Notes and Queries, Number 25, April 20, 1850 | Page 4

the 10th instant, at the Vendu in Charles Street, Covent Garden."--Ibid. March 6. 1691.
In 1693 was published _Thesaurus Musicus_, being a Collection of the "Newest Songs performed at their Majesties' Theatres, and at the Consorts in Villier Street, in York Buildings, and in _Charles Street, Covent Garden_."
In the proposals for the establishment of a Royal Academy in 1720, the subscription books are advertised as being open, amongst other places, "at the Musick Room in Charles Street, Covent Garden."
_Coleman's Music House._--A house of entertainment, with a large and well planted garden, known as "Coleman's Musick House," was offered for sale in 1682. It was situated near _Lamb's Conduit_, and was demolished upon the building of Ormond Street.
_White Conduit House._--The old tavern of this name was erected in the reign of Charles I. The workmen are said to have been regaling themselves upon the completion of the building, at the instant the king was beheaded at Whitehall. {396}
_Goodman's Field Wells._--A place of entertainment established after the suppression of the theatre in this locality in 1735.
_Bride Lane, St. Bride's._--The first meetings of the Madrigal Society (established in 1741) were held at a public-house in this lane, called "The Twelve Bells."
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
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POPE'S REVISION OF SPENCE'S ESSAY ON THE ODYSSEY.
Spence's almost idolatrous admiration of, and devotion to, Pope, is evident from the pains he took to preserve every little anecdote of him that he could elicit from conversation with him, or with those who knew him. Unfortunately, he had not Boswell's address and talent for recording gossip, or the Anecdotes would have been a much more racy book. Spence was certainly an amiable, but I think a very weak man; and it appears to me that his learning has been overrated. He might indeed have been well designated as "a fiddle-faddle bit of sterling."
I have the original MS. of the two last Dialogues of the Essay on the Odyssey as written by Spence, and on the first page is the following note:--"The two last Evenings corrected by Mr. Pope." On a blank page at the end, Spence has again written:--"MS. of the two last Evenings corrected with Mr. Pope's own hand, w'ch serv'd y'e Press, and is so mark'd as usual by Litchfield."
This will elucidate Malone's note in his copy of the book, which Mr. Bolton Corney has transcribed. I think the first three dialogues were published in a little volume before Spence became acquainted with Pope, and perhaps led to that acquaintance. Their intercourse afterwards might supply some capital illustrations for a new edition of Mr. Corney's curious chapter on _Camaraderie Littéraire_. The MS. copy of Spence's Essay bears frequent marks of Pope's correcting hand by erasure and interlineary correction, silently made. I transcribe the few passages where the poet's revision of his critic are accompanied by remarks.
In Evening the Fourth, Spence had written:--"It may be inquired, too, how far this translation may make a wrong use of terms borrowed from the arts and sciences, &c. [The instances are thus pointed out.] As where we read of a ship's crew, Od. 3. 548. The longitude, Od. 19. 350. Doubling the Cape, Od. 9. 90. Of Architraves, Colonnades, and the like, Od. 3. 516." Pope has erased this and the references, and says:--"_These are great faults; pray don't point 'em out, but spare your servant_."
At p. 16. Spence had written:--"Yellow is a proper epithet of fruit; but not of fruit that we say at the same time is ripening into gold." Upon which Pope observes:--"I think yellow may be s'd to ripen into gold, as gold is a deeper, fuller colour than yellow." Again: "What is proper in one language, may not be so in another. Were Homer to call the sea a thousand times by the title of [Greek: porphureos], 'purple deeps' would not sound well in English. The reason's evident: the word 'purple' among us is confined to one colour, and that not very applicable to the deep. Was any one to translate the purpureis oloribus of Horace, 'purple swans' would not be so literal as to miss the sense of the author entirely." Upon which Pope has remarked:--"The sea is actually of a deep purple in many places, and in many views."
Upon a passage in Spence's _Criticism_, at p. 45., Pope says:--"I think this too nice." And the couplet objected to by Spence--
"Deep in my soul the trust shall lodge secur'd, With ribs of steel, and marble heart immur'd,"
he pronounced "very bad." And of some tumid metaphors he says, "All too forced and over-charged."
At p. 51. Spence says:--"Does it not sound mean to talk of lopping a man? of lopping away all his posterity? or of trimming him with brazen sheers? Is there not something mean, where a goddess is represented as beck'ning and waving her deathless