Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION

FOR

LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Minor Queries:- De Sanctâ Cruce Etymology of "Aghindle" or "Aghendole"- Pictures of Queen Elizabeth's Tomb-Spanish "Veiwe Bowes"- Old English Divines- Lord Viscount Dover, Colonel of the First Troop of Guards in the Service of James II. in Ireland, 1689-1690-Lines on Woman's WillCelebrated Fly-Battle of Alfred the Great with the Danes - Old Satchells-"Pretty Peggy of Derby, O!" -"Noose as I was "-" La Garde meurt," &c.-Coral Charms-Maturin Laurent- Mons. Cahagnet-James Murray, titular Earl of Dunbar

MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED: - Lanthorns-A Popular Book censured in the Pulpit, in the Time of Queen Anne-Legend respecting the Isle of Ely

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Page

1

2

3

4

5

5

6

6

OUR SIXTH VOLUME.

Milton describes the active and industrious emmet as

"provident

Of future; in small room large heart inclos'd." What authority there may be for the asserted physiological fact in reference to the emmet, is a Query we submit to our readers, merely reminding them that Virgil has said the same thing of bees: at present we 7 quote the words of our great poet as descriptive of the function and purpose which we have carried on throughout Five Volumes, and which we shall keep steadily before us in that new Volume on which we are this day entering, and in the numberless remainder which we trust will follow. "Provident of future," we shall lay up good store of valuable materials for all inquirers; and within the "small room of our hebdomadal sheet shall strive to inclose a mass of matter more directly useful to literary men than has ever been crowded into such space before.

8

8

9

11

231

14

15

16

[ocr errors]

Replies to Minor Queries:- Use of Slings by the Early Britons-Burial in Unconsecrated Ground - Etymology of Fetch and Haberdasher - Baxter's "Heavy Shove," &c. "We three"- Age of Trees - The Diphthong "ai"- The Symbol of the Pelican - John Hope-Stoup-Flanagan on the Round Towers of Ireland Giving the Sack-The Bells of Limerick Cathedral-Mexican, &c. Grammar Bishop Merriman-Birthplace of Andrew Marvell Anstis on Seals-Foundation Stones-Milton indebted to Tacitus -Plague Stones-Algernon Sidney-Edmund Bohun -Declaration of Two Thousand Clergymen

[blocks in formation]

The continued kindness of our "increased and still increasing" band of contributors and correspondents enables us, volume by volume, to perform our office more perfectly. The number of important questions which we answer immediately, and the number cleared up by the friendly discussions in our pages, are both continually on the increase. Some day we shall (in Parliamentary phrase) present a Return upon this subject which will excite no little surprise: at present we will merely express our warmest thanks to all our contributing friends, and assure them of our constant endeavour to insert their papers in the way which will be most useful, and at the same time most agreeable to themselves. Slight curtailment, and some delay, are occasionally unavoidable; but we studiously endeavour to do the most entire justice to every paper that is sent to us, and that as quickly as possible. Such shall ever continue to be our aim; our only "strife" being how to please you all — readers, corre spondents, note-makers, and querists — “ day exceeding day,"

Vor. VI.-No. 140.

Notes.

ON THE EDITORSHIP OF SHAKSPERE.

“The work that has been done, is to be done again, and no single edition will supply the reader with a text on which he can rely as the best copy of the works of Shakspeare."-Samuel JOHNSON, 1756.

The course of Shaksperean editorship, with regard to the dramatic portion of his works, exhibits four distinct phases: I. The separate publication of sixteen plays, in the quarto form, in the years 1597-1622; II. The publication of thirtysix plays in a folio volume, under the editorial care of Heminge and Condell, in 1623; III. The republication of the folio volume with the addition of "seven playes never before printed in folio," in 1664; and IV. The republication of the thirty-six plays by Nicholas Rowe, by Pope, by Theobald, by Hanmer and others, with the addition of memoirs, critical essays, emendations of the text, annotations, glossaries, etc.

The early quarto plays have become of such extreme rarity as to defy acquisition, and the folio of 1623, which should be the cynosure of future editors, is almost as rare in a PERFECT state. Recourse must be had, in both instances, to public and private collections. The later folios carry no authority, and the seven additional plays are held to be spurious. As all the above volumes are elsewhere described with more or less exactness, it is on the annotated editions only, and on the spirit of annotation which has prevailed for near a century-and-a-half, that I propose to comment.

geries, and perversions of the text under fictitious names? Whatever admiration may be due to many of the commentators, the expediency of reform is unquestionable. It is manifest that other plans must be devised.

