Part 3

"For since she has been free by the death of her Late owner, the poor thing has been a scamperer, _And has often known the want of a good meal;_ _For she was highly fed in her old master's lifetime._ But he, alas! sleeps in peace, and peace be to his soul. He was a good master and a real gentleman, And left his little trotter to a merciless world: She is gentle by Nature; _but the poor thing's heart_ _Is now breaking_; yet by kind treatment she might Be made one of the most valuable and amusing Things in Nature. She is a little foundered, but not to hurt Or retard her movements; she is of some mettle and High spirit, notwithstanding her hard fate, She will even kick if roughly handled, Nor would she suffer a dirty hand to touch her."--P. 105.

Again, she says:

"I wish I had an only friend, To shield me from the winter's blast, For should I live to see another, He may cut keener than the last; And I shall never wish to feel A keener winter than the past."--P. 288.

She complains of a refusal from one to whom she wrote "to beg or solicit some bacon," and says:

"To him she has given, _she never did lend_, For her plan is to give to the foe or the friend."--P. 180.

Some one, probably Clarke, wrote an anonymous letter to dissuade her from publishing. This she answers indignantly in prose, concluding:

"Should he be tempted to write again, let him sign his name, or where a letter may find the kind-hearted creature, who has such a love for Nature. His stinging advice was to run down the widow's soul's delight, her dear scraps, which not a block in Nature can suppress"--P. 366.

Throughout the silliness run veins of feeling, respect for her husband, gratitude for the smallest acts of kindness, and cheerfulness under want. In some lines to a cat, apparently written during her husband's sickness, she says:

"Now Grimalkin each day on her throne takes a seat, With a smile on her face when her master can eat; _But, alas! he eats little._"--P. 309.

Truly Mary Mackey must have been a good wife and friend, and I hope I may claim some credit for extracting evidence thereof from perhaps the weakest verses ever written. Her own opinion was different, and is thus expressed in her

"PREFACE OR NO PREFACE.--No preface can be to the Scraps of Nature, for God gave none when He formed creation, nor was there ever a book sent into the world like the volume of Nature, since the creation of the world, nor ever so bold an undertaking. It has never been seen by any eye, nor corrected by any hand, but the eye and hand of the writer. No volume has more humour," &c.

G. C.'s copy is defective. Mine has a portrait of Mrs. Mary Mackey, which indicates considerable beauty, despite of very poor drawing and engraving, and the execrable thin curls and short waist of 1809. The "falling tear is visible;" but, had not the authoress told us what it was, it might be taken for a mole or a wart. As the face is perfectly cheerful, and the "scrap" is headed "Compliment to the Engraver," I hazard the conjecture that he was instructed to add the tear to a miniature painted before she had been compelled to shed tears on her own account.

H. B. C.

U. U. Club.

* * * * *

MAP OF CEYLON.

(Vol. vii., p. 65.)

Your correspondent AJAX asks information of me as to the best, or even a tolerable, map of Ceylon. I am not surprised at the inquiry, as no satisfactory map of that island exists to my knowledge. It may illustrate this assertion to mention, that in 1849 I travelled through the vast and interesting district of Neura Kalawa, to the north of the Kandyan range; and I carried with me the map of "India and Ceylon," then published, and since reprinted in 1852, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In that map the country I was passing through appears as a large blank, with the words "Unknown mountainous region." But I found it abounding in prosperous villages, and tracts of land cultivated both for rice and dry grain. So far from being "unknown," its forests have a numerous though scattered population; and as to its being "mountainous," there is scarcely a hill in the entire "region." There is a meagre map of Ceylon, drawn by George Atkinson, who was civil engineer and surveyor-general of the colony, and published by Wylde in 1836. It is more correct than others, but sadly deficient in information.

Mr. Arrowsmith, of Soho Square, published in 1845 an admirable map of what is called the Kandy Zone, being the central province of the island, prepared by the Deputy Quarter-Master-General, Colonel Frazer; assisted by Captain Gallwey and Major Skinner, of the Ceylon Civil Service. Col. Frazer has since placed in Mr. Arrowsmith's hands a map of the entire island: it has not yet appeared; but when published it will be found to be as nearly perfect in its details as any map can be.

