Notes and Queries, Number 48, September 28, 1850 | Page 8

pagination of their own, entitled, "Not? MSS. et Accessiones Anonymi ad Cavei Historiam Literariam, Codicis Margini adscript?, in Bibliotheca Lambethana. Manus est plane Reverendiss. _Thom? Tenison_, Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi." Not to occupy more of your valuable space than is necessary, I will merely observe that the "Anonymus" was not Archbishop Tenison, but Henry Wharton. There can be no doubt in the mind of any person acquainted with the handwriting of the parties; and to those to whom such a notice is likely to be of any use at all, it is unnecessary to say that the difference is important. I need scarcely add, that if ever a new edition is undertaken, Wharton's books and papers, and other things in the Lambeth collection of MSS., should be examined.
S.R. MAITLAND.
_Cave's Historia Literaria_ (Vol ii., p. 230.).--
1. London, 1688-1698, 2 vols. folio. This was the first edition. A curious letter from Cave to Abp. Tenison respecting the assistance which H. Wharton furnished to this work is printed in Chalmers' _Biog. Dict._, vol. xxxi. p. 343.
2. Geneva, 1693, folio.
3. ------, 1694, folio.
4. ------, 1705, folio.
5. Coloni? Allobrogum, 1720, folio.
6. Oxon. 1740-43, 2 vols. folio. Dr. Waterland rendered important aid in bringing out this edition, which Bp. Marsh pronounces "the best." It seems from some letters of Waterland's to John Loveday, Esq. (works by Van Mildert, 1843, vol. vi. p. 423-436.), that Chapman, a petty canon of Windsor, was the editor.
7. Basil, 1741-5, 2 vols. folio. This is said to be an exact reprint from the Oxford edition.
Watt and Dr. Clarke mention an edition, 1749, 2 vols. folio; but I cannot trace any copy of such edition.
JOHN I. DREDGE.
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SIR GAMMER VANS.
In reply to C.'s inquiry (Vol. ii., p. 89.) as to a comic story about one _Sir Gammer Vans_, I have pleasure in communicating what little information I have on the subject. Some years ago, when I was quite a boy, the story was told me by an Irish clergyman, since deceased. He spoke of it as an old Irish tradition, but did not give his authority for saying so. The story, as he gave it, contained no allusion to an "aunt" or "mother." I do not know whether it will be worthy of publication: but here it is, and you can make what use of it you like:--
"Last Sunday morning at six o'clock in the evening, as I was sailing over the tops of the mountains in my little boat, I met two men on horseback riding on one mare: so I asked them 'Could they tell me whether the little old woman was dead yet, who was hanged last Saturday week for drowning herself in a shower of feathers?' They said they could not positively inform me, but if I went to Sir Gammar Vans he could tell me all about it. 'But how am I to know the house?' said I. 'Ho, 'tis easy enough,' said they, 'for it's a brick house, built entirely of flints, standing alone by itself in the middle of sixty or seventy others just like it.' 'Oh, nothing in the world is easier,' said I. 'Nothing can be easier,' said they: so I went on my way. Now this Sir G. Vans was a giant, and bottlemaker. And as all giants, who are bottlemakers, usually pop out of a little thumb bottle from behind the door, so did Sir G. Vans. 'How d'ye do?' says he. 'Very well, thank you,' says I. 'Have some breakfast with me?' 'With all my heart,' says I. So he gave me a slice of beer, and a cup of cold veal; and there was a little dog under the table that picked up all the crumbs. 'Hang him,' says I. 'No, don't hang him,' says he; 'for he killed a hare yesterday. And if you don't believe me, I'll show you the hare alive in a basket.' So he took me into his garden to show me the curiosities. In one corner there was a fox hatching eagle's eggs; in another there was an iron apple tree, entirely covered with pears and lead; in the third there was the hare which the dog killed yesterday alive in the basket; and in the fourth there were twenty-four hipper switches threshing tobacco, and at the sight of me they threshed so hard that they drove the plug through the wall, and through a little dog that was passing by on the other side. I, hearing the dog howl, jumped over the wall; and turned it as neatly inside out as possible, when it ran away as if it had not an hour to live. Then he took me into the park to show me his deer: and I remembered that I had a warrant in my pocket to shoot