As a step in the path of improvement, I would suggest a bold and searching re-examination of the principles of editorship with reference to the plays of Shakspere, and the formation of such a series of rules as may accord with facts and common sense, and satisfy the majority of the best critics. Important hints on those points occur in the prefaces to his dramatic works, but they are sometimes much at variance with each other, and they nowhere appear collectively. Now, it is undeniable that such a code of rules, even if not the best that could be framed, would tend to the preservation of consistency; and, if unobjectionable in its main features, it might be productive of much of the benefit which new editions can be expected to derive from learned supervision. In re-editing a monographic volume, which had been committed to the press by its author, we encounter no serious difficulties, and therefore need only a few plain rules. It is much otherwise in the case of Shakspere. The folio volume of 1623 contains thirty-six_separate compositions, of very uncertain dates. It embraces a boundless variety of theme; it displays almost every variety of style; and it was set forth by men of whose literary qualifications we have not an atom of evidence! Thence arise NUMBERLESS QUERIES, the solution of which calls for much research and critical sagacity; so that without the establishment of just principles, and the formation of correspondent rules, there can neither be justness nor uniformity of editorial execution.

Reflecting on the events of this latter period, and assuming that new editions of the plays of Shakspere must always be in request, I come to the conclusion that those which are now most in repute on the score of documents and annotations would be too voluminous if reprinted on the former plan of successive accumulation. The editions to which I allude are those of Johnson and Steevens, and Malone-with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators. Both those celebrated publications were formerly in ten octavo volumes; but in the last augmented impressions, which were given to the public, by Reed and Boswell respectively, they both form twentyone volumes. This increase of bulk was the growth of only thirty years, and more than thirty years have since elapsed. Is the accumulative system to be continued? Are we always to approach Shakspere through a crowd of preface-within the space of twenty lines. writers? Are we to accept memoirs and collections which have been superseded by the works of more fortunate inquirers? Are we to be satiated with the notes, the confutations of notes, the replies, and the rejoinders of former times? with historical facts misapplied to fiction? with parallel passages devoid of parallelism? with for

An attempt to frame such a series of rules is now submitted to public criticism. A rash attempt it may seem, but it is the result of deliberation; called into visible existence by the signs of the times. If the proposed rules should be condemned, or in part contested, I shall hold myself in readiness to come forward in their defence. If improvements should be suggested - for which, doubtless, there is scope-I shall receive the suggestions thankfully. If the publication of the series should be pronounced superfluous, I engage to prove that almost all the rules which it contains have been violated, even in the course of one play, by the best editors of our dramatist-and that some of the most important of them have been violated

CANONS OF CRITICISM; APPLICABLE TO A NEW EDITION
OF THE PLAYS OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE,

Canon I. The preliminary matter, the number and order of the plays, and their respective titles, shall be the same as in the edition which was set forth by Heminge and Condell in 1623.

Canon II. The text of the plays, errors excepted, shall be that of 1623, collated with that of such of the plays as had been published in a finished state. The deficient lists of characters shall be supplied on the same plan as that of The tempest, and the current divi

sions into acts and scenes shall be adopted.

Canon III. No emendations shall be admitted into the text but such as are requisite to give it the probable sense, or a more correct rhythm; nor shall any other circumstance than the defective state of the text itself be held to justify such emendations.

Canon IV. No additions shall be made to the plays, either in the shape of prefaces, or of lists of the charac ters, or of emendations of the text, or of divisions into acts and scenes or otherwise, without being indicated as such by brackets.

Canon V. No omission, or transposition, or other alteration shall be made, either in the text or in its accompaniments, without a note describing it, and stating the evidence in favour of its adoption.

Canon VI. The orthography shall be modern, when not required to be otherwise for the sake of the measure, or the rhyme, or to preserve a play upon words; but the preliminary matter of 1623 shall be printed

literatim.

Canon VII. In the use of capitals, and in other typographical particulars, there shall be a strict uniformity of plan, which plan shall be described and exemplified. The punctuation shall be inserted as the context requires, and without regard to the early or late editions.