In reply to the inquiry of AJAX as to the publication of my own work on the history and {111} topography of Ceylon, it is still in hand; but the pressure of official and parliamentary duties has sadly retarded its preparation for the press.

J. EMERSON TENNENT.

66. Warwick Square, Belgravia.

* * * * *

"AM, HAVE, AND WILL BE:" HENRY VIII., ACT III. SC. 2.

(Vol. vii., p.5.)

Independently of the obvious probability that Shakspeare, in these three words, intended to embody the present, the past, and the future, there is another reason why we can by no means part with _have_, or suffer it to be changed into any other word; and that is, because it is open to one of those parallel analogies which I have so often upheld as sure guides to the true reading. Only a few lines before, in a previous speech of Wolsey's, he makes use of a precisely similar elliptical coupling together of the verbs _have_ and _be_:

"My loyalty, Which ever _has_, and ever _shall be_, growing."

Here we have, in "has and shall be," the identical combination which, in the case of "have and will be," has given rise to so much doubt; so that we have only to understand the one phrase as we do the other, and make the slight addition of the personal pronoun I (not before, but after _am_), to render Wolsey's exclamation not only intelligible, but full of emphasis and meaning.

But in the first place the King's speech to Wolsey might be more intelligibly pointed if the words "your bond of duty" were made a parenthetical explanation of _that_. The "bond of duty" is the mere matter-of-course duty to be expected from every subject; but the King says that, over and above _that_, Wolsey ought, "as 'twere in loves particular," to be _more_! Thereupon Wolsey exclaims--

"I do profess That for your highness' good I ever labour'd More than mine own."

Here he pauses, and then immediately continues his protestation in the fine passage, the meaning of which has been so much disputed; suddenly reverting to what the King had just said he _ought_ to be, he exclaims:

"_That_, am I, have, and will be, Though all the world should crack their duty to you, and throw it from their soul," &c.

Still less can it be permitted to change "crack their duty" into "lack their duty." Setting aside all consideration of the comparative force of the two words, and the circumstance that _crack_ is frequently used by Shakspeare in the sense of _sever by violence_--the adoption of _lack_ would be to attribute to Shakspeare an absolute blunder, for how could "all the world" _throw from their soul_ that which they _lacked_?

With reference to another alteration ("capable" into "palpable," in _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 5.), notwithstanding that it seems so obvious, and has been declared so self-evident, "_as to be lauded needs but to be seen_," I, for one, enter my protest against it, being of opinion that the conservation of _capable_ is absolutely essential to the context.

_Capable_ may be, and has been, defended upon various grounds; but there is one consideration which, with me, is all-sufficient, viz., it is necessary for the explanation and defence of the accompanying word "_cicatrice_." _Capable_ is _concave_, and has reference to the _lipped_ shape of the impression, and _cicatrice_ is a _lipped_ scar; therefore one word supports and explains the other. And it is not a little singular that _cicatrice_ should, in its turn, have been condemned as an improper expression by the very critic (Dr. Johnson) who, without perceiving this very cogent reason for so doing, nevertheless explains "capable impressure" as _a hollow mark_.

A. E. B.

Leeds.

* * * * *

SIR HENRY WOTTON'S LETTER TO MILTON.

(Vol. vi., p. 5.; Vol. vii., p. 7.)

I desire to speak with the greatest deference to MR. BOLTON CORNEY'S superior judgment, but still I cannot help saying that Thomas Warton's remarks upon "our common friend Mr. R." and "the late R.'s poems" do not seem to be supported by the facts. Randolph's poems were printed at Oxford in 1638, but in which month we are not told. The first question then is this, Were they printed before or after the 13th of April, when Wotton's letter was written? If _after_ the 13th, or even the 6th of April, when Milton's presentation copy of _Comus_ was forwarded, of course the matter is decided. But, allowing for the present that they were printed _before_ the 13th of April in the year 1638, I must ask, in the second place, Could Sir H. Wotton predicate of any volume printed in that year before that date (or rather of _Comus_ stitched up with that volume), that he had viewed it _some long time before_ with singular delight? I certainly think not, but shall be very happy to have my objections overruled.

