PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1957, 27 August 1891, Page 39

PERSONAL NOTES.

Madame Janet Macintosh Waddington, nee Chisholm, mother of the French Ambassador to the Court of St. James' died in June in Paris ; aged 91. She was a native of Scotland, and married Thomas Waddington, one of the sons of William Waddington, a London merchant, born in Nottinghamshire in 1751, who settled in France after Waterloo.

Cardinal Haynald, the eminent Archbishop of Kalocsa, died at Vienna in June Jast; aged 75. The deceased cardinal was a man of profound erudition and a brilliant orator. He was one of the strongest opponents ofthe dogma of Papal infallibility, and was among the bishops who left the council before the division in 1870. He also had a great name as a botanist, hi 3 herbarium and botanical library being among the finest in the world. He was the son of poor peasants. When the great composer Haydn was in very penurious circumstances he entered a grocer's shop and attempted to boom the market by ordering a halfpennyworth of cheese. The shopman said he regretted that he could not sell a halfpennyworth. Haydn then ordered a pennyworth, which was produced without more demur. Whipping out a knife, Hadyn cut the piece in two, took a half, gave the shopman a ha'penny and said, " That, sir, is the way to sell a ha'pennyworth of cheese."

A good story is related of Lord Enniskillen, who, on the death of his father, found a piece of waste land the subject of desperate contention between him and an old lady. So he called on her and found her rather stiff and shy, as was natural. At last conversation got to the Chancery suit in which they were just embarking. Lord Enniskillen took out a sovereign, remarking, " Well, I think this a better way of settling the business," and tossed it up crying, " Heads or tails ? " " Tails," cried the old lady, falling involuntarily into the humour, and tails it was, and the land was hers. A few days afterwards Lord Enniskillen had to preside at a dispensary meeting, when a very handsome sum was sent in by the old lady, who had had the land appraised, and, feeling some misgivings, had sent the exact amount to this charity.

As has already been mentioned by cable, Mr W. H. Gladstone, the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Gladstone, died in London in Jane last from the effects of an operation. He had suffered for about three years from paralysis in the right side, and the operation, it is understood, was for the purpose of ascertaining the possibility of removing a tumour on the brain. Mrs Gladstone was present at the time of death, but the ex-Premier, who had journeyed to London from Lowestoft, arrived too late to see his son alive. Mr W. H. Gladstone was a most considerate and conscientious landlord, and his kindness to the tenantry was proverbial. It is not perhaps generally known that he was the landlord of the Hawarden estate. With respect to that property, the Right Hon. W. B. Gladstone made arrangements with the late Sir Stephen Glynne, who died in 1874, by which the estate came to himself, and as soon after as practicable it was handed over to Mr W. H. Gladstone, with the stipulation that Mr and Mrs W. B. Gladstone should occupy the castle for the remainder of their lives. Bight years ago Mr W. H. Gladstone built a charming house, called Hawarden House, on one of the most beautiful sites in the neighbourhood, just outside the park boundary, but communicating with the park by a private road.

The death is announced, on June 1, of Mr F. B. Jewson, the veteran professor of the piano at the Royal Academy of Music. Mr Jewson, two j ears since, owing to ill-health, resigned the professorship which he then had held at the Eoyal Academy of Music for close upon half a century, and retired into private life. He was born in Edinburgh in 1823. He was a juvenile prodigy, and at the age of six gave his first concert. Before he was 12 he came to London, and entered at the Royal Academy of Music, under W. H. Holmes and Cipriani Potter, and three years later he gained a King's scholarship." In 1840 he finished his term of tuition, and subsequently became assistant professor, and eventually a full professor of pianoforte playing. A quarter of a century ago he was appointed one of the musicians in ordinary to her Majesty. _ Mr Jewson composed a large number of pianoforte pieces, a sonata, written about 1838, and a pianforte concerto. He was a friend and acquaintance of many of the great pianists of his day, and, amongst others of Chopin, Moscheles, and Thalberg.