Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 | Page 9

may not be uninteresting to remark, that Elizabeth seems to have been
particularly fond of pearls, and to have possessed the same taste for
them from youth to even a later period than "her sixty-fifth year." The
now faded wax-work effigy preserved in Westminster Abbey (and
which lay on her coffin, arrayed in royal robes, at her funeral, and

caused, as Stowe states, "such a general sighing, groaning, and weeping,
as the like hath not being seen or known in the memory of man")
exhibits large round Roman pearls in the stomacher; a carcanet of large
round pearls, &c. about her throat; her neck ornamented with long
strings of pearls; her high-heeled shoe-bows having in the centre large
pearl medallions. Her earrings are circular pearl and ruby medallions,
with large pear-shaped pearl pendants. This, of course, represents her
as she dressed towards the close of her life. In the Tollemache
collection at Ham House is a miniature of her, however, when about
twenty, which shows the same taste as existing at that age. She is here
depicted in a black dress, trimmed with a double row of pearls. Her
point-lace ruffles are looped with pearls, &c. Her head-dress is
decorated in front with a jewel set with pearls, from which three
pear-shaped pearls depend. And, finally, she has large pearl-tassel
earrings. In the Henham Hall portrait (engraved in vol. vii. of Miss
Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England), the ruff is confined by a
collar of pearls, rubies, &c., set in a gold filagree pattern, with large
pear shaped pearls depending from each lozenge. The sleeves are
ornamented with rouleaus, wreathed with pearls and bullion. The
lappets of her head-dress also are adorned at every "crossing" with a
large round pearl. Her gloves, moreover, were always of white kid,
richly embroidered with pearls, &c. on the backs of the hands. A poet
of that day asserts even that, at the funeral procession, when the royal
corpse was rowed from Richmond, to lie in state at Whitehall,--
"Fish wept their eyes of pearl quite out, And swam blind after,"
doubtless intending, most loyally, to provide the departed sovereign
with a fresh and posthumous supply of her favorite gems!]
* * * * *
MINOR QUERIES.
St. Dominic.--Was St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican order, a
descendant of the noble family of the Guzmans? Machiavelli wrote a
treatise to prove it; but in the Biographie Universelle it is stated (I
know not on what authority) that Cardinal Lambertini, afterwards

Benedict XIV., having summoned that lawyer to produce the originals,
Machiavelli deferred, and refused at last to obey the order: and further,
that Cuper the Bollandist wrote on the same subject to some learned
men at Bologna, who replied that the pieces cited in Machiavelli's
dissertation had been forged by him, and written in the old style by a
modern hand.
A BOOKWORM.
"Will" and "shall."--Can you refer me to any grammar, or other work,
containing a clear and definite rule for the distinctive use of these
auxiliaries? and does not a clever contributor to "N. & Q." make a
mistake on this point at Vol. vi., p. 58., 1st col., 16th line?
W. T. M.
Hong Kong.
Sir John Fleming.--What was the coat of arms borne by Sir John
Fleming, or Le Fleming, of St. George's Castle, co. Glamorgan, A.D.
1100? Where is it to be found sculptured or figured? And does any
modern family of the name of Fleming, or Le Fleming, claim descent
from the above?
CARET.
Deal, how to stain.--I should be much obliged if some one of your
correspondents would inform me what is the best composition for
giving plain deal the appearance of oak for the purpose of church
interiors?
C.
Winton.
Irish Characters on the Stage.--Could any of your correspondents
inform me of the names of any old plays (besides those of Shadwell) in
which Irishmen are introduced? and which of the older dramatists have

enrolled this character among their dramatis personæ? Was Shakspeare
an Irishman?
PHILOBIBLION.
Arms on King Robert Bruce's Coffin-plate.--Can any of your heraldic
readers give me any information as to whom the arms found on King
Robert Bruce's coffin-plate in 1818 belonged? They are a cross inter
four mullets pierced of the field. They are not the arms given in Nisbet
to the families of Bruce; neither does Sir. Wm. Jardine, in his report to
the Lords of the Exchequer on the finding of the king's tomb, take any
notice of them further than to mention their discovery.
ALEXANDER CARTE.
Chaucer's Prophetic View of the Crystal Palace (Vol. iii., p. 362.).--
"Chaucer it seems drew continually, through Lydgate and Caxton, from
Guido di Colonna, whose Latin Romance of the Trojan War was, in
turn, a compilation from Dares, Phrygius, Ovid, and Statius. Then