Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/489

 10 S. XL MAY 22, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

401

LONDON, SATURDAY, KAY ..'>, 1009.

CONTENTS. No. 282.

NOTES :- Emendations in English Books, 401 Dibdin Bibliography, 402 Hanging Alive in Chains, 404 Castor Oil Coleridge as an Art-Critic "Skim the Sea," 406- Halley and Pyke Families London Shop Fronts- Elizabethan Library Woman Burnt for Poisoning, 407.

QUERIES :-Musters in Devonshire : Tinners, 408 Har- bours Struan Robertson Crest of Ostrich Feathers with Eagle Sir Henry Morgan the Buccaneer Ety- mology of Copernicus Rev. John Hutchins, 409 The Farmers of Aylesbury " Une S<5vigne" Abdul the Damned " Seven and nine" Dean Richard Meredith- Major John Montresor Charles L's Trial Richard Jeff eries Club Chateaubriand on Shakespeare Murdered Waiter charged in the Bill 'If I Only Knew' Sir Thomas Browne : Anne Townshend, 410 Comte de Morangie's " Tents " in Enumeration, 411.

REPLIES : Peter de Montfort, 411 Rear-Admiral Keeler Roman Legions Polhill Family" Watchet," 412 Masburensis : its Identity Hare forecasting Fire Dead Animals exposed on Trees, 413 Pimlico : Eyebright, 414 Tuesday Night's Club : Mrs. Cornelys Field Memorials M Sportsmen " Marylebone," 415 J. Bew, Bookseller Alexander Pennecnik and the Louvre" Comether," 416 "Shibboleth" "Stick to your tut "Marie Antoinette's Death Mask, 417 Ships' Periodicals" To Peipon " Spanish Stories in Irish "High Life " in Modern Greek "Abracadabra" Collar of SS. Ireland T. Truman, Bookseller "Scroyles," 418.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Francis Thompson's 'Shelley' ' The Cambridge History of English Literature,' Vol. IIL Leland's ' Itinerary," Vol. IV.

Notices to Correspondents.

EMENDATIONS IN ENGLISH BOOKS.

DR. ALDIS WKIGHT says in his Preface to his edition of the ' Poetical Works of John Milton' (1903):

" After a considerable experience I feel justified in saying that in most cases ignorance and conceit are the fruitful parents of conjectural emenda- tion."

It is a sad saying, but one which students of the Greek and Latin classics, at any rate, will not be inclined to dispute. But, after all the labours of press " readers " and authors, there remains a minimum of error in books which conjecture in the style suggested by classical erudition may some- times remove. I have come across some interesting instances of such corrections in Mr. Herbert Richards's collection of learned adversaria entitled ' Notes on Xenophon -and Others ' (1907).

Under ' Words Repeated or Anticipated ' (p. 309), as a source of error, Mr. Rich rds notes the following English examples in Johnson's ' Lives,' adding that " they not only found their way into print, but have not, so far as I know, been pointed out all

these years." He gives his emendations in parentheses. I add the reference to the page in Birkbeck Hill's three-volume anno- tated edition of the ' Lives ' (1905).

Johnson says in his ' Waller ' (i. 293) :

" He use* the expletive ' do ' very frequently ;

and, though he used (lived ?) to see it almost

universally ejected, was not more careful to

avoid it in his last compositions than in his first."

Johnson says in his ' Thomson ' (iii. 289) : " At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty (safety ?), which was not in danger."

In ' Shenstone ' Jolmson says (iii. 358) of the poet's ' Love and Honour ' :

" I wish (like ?) it well enough to wish it were in rhyme."

As to these instances, I note that the first has been corrected, as Mr. Richards suggested, in Birkbeck Hill's edition. The second and third stand unaltered, and I am not sure that they are wrong. Surely " wish " is used in two slightly different senses in the first case, as if the ballad were a person.

On the same page (309) Mr. Richards says :

" In spite of the care that Pater took with his books I do not see how otherwise [than by the same error] to explain ' Marius the Epicurean,' i. 216 : ' Yet rumour knocked at every door and window of the imperial house regarding the adulterers who knocked at them, or quietly left their lovers' garlands there.' "

I see nothing faulty in this repetition here ; indeed, it seems forcible and intended.

Then follows a comment on Keats's ' Ode on a Grecian Urn,' regarding " What little town .... is emptied of this folk this pious morn ? "

" Palgrave says ' its (folk) has been here plausibly but perhaps unnecessarily conjectured.' Its is better in itself, and Keats was too good an artist to have this twice in three words."

Here I am in full agreement with Mr. Richards, especially as it is known that Keats's text shows signs of haste and carelessness in writing. Mr. Buxton Forman, the best authority on the subject, says in his ' Complete Keats,' vol. ii. (Go wans & Gray, 1901, pp. 104-5), that there is no MS. or early text authority for " its," which does not appear to have been printed till 1840.

An amusing instance of the interchange of two words is mentioned by Mr. Richards on p. 305 :

" In Minto's ' Literature of the Georgian Era p. 253, may be found the ludicrous phrase . . . . ' would not drink tea with his sugar.' "