ensigns of the Garter, he having been elected into the order in the 39th year of the late Queen's reign. A description of this important ceremony was published at Tubingen in 1605, in a 4to. volume of 270 pages, by Erhardus Cellius, professor of poetry and history at that University, entitled: "Eques auratus Anglo-Wirtembergicus." At page 120. we are told that among the ambassador's retinue were "four excellent musicians, with ten other assistants." (Four excellentes musici, unà cum decem ministris aliis.) These performed at a grand banquet given after the Duke's investiture, and are described at p. 229. as "the royal English music, which the illustrious royal ambassador had brought with him to enhance the magnificence of the embassy and the present ceremony; and who, though few in number, were eminently well skilled in the art. For England produces many excellent musicians, commedians, and tragedians, most skilful in the histrionic art; certain companies of whom quitting their own abodes for a time, are in the habit of visiting foreign countries at particular seasons, exhibiting and representing their art principally at the courts of princes. A few years ago, some English musicians coming over to our Germany with this view, remained for some time at the courts of great princes; their skill both in music and in the histrionic art, having procured them such favour, that they returned home beautifully rewarded, and loaded with gold and silver."