[2] The writer has a copy of this article, a very able one, cut from the pages of a review or magazine, which, unfortunately he has been unable to identify.
[3] Researches made by the late James T. G. Vizetelly, who was long the senior member of the family (1818-1897), traced it back to Ravenna, whence it removed to Venice. Henry Vizetelly, when preparing his autobiography, had no family documents before him and fell into various errors in his account of his forerunners.
[4] Even his business, that of Vizetelly, Branston & Co., printers and publishers, was at one time known merely by the name of the "Co.," that is as Whitehead's, though J. H. Vizetelly was managing partner. He had served his apprenticeship with the Coxes, and did not take up his freedom (his father and grandfather had been freemen of the city before him) till September, 1827. He was a man of considerable gifts; he wrote for several periodicals, produced a variety of verse (privately printed by himself) initiated the famous "Boy's Own Book," as well as "Cruikshank's Comic Almanack" of which he became the "Rigdum Funnidos," and was one of the best amateur actors of his time. He was very intimate with Edmund Kean, whom he greatly resembled in appearance, and it is said that more than once when Kean was hopelessly drunk he took his place on the boards. Such at least was the story often told to the writer by his grandmother (James Henry's widow) and expressly confirmed to him by an old family friend, Mr. Lemprière, son of the Lemprière of the "Classical Dictionary."
[5] He has related the greater part of his career in his "Glances Back through Seventy Years," and an account of it, of some length, will be found in the "Dictionary of National Biography." But for the purpose which the present writer has in view he considers it as well to recapitulate its chief features.
[6] Among others, James Hannay, Edmund Yates, Robert Brough, G. A. Sala, Sutherland Edwards, J. C. Parkinson, Augustus Mayhew, Frederick and James Greenwood, Tom Robertson, John Hollingshead, "Phiz," Birket Foster, Henry Meadows, Gustave Doré, Charles Keene, Edmond Morin, Gustave Janet, the Claxton sisters, Matt. Morgan, etc.
[7] Arthur and Frank Horace Vizetelly, both born at Kensington, the former on October 31, 1855, the latter on April 2, 1864. Both educated at Eastbourne and in France. The former has written and edited various English educational works and periodicals. The latter, resident in New York since 1891, has since become supervisor of the editorial work, and secretary of the editorial board of the "Jewish Encyclopædia," and associate editor of the "Standard Dictionary," besides helping to produce several other well-known works of reference. In 1901, the Governor of Bermuda having given him special access to the Boer prisoners, he wrote several papers on their condition. He has also written on Zola in American periodicals.
