Notes and Queries, Number 50, October 12, 1850 | Page 6

the trouble to point out sources of information on the subject of this Query.
W.H.F.
Kirkwall
_Swift's Works._--In Wilde's _Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life_ (2d edit. p. 78.) is mentioned an autograph letter from Sir Walter Scott to C.G. Gavelin, Esq., of Dublin, in the MS. library. T.C.D., in which he states he had nothing whatever to do with the publication or revision of the second edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift. This does not agree with the statement given in Mr. Lockhart's _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, 2d edit. vol. vii. p. 215. Who was the editor, and in what does the second edition differ from the first?
W.H.F.
"Pride of the Morning."--Why is the small rain which falls in the morning, at some seasons of the year, called "the pride of the morning?"
P.H.F.
_Bishop Durdent and the Staffordshire Historians._--It is stated by Sampson Erdeswich, Esq., in his _Survey of Staffordshire_, p. 164, 12mo. 1717, that--
"Not far from Tame, Roger Durdent held Fisherwicke of the bishop, 24 Ed. I. And 4 Ed. II. Nicholas Durdent was lord of it, which I suppose was procured to some of his ancestors of the same name by their kinsman Walter Durdent, Bishop of Litchfield, in Henry II.'s time."
but no authority is given for this statement.
In Shaw's _History of Staffordshire_, p. 365., fol., 1798, it is further recorded that--
"Walter Durdent, in the beginning of Henry II., appears to have granted it (Fisherwicke) to some of his relations, for we find William Durdent of Fisherwicke temp. Henry II.; and in the 40th of Hen. III. Roger Durdent occurs, who held Fisherwicke of the bishop, 24 Ed. I. In the 4 Ed. II. Nicholas Durdent was lord of it."
Shaw refers to Erdeswick, and to the _Annals of Burton Abbey_, p. 364.
In Dr. Harwood's edition of Erdeswick, 8vo., 1844, the same statements are repeated, but no authority is adduced. Could any of your correspondents obligingly furnish me with the original {310} sources of information to which Erdeswick had access, and also with any biographical notices of Bishop Durdent besides those which are recorded in Godwin and Shaw? The bishop had the privilege of coining money. (See Shaw's _Staffordshire_, pp. 233. 265.) Are any of his coins known to numismatists?
F.R.R.
_Pope and Bishop Burgess._--To what passage in Pope's writings does the conclusion of the following extract refer?[1]
"Digammatic? doctrin? idem accidit. In his Popius eam in ludibrium vertit, &c. Sed eximius Poeta neque in veteribus su? ipsius lingu?, nedum Gr?c? monumentis versatus, tantum scilicet de antiqua illa litera vidit, quantum de Shakespearii SAGITTARIO."
W.W.
[Footnote 1: 3d ed. of Dawes's _Mis. Critic_, p. xviii, note x.]
_Daniel's Irish New Testament._--F.G.X. will be much obliged for information on the following points:--
1. Which is the most correct edition, as to printing and orthography, of Daniel's Irish New Testament?
2. Does the edition now on sale by the Bible Society bear the character for incorrectness as to these points, which, judged by itself, it appears to deserve, or is it really, though "bad, the best?"
3. F.G.X. is far advanced with an Irish Testament Concordance. Can any one possessed of the requisite information give him hope of the acceptableness of such a publication? He should expect it to be chiefly useful to clerical Irish students in acquiring a knowledge of words and construction; but the lists of Irish Bibles disposed of of late years would lead to the supposition of its being desirable also as pointing out the place of passages to the native reader.
4. Does the Cambridge University Library contain a copy of the first edition of Daniel's translation?
_Ale Draper--Eugene Aram._--In Hargrove's well-known history of Eugene Aram, the hero of Bulwer's still better known novel, one of the guilty associates of the Knaresborough murderer is designated as an "Ale Draper." As this epithet never presented itself in my reading, and as I am not aware that draper properly admits of any other definition than that given by Johnson, "one who deals in cloth," may I ask whether the word was ever in "good use" in the above sense?
My main purpose in writing, is to propound the foregoing Query; but while I have the pen in hand permit me to ask,--
1. Whether it be possible to read the celebrated "defence," so called, which was delivered by Aram on his trial at York, without concurring with the jury in their verdict, and with the judge in his sentence? In short, without a strong feeling that the prisoner would not have been hanged, but for that over-ingenious, and obviously evasive, address, in which the plain averment of "not guilty" does not occur.
2. Has not the literary character, especially the philological attainments, of this noted malefactor been vastly over-rated? And
3. Ought not the "memoirs" of "this great man" by Mr. Scatcherd to be ranked among the most remarkable attempts ever made, and surely made
"--in