"_The Bees on Horseback._--Daniel Wildman rides, standing upright, one foot on the saddle, and the other on the horse's neck, with a curious mask of bees on his face. He also rides standing upright on the saddle, with the bridle in his mouth, and, by firing a pistol, makes one part of the bees march over a table, and the other part swarm in the air, and return to their proper places again."
Sampson, Price, Johnson, and Coningham were celebrated equestrian performers towards the close of the last century. Astley was the pupil of Sampson, and his successor in agility. Bromley, in his _Catalogue of Engraved Portraits_, mentions a folio engraving of Sampson, without date or engraver's name. It is hardly likely that any life of him was published.
_Palæologus_ (Vol. ix., p. 312.).--Your readers will find, in Oldmixon's _West Indies_, a later notice of the strange descent and fortunes of this once illustrious family. From Cornwall they appear to have settled in Barbadoes, where it is very possible that with mutilated name the family may yet be found among the "poor whites" (many among them of ancient lineage) of that island.
_Children by one Mother._--In Vol. ix., p. 186., I. R. R., in reply to a Query in Vol. v., p. 126.--"If there be any well-authenticated instance of a woman having had more than twenty-five children?"--sends an account of a case, which he "firmly believes" to be authenticated, of a farmer's wife who had thirty. I now send you a much better authenticated case of _polyprogenitiveness_, which utterly throws the farmer's wife into the shade.
In Palazzo Frescobaldi, in this city, the ancient residence of the old Florentine family of that name, there is, among many other family portraits, one full-length picture of a tall and good-looking lady with this inscription beneath it: "Dianora Salviati, moglie di Bartolomeo Frescobaldi, fece cinquantadue figli, mai meno che tre per parto" (Dianora Salviati, wife of Bartolomeo Frescobaldi, gave birth to fifty-two sons, and never had less than three at a birth). The case is referred to by Gio. Schenchio, in his work _Del Parto_, at p. 144.
The Essex lady, as well as I should suppose all other ladies whatsoever, must hide their diminished heads in presence of this noble dame of Florence.