Then, again, if we admit MR. BOLTON CORNEY'S "novel conjecture" (which I freely allow to be a great improvement upon that of Thomas Warton), how comes it the Sir H. Wotton knew nothing of "the true artificer" of _Comus_ until he was let into the secret by Milton himself? If Robert Randolph was the "common friend" of Wotton and Milton, was he not likely to have {112} known something of the authorship of _Comus_, and to have enlightened Sir Henry thereon? My principal objection remains. Thomas Randolph was far too popular a poet to have been contemptuously alluded to by Wotton or any one else in that age, and, making all due allowance for laudation and compliment, Wotton does disparage the poems to which Milton's _Masque_ was appended.

I think that quaint old Winstanley gives the general opinion of Randolph. He says:

"He was one of such a pregnant wit that the Muses may seem not only to have smiled, but to have been tickled at his nativity, such the festivity of his poems of all sorts."--_Lives of English Poets_, p. 142., Lond. 1687.

We must therefore, perhaps, look out for some more obscure and worthless poet, whose "principal" Milton's "accessory" was to "help out."

When writing on this subject before, I said that Samuel Hartlib had not settled in England at the time of Sir H. Wotton's letter to Milton (Vol. vi., p. 5.). I am indebted to Warton for that mistake. He fixes the date of his coming hither to "about the year 1640." (_Illustrations of Milton's Minor Poems_, p. 596.: Lond. 1775.)

Samuel Hartlib figures amongst the correspondents of Joseph Mede in March, 1634, and even then dated from London. (Mede's _Works_, vol. ii. lib. iv. p. 1058.: Lond. 1664, fol.)

Amongst the _Letters and Despatches_ of Lord Strafforde are two letters from Sir Henry Wotton, which do not appear in the _Reliquiæ_ (vide vol. i. pp. 45-48.: Dublin, 1740, fol.), though some sentences in the former of the two may be found at p. 373. of said work. I often find it a pleasant employment to fill up the gaps and trace out the allusions in Wotton's correspondence.

May I give a short specimen of one of his letters filled up? It was written, I suppose, to Nicholas Pey:

"My dear Nic,

"More than a voluntary motion doth now carry me towards Suffolk, especially that I may confer by the way with an excellent physician at B., whom I brought myself from Venice."--_Reliquiæ_, p. 359.

By "B." is meant St. Edmund's Bury, and by the "excellent physician" no less than _Gaspero Despotine_, who, together with Mark Anthony de Dominis, accompanied Sir H. Wotton and his chaplain Bedell from Italy.

However, he was very unlike the archbishop of whom Dr. Crakanthorp used to say, that he was well called "De Dominis in the plural, for he could serve two masters, or twenty if they would all pay him wages." (Hacket's _Life of Williams_, part i. p. 103.: Lond. 1693, fol.) Despotine left Italy that he might at the same time leave the communion of the Church of Rome, and when Bedell was appointed to the living of St. Edmund's Bury, he accompanied him thither. One of Wotton's very interesting letters announces the event. (_Reliquiæ_, p. 400.) Under the fostering care of the saintly Bedell, Despotine rose to eminence in his profession at St. Edmund's Bury, and kept up a kind correspondence with his guide and patron after his promotion to the Provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, and the sees of Ardagh and Kilmore. (Burnet's _Life of Bishop Bedell_, ad init.)

In another letter (_Reliquiæ_, p. 356.) Wotton speaks of having given also to Michael Brainthwaite and the young Lord Scudamore the advice of Alberto Scipioni to himself, to "keep his eyes open and his mouth shut," which Milton sadly disregarded.

RT.

Warmington.

* * * * *

SKULL-CAPS VERSUS SKULL-CUPS.

(Vol. vi., pp. 441. 565.)

Your correspondent JAMES GRAVES seems to consider cooking in a skull impossible. I certainly have never tried it, nor do I wish to express an opinion as to the taste of the Irish or their invaders, A.D. 1315, though methinks those who relished the "flesh" need not have demurred to the pot. But as to the possibility, in Ewbank on _Hydraulic Machines_, book i. cap. 3., I find the following mention of

"PRIMITIVE BOILERS.--The gourd is probably the original vessel for heating water, &c. &c., its exterior being kept moistened by water while on the fire, as still practised by some people, while others apply a coating of clay to protect it from the effects of flame."

