Notes and Queries, Number 14, February 2, 1850

Notes and Queries, Number 14,
February 2, 1850

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February
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Title: Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 A Medium
Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries,
Genealogists, Etc.
Author: Various
Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #13558]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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QUERIES, NO. 14. ***

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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN,
ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
* * * * *

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
* * * * *
No. 14.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1850 [Price Threepence.
Stamped Edition 4d.
* * * * * {209}
CONTENTS
NOTES: Reprints of Old Books, by J.P. Collier. 209 Catacombs and
Bone-houses. 210 Lines attributed to Hudibras. 210 Notes from
Fly-leaves, No. 5. 211 The Pursuits of Literature. 212
QUERIES:-- Barryana. 212 Nine Queries by the Rev. J. Jebb. 212
Minor Queries:--Mowbray Coheirs--Draytone and Yong--Fraternity of
Christian Doctrine--Treatise by Engelbert--New Year's Day
Custom--Under the Rose--Norman Pedigrees--Dr. Johnson's
Library--Golden Frog--Singular Motto--Sir Stephen Fox--Antony
Alsop--Derivation of Calamity, &c. 213
REPLIES:-- Field of Forty Footsteps, by E.F. Rimbault. 217 Queries
answered, No. 4.--Pokership, by Bolton Corney. 218 Mertens the
Printer. 218 Etymology of Armagh. 218 Matters of the Revels, by E.F.
Rimbault. 219 Replies to Minor Queries:--Red Maids--Poetical
Symbolism--Fraternitye of Vagabondes--Anonymous Ravennas--Dick
Shore--Travelling in England--Sanuto--Darnley's Birth-place--History
of Edward II., &c. 219
MISCELLANIES:--Gray's Elegy--Shylock--Sonnet--The Devotee--By
Hook or by Crook--Macaulay's Young Levite--Praise
undeserved--Cowper's "Task". 221
MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 223
Books and Odd Volumes wanted. 223 Notices to Correspondents. 223
Advertisements. 224
* * * * *
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN REPRINTS OF OLD BOOKS
Most people are aware of the great demand there is for English
literature, and indeed for all literature in the United States: for some
years the anxiety of persons in that part of the world to obtain copies of
our early printed books, prose, poetry, and plays, has been well known
to such as collect and sell them on this side of the water. Where
American purchasers could not obtain original editions they have, in all
possible cases, secured reprints, and they have made some themselves.

Not very long since a present of a most creditable and well-edited
republication of "Four Old Plays" was sent to me from Cambridge,
U.S., consisting of "Three Interludes: _Thersytes_, _Jack Jugler_, and
Heywood's _Pardoner and Frere_; and _Jocasta_, a tragedy by
Gascoigne and Kinwelmarsh." They are preceded by a very well
written and intelligent, and at the same time modest, Introduction,
signed F.J.C., the initials of Mr. Francis James Child; who in fact was
kind enough to forward the volume to me, and who, if I am not
mistaken, was formerly a correspondent of mine in a different part of
the republic.
My particular reason for noticing the book is to impress upon editors in
this country the necessity of accuracy, not only for the sake of readers
and critics here, but for the sake of those abroad, because Mr. Child's
work illustrates especially the disadvantage of the want of that accuracy.
It so happens that two, if not three, of the pieces included in the
Cambridge volume, are absolutely unique, and are now in the library of
the Duke of Devonshire. They went through my hands some years ago,
and as they had been previously reprinted in London (two of them for
the Roxburghe Club), I took the opportunity of collating my copies of
them. The third interlude, which was not reprinted for any society, but
as a private speculation, "by George Smeeton, in St. Martin's
Church-yard," is Heywood's _Pardoner and Frere_, the full title of
which is "_A mery playe betwene the pardoner, and the frere, the curate
and neybour Pratte_." The original copy has the following imprint:
"Imprynted by Wyllyam Rastell the v. day of Apryll, the yere of our
lorde, M. CCCCC. xxx III."
The reprint by Smeeton is in black letter, and it professes to be a
fac-simile, or as nearly so as possible; and although it consists of only
eight leaves, it contains no fewer than forty variations from the original,
all more or less important, and one of them the total omission of a line,
so that the preceding line is left without its corresponding rhyme, and
the sense materially injured.
Unfortunately, Mr. Child reprinted in America from this