Canon VIII. The preface of each play shall record the evidence of its authorship, the presumed date of its composition, the peculiarities of all the editions of it previous to 1623, and the sources of its plot. The notes shall be as CONCISE as possible, and limited to the establishment of the text, and the illustration of its obscurities; rejecting all criticism on former commentators.

Canon IX. A glossarial index shall comprise the titles of the plays, the names of the characters, the obso

lete words and phrases, and the words used in an uncommon sense, or with a peculiar accent, or which otherwise seemed to require notes.

JOHN ASGILL.

BOLTON CORNEY.

It is much to be regretted that the materials for a Life of this most original writer, whose wit is frequently as brilliant and effective as Swift's, are so scanty. Dr. Campbell, who wrote the account of Asgill in the first edition of the Biographia Britannica, makes several references to a MS. Memoir by his intimate friend Mr. A. N. Can any of your correspondents inform me if this memoir is still in existence? Dr. Kippis, who seems to have been in a blissful state of ignorance as to Asgill's real character, and the meaning of his writings, has added no fresh facts to the account of his prede

cessor.

Asgill was the executor of a man whose charac-|

ter was as extraordinary as his own, Dr. Barebone, the great builder and projector, of whom Roger North, in his yet unpublished Autobiography, has given one of those speaking portraits which place before us the living man beyond the possibility of a mistake. Barebone was one of the sons of Praise-God Barebone, and was christened at his baptism "If-Jesus-Christ-had-not-died-for-theeNorth informs us it was customary to omit all the thou-had-been-damned" Barebone; but Roger Barebone" or "Damned Dr. Barebone" being his syllables of the name except the last, "Damned ordinary appellation; which, as his morals were none of the best, appeared to suit him better than his entire baptismal prefix. Dr. Barebone-who as the author of two of the ablest of our early commercial tracts, and as one of the most enterprising men this country ever produced, deserves a notice in an English biographical dictionary, when we shall have one which is worthy of the name-died deeply involved in debt, and in appointing Mr. Asgill as his executor, made it a request in his will that he should never pay his debts. What a scene it must have been in Lincoln's Inn Hall, deserving all the graphic powers of Hogarth or Cruikshank, when to the "monster" meeting of creditors whom he had summoned to hear the will read, the executor, after producing the will, and reading it through, and giving due emphasis to the request it contained, subjoined with the greatest gravity, "You have heard, gentlemen, the Doctor's testament, and I will religiously fulfil the will of the dead." As the writer of the MS. memoir justly observes, "There and the counsellor in the three kingdoms." was not perhaps such another pair as the doctor

As some contribution to a future Life of Asgill, no complete list having yet been given of his writings, I inclose the following, which is as correct as I can at present make it. All the Tracts are in my own possession. If any of your correspondents can add to it, I shall be glad to see it rendered more complete:

1. "Several Assertions proved in order to create another Species of Money than Gold and Silver." 1696, 8vo. p. 85. 2nd edit. 1720, 8vo. p. 46. 2. "Essay on a Registry for Titles of Lands." 4th edit. 1758, Svo. p. 44. Lond. 1698, 8vo. p. 43. It is reprinted in State Tracts (Will. III.), vol. ii.

p. 693.

[ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

Reflections on Mr. Asgill's 1699, 8vo. p. 39.

This has never been reprinted. The Tract published in State Tracts (Will. III.), vol. ii. p. 704., attributed to Asgill in the Biog. Brit. (title "Asgill "), is evidently not written by him.

4.

"An Argument proving that 'Man' may be translated." 1700, 8vo. p. 103.

5. "De Jure Divino, or the Assertion is that the Title of the House of Hanover is a Title Hereditary." 1710, 8vo. p. 38.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

13. " A Question upon Divorce." 1717, 8vo. p. 20. 14. "An Abstract of the Public Funds." 1716, 4to. p. 32. 15.

66 Essay on the Nature of the Kingdom of God within us." 1718, 8vo. p. 24.

16. "The complicated Question divided upon the Bill relating to Peerage." 1719, 8vo. p. 18.

17. "Brief Answer to a brief State of the Question between the printed and painted Calicoes and the Woollen and Silk Manufactures." 1719, 8vo. p. 22.

18. "The British Merchant; or a Review of the Trade of Great Britain." Published in Numbers. No. I., Nov. 10, 1719.

[ocr errors]

19. "Computation of the Advantages saved to the Public by the South Sea Scheme." 1721, 8vo. p. 24. 20. "Extract of the Act passed 11 Geo. I., for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors; with Remarks, and a Postscript concerning Taxes." 1729, 8vo. p. 32.

21. The Metamorphosis of Man. Part I." 2nd edit. 1729, 8vo. p. 288.

22. " Asgill upon Woolston." 8vo. 1730, p. 36. 23. "Essay upon Charity." 8vo. 1731, p. 18. 24. "Mr. Asgill's Case." Broadside, N. D. Folio. 25. "Mr. Holland's Answer to Mr. Asgill's Case replied to." Broadside folio. N. D.

The last two were issued in 1707, and were replied to in two broadsides: Reasons humbly offered by Mr. Holland against Mr. Asgill; and Mr. Holland's Answer to Mr. Asgill's Case.

Of the Tracts enumerated only Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. are included in the 8vo. with the title: A Collection of Tracts written by John Asgill, Esq. 1715, 8vo.

Mr. Asgill's Congratulatory Letter to the Lord Bishop of Sarum (Burnet), 1713, 8vo., is not written by him.

The two best imitations of Asgill's style which I have seen are, A Letter to the People, to be left for them at the Bookseller's; with a Word or Two of the Bandbox Plot. 1712, 8vo. p. 15._Written by Tom. Burnet. And that in the Examiner, vol iii. No. 6., probably by Oldisworth.

To the list of Asgill's writings may, I think, also be added, though his name does not appear to it, Dr. Davenant's Prophecies, 1713, 8vo.; in the introduction to which, which bears all the marks

of Asgill's style, Dr. Davenant is severely ridiculed. JAMES CROSSLEY.

LINES ON THE EARL OF CRAWFORD.

These lines on the Earl of Crawford occur in a volume of poems by W. Bewick, B.A., the second in 1752. I have copied them in case the editor edition of which was printed at Newcastle-on-Tyne may think them worthy of insertion in "N. & Q." They may perhaps be interesting to the noble author of Lives of the Lindsays.

"ON THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN EARL OF CRAWFORD, AND HIS VALOUR AT THE BATTLE OF GROTZKA.

"Descended from a family as good

As Scotland boasts, and from right ancient blood:
You are the ornament of all your race,
The splendour, and the glory, and their praise:
What courage you have shown, illustrious Scot!
In future ages will not be forgot:

When wicked infidels came crowding on
With horsetails mov'd, and crescents of the moon;
With frightful regiments of foot and horse,
In dreadful numbers, and with mighty force;
With proud Bashaws, by Sultan's high command,
With flaming scimiters in nervous hand,
In Hungar plains against the Christian host,
At Grotzka, when the fatal day was lost,
You stood undaunted in the bloody field,
Withstood their fury, and disdain'd to yield,
Amidst the clouds of smoke, when bullets shower'd,
Amidst loud thunders, when dread cannons roar'd,
You with a courage like a Lindsay fought,
Shunn'd not the enemy, but danger sought;
Till crowding numbers overpowering you,
And fainting with your wounds, you weary grew;
When wounded much, and ready to be kill'd,
Amidst your foes, they forced you off the field.
Who can the hero blame, when he has done
His best in battle, and is left alone:
Whose noble courage had sustain'd the test,
By crowding numbers of the foe opprest,
Choked in his blood, wounds flaming in his breast.
Thus when the news came spreading through the main,
The dismal news of noble Crawford slain
When such unhappy tidings touch'd our ears
How pallid were our looks, with sudden fears.
How much did we suspect the doubtful truth,
Believing we had lost the warlike youth;
Whose peerless loss would Britons nearly touch,
The loss of one whom George affects so much :
Which to his country had much dearer been,
Than if a thousand others had been slain.
But Providence the wounded much did save,
And back again our noble Crawford gave;
But not without returning deadly blows,
And that with justice on his wicked foes.
Such was the courage of our British lord;
He pistol'd or he cut them down with sword,
And had but others equal courage shown,
The day which fatal was had been their own."

E. II. A.

SIR HENRY WOTTON'S LETTER TO MILTON.