He then quotes Kotzebue as finding "the Radack Islanders boiling something in cocoa-shells." A primitive Sumatran vessel for boiling rice is the bamboo, which is still used; by the time the rice is dressed the vessel is nearly destroyed by the fire. This destructibility needs hardly to be considered an objection to the "starving fugitives," as plenty of the same kind must have been at hand, and even an Irishman's skull is probably as little inflammable as gourds, cocoa-sells, or bamboos.

J. P. O.

Should the following extract not be considered as bearing on the question, we must admit that it is a remarkable bit of folk lore.

The quotation is second-hand, being taken from the Chronicles of London Bridge, _Family Library_, p. 436.; the authority is, however, there given. The passage refers to some parties engaged to refine the coinage, and who were taken ill, affected probably by the fumes of arsenic.

"---- the mooste of them in meltinge fell sycke to deathe, w^{th} the sauoure, so as they were advised to drynke in a dead man's skull for theyre recure. {113}

"Whereupon he w^{th} others who had thovergyght of that worke, procured a warrant from the Counsaile to take of the heades vppon London Bridge and make cuppes thereof, whereof they dranke and founde some reliefe, althoughe the moost of them dyed."

This is supposed to have been about 1560 or 1561.

THOMAS LAWRENCE.

Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

* * * * *

INEDITED POEM BY POPE.

(Vol. vii., p. 57.)

This, which is headed "Note," ought to have been headed _Query_: and it affords an instance of ignorance on the part of some of our correspondents; and of, I fear I must add, inattention on that of our worthy Editor, which I think it right to notice as a warning to all parties for the future: and I appeal to the candour of our Editor himself to give my protest a place.

The first step in this curious affair is to be found in "N. & Q.," Vol. ii., p. 7., where "_the Editor of Bishop Warburton's Literary Remains_" produced, as attributed to Mr. Charles Yorke, a kind of epitaph of sixteen lines, beginning--

"Stript to the naked soul, escaped from clay."

That the "editor of Bishop Warburton's _Literary Remains_," and his friend "an eminent critic," should have been at a loss to know where these well-known verses were to be found, and should have countenanced their having been Charles Yorke's, seems the more wonderful: for the verses are given in _Warburton's own letters_ as _Pope's_, and were printed near a hundred years ago in Ruffhead's _Life of Pope_, _as Pope's_; and in the MS. copy furnished by Mr. Yorke, they are marked as "Mr. Pope's."

The next error is, that this mention of Mr. Yorke's name--though his MS. bore the name of _Pope_--seems to have given rise to the idea that _he_ was the author, which Lord Campbell has so fully adopted as to have reprinted, in his _Lives of the Chancellors_ (vol. v. p. 428.), the verses as the composition of _Charles Yorke_.

We next find in "N. & Q.," Vol. iii., p. 43., a reply of W. S. to the Query of Warburton's editor, stating "that the verses were by _Pope_," and _lately_ republished in a miscellany by James Tayler, with a statement that they _were not inserted in any edition of Pope's works_. The fact being, that they have been inserted in Warton's edition, 1797; and in Bowles', and in all subsequent editions that I have seen: and it seems strange that W. S. did not take the trouble of verifying, by a reference to _any_ edition of Pope, the statement that he quoted.

Next we have, in the same (3rd) volume of "N. & Q.," a communication from MR. CROSSLEY, which states correctly all the foregoing circumstances, with the addition, that the verses appeared as _Aaron Hill's_ in an edition of his works as early as 1753. Thence arises another discussion; were they Pope's or Hill's? Roscoe thought they were Hill's; MR. CROSSLEY thinks they were Pope's. I think, both from external and internal evidence, that they were not Pope's. But that has little to do with my present object, which is to show how often the matter has been already discussed in "N. & Q." I must observe, however, that MR. CROSSLEY has fallen into a slight anachronism. He says that the verses were "transferred from Ruffhead into _Bowles'_ edition;" whereas they, as I have stated, were transferred into _Warton's_ many years earlier.

