Let us now turn to a minor Jacobite episode.――A correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries,’ M. H. R. (August 1st, 1857, p. 95), refers to an account the writer had from an informant, who was accustomed to meet John and Charles Allen in Edinburgh society. ‘I find however that their claims to legitimate descent from the Royal Stuarts were treated in such society quite as a joke, though the claimants were fêted and lionised, as might be expected in such a case, in fashionable circles. They usually appeared in full Highland costume, in Royal Tartan. The likeness to the Stuart family, I am told, was striking, and may have been without improving their claim a whit.’ The writer then alludes to the number of young ladies who, at Her Majesty’s accession, were thought to bear a great resemblance to the Queen. But accidental resemblance is worthless as proof of consanguinity. ‘If,’ the writer continues, ‘the two claimaints have no better foundation to rest upon, their cause is but weak, for it is obvious there may be likeness without legitimate descent; and I fancy, if the real history is gone into, _that_ is the point to be decided here.’ [Sidenote: _THE SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN._] The writer goes on to traduce the character of the wife of Charles Edward. It must, indeed, be allowed that from the year 1778, when she was twenty-six years of age, and she first became acquainted with Alfieri, the lover with whom she lived from 1780, with some intervals, till his death in 1803, her character was under a shade, and yet, in 1791, the Countess of Albany was received at Court, in London, by so very scrupulous a sovereign lady as Queen Charlotte. So scrupulous was the queen, that her reception of the widow of Charles Edward seemed to disperse the breath of suspicion that rested on her. Another circumstance in her favour is the fact of George III. having settled a pension upon her. The Countess of Albany died at Montpellier plain Madame Fabre, in 1824, leaving all she possessed to her husband, the historical painter. It will be seen from the last-named date, that Queen Victoria and the wife of Charles Edward were for a few years contemporaries. But the countess is out of the question in this matter of John and Charles Allen. The correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries’ has something more to the point when he says:――‘The question is not of any importance as a matter of state. The succession to the English crown is secured by parliament, and is not affected by a descent from the young Pretender; but as an historical fact, it is desirable that the truth of the story, apparently set afloat by the father of these two gentlemen, should be settled at once and for ever.’ _That_ has been effectually settled in the 81st volume of the ‘Quarterly,’ so far as the development from Allen to Allan, and this to Stuart, is made out, without leaving a link unsevered in the chain of testimony. [Sidenote: _A DERWENTWATER AT DILSTON._]