Most lovers of Comus have often read with interest Sir H. Wotton's "Letter to Milton," which is in many editions prefixed. The initials M. B. refer to Michael Brainthwaite, who succeeded Wotton at Venice; and S. refers to the young Lord Scudamore, whose father resided at Paris as ambassador for King Charles I. Todd rightly suggests, from an old MS. note, that H. must have been John Hales of Eton (the "memorable"), and not Samuel Hartlib, as Thomas Warton had supposed.

It is strange that I too possess a copy of the third edition of Wotton's Reliquiæ (London, 1672), with many MS. notes in an old and scholarlike hand.

In said volume, H. is likewise filled up Hales; and we know that Wotton speaks of Hales as a Bibliotheca Ambulans (Rel., p. 475.); that he rejoiced when Archbishop Laud preferred him to a prebendaryship of Windsor (Ib. p. 369.); that they lived together on most intimate terms; and that, finally, Hales attended Wotton in his dying moments (Walton's Life of Sir H. W. ad calcem). Indeed (unless I mistake) Samuel Hartlib had not settled in England at this time, so that we may put him out of the question for ever.

To me the mysterious part of Wotton's "Letter to Milton," seems to lie in the initials "R" and "the late Rs poems." And I should be very glad to know how far Thomas Warton's observations upon them could stand the lynx-eyed scrutiny of MR. CROSSLEY, or some of your other correspondents. Why the first R. must necessarily mean John Rouse of the Bodleian (though Milton did honour him at a later period with some Latin verses), or the second R. Thomas Randolph, the adopted son of Ben. Jonson, I am unable to perceive.

Warton is wrong in saying that it appears from his monument, which he had seen in Blatherwycke Church, Northamptonshire, that Randolph had died on the 17th of March, 1634. His monument contains no date whatsoever. I visited the abovementioned church on the 17th of June ult., with the express purpose of seeing the last restingplace, or the last memorial, of one who, however unfortunate himself, was, in Warton's note at all events, associated with Milton's Comus, and send the inscription verbatim.

Wood tells us that Randolph died in March 1634, at the house of William Stafford of Blatherwycke, and that he was buried on the 17th day of the same month "in an ile joining to B. Church, among the Stafford family." In this he is followed by the Biographia Britannica, from whence, as well as from Wood, I learn that the author of the inscription was Randolph's friend Peter Hanstead of Cambridge. The tablet on which it is written is of white marble, erected at the expense of Sir

Christopher Hatton, and attached to one of the pillars; and the inscription is given, but not very accurately, in Bridge's Northamptonshire (vol. ii. p. 280., Oxford, 1791, fol.). I transcribed for myself as follows:

"Memoriæ Sacrum Thome Randolphi (dum inter pauciores) Fælicissimi et facillimi ingenii Juvenis necnon majora promittentis si fata virum non invidissent sæculo.

Here sleepe thirteene

Together in one tombe,

And all these greate, yet quarrell not for rome:
The Muses and ye Graces teares did meete
And grav'd these letters on ye churlish sheete,
Who having wept their fountaines drye
Through the conduit of the eye,
For their freind who here does lye,
Crept into his grave and dyed,
And soe the Riddle is untyed.

For wch this Church, proud yt the Fates bequeath
Unto her ever honour'd trust

Soe much and that soe precious dust,

Hath crown'd her Temples with an Iuye wreath,
Wch should have Laurelle beene
But yt the grieved plant to see him dead
Tooke pet and withered.

[blocks in formation]

Cure for the Ague.— About a mile from Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, on a spot where two roads cross each other, are a few oak trees called cross oaks. Here aguish patients used to resort, and peg a lock of their hair into one of these oaks, then, by a sudden wrench, transfer the lock from their heads to the tree, and return home with the full conviction that the ague had departed with the severed lock. Persons now living affirm they have often seen hair thus left pegged into the oak, for one of these trees only was endowed with the healing power. The frequency of failure, however, to cure the disease, and the unpleasantness of the operation, have entirely destroyed the popular faith in this remedy; but that expedients quite as absurd and superstitious, and even more disgusting, are still practised to remove diseases, is fully proved by several instances recorded in “N. & Q."

And here I must express, what will be considered by some of its readers an extraordinary opinion, that education alone has not, and will not, expel superstition. It may change its character, but it will not rid the mind of its baneful in

« ElőzőTovább »