After all this disquisition comes a recent Number of "N. & Q.," of which a _column and a quarter_ is wasted by a correspondent A. T. W., who confesses that he (or she) has _not a modern edition of Pope within reach_, and begs to know whether these verses (repeated _in extenso_) "have been yet introduced to the public?"

Surely "N. & Q." should beware of correspondents that write to inquire about Pope, without having an edition of his works; and I cannot but wonder that this _crambe_, which had been served up thrice before, and so fully by MR. CROSSLEY, should have been _recocta_, and introduced as a new theme, entitled to a special attention.

C.

* * * * *

CIBBER'S "LIVES OF THE POETS."

(Vol. v., p. 161.)

Allow me to draw your attention to a _curious letter_ which I transcribe, with reference to the above. It appears to have escaped the notice of MR. CROKER, although it corroborates his statements. It was written by the bookseller himself who published the _Lives_, and would seem to set the matter as to their authorship completely at rest. Griffiths appears to have been also the editor of the _Monthly Review_; and Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, to whom the letter is addressed, to have been one of his contributors.

"MR. GRIFFITH to MR. CARTWRIGHT.

"Turnham Green, 16th June [1781?].

"Dear Sir,

"I have sent you a _feast_! Johnson's _new_ volumes of the _Lives of the Poets_. You will observe that Savage's _Life_ is one of the volumes. I suppose it is the same which he published about thirty years ago, and therefore you will not be obliged to notice it otherwise than in the course of enumeration. In the account of Hammond, my good friend Samuel has stumbled on a material circumstance in the publication of Cibber's _Lives of the Poets_. He intimates that Cibber never saw the work. This is a reflection on the bookseller, your humble servant. The bookseller {114} has now in his possession Theophilus Cibber's receipt for twenty guineas (Johnson says ten), in consideration of which he engaged to 'revise, correct, and improve the work, and also to affix his name in the title-page.' Mr. Cibber did accordingly very punctually revise every sheet; he made numerous corrections, and added many improvements: particularly in those lives which came down to his own times, and brought him within the circle of his own and his father's literary acquaintance, especially in the dramatic line. To the best of my recollection, he gave some entire lives, besides inserting abundance of paragraphs, of notes, anecdotes, and remarks, in those which were compiled by Shiells and other writers. I say _other_, because many of the best pieces of biography in that collection were not written by Shiells, but by superior hands. In short, the engagement of Cibber, or some other _Englishman_, to superintend what Shiells in particular should offer, was a measure absolutely necessary, not only to guard against his Scotticisms, and other defects of expression, but his virulent Jacobitism, which inclined him to abuse every Whig character that came in his way. This, indeed, he would have done; but Cibber (a stanch Williamite) opposed and prevented him, insomuch that a violent quarrel arose on the subject. By the way, it seems to me, that Shiell's Jacobitism has been the only circumstance that has procured him the regard of Mr. Johnson, and the favourable mention that he has made of Shiell's 'virtuous life and pious end'--expressions that must draw a smile from every one who knows, as I did, the real character of Robert Shiells. And now, what think you of noticing this matter in regard to truth, and the fair fame of the honest bookseller?"--_Memoir of the Life, Writings, and Mechanical Inventions of Edmund Cartwright, D.D., F.R.S._: Saunders & Otley.

W. L. NICHOLS.

Lansdown Place, Bath.

* * * * *

ENGLISH COMEDIANS IN THE NETHERLANDS.

(Vol. ii., pp. 184. 459.; Vol. iii., p. 21.)

From the following extract from the _Thes. Rek._ (Treasury Accounts) of Utrecht, it appears that English actors performed there:

"Schenkelwyn, 31 July, 1597. Sekere Engelsche Comedianten, voor hore speelen op ten Stadhuyse, 8 q. Fransche wyns."--(To certain English Comedians, for their playing at the town-hall, eight quarts of French wine.)

In the _Gerechtsdagboecken_ (Minutes of the Council) of Leyden appear several requests of English comedians to perform there in 1614; these I hope soon to have in hand. I can now give the decision of the Council on the request of the Englishman W. Pedel: