Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/66

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JAN. IG, im

Broadgates Hall" (Pembroke College), Oxon {1515 ?-1638) ? He certainly left two sons.

A. R. BAYLEY.

.REV. MR. POWER or EASTHAMPSTEAD, BERKS. What was the end of the lawsuit in which he was involved in 1723 ?

JOHN - HAUTENVILLE-COPE.

18, Harrington Court, S.W.

. " GREAT UNPAID." When and where were Justices of the Peace so described first ?

t ., j ' j ', MEDICtTLtTS. ^

" PUDWORM." This is stated in the (American) ' Century Dictionary ' to be a "' local English " name of the piddock or Pholas dactylus, the shell-fish which bores into wood, chalk, and even rock. The word is not in the ' English Dialect Dictionary,' nor apparently in any of the publications of the Dialect Society. Can any one inform us of its use anywhere on the English coast ? The piddock is common everywhere.

J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

THE LONGMANS.

(10 S. xi. 2.)

THE date of the publication of the first two volumes of Macaulay's ' England ' should have been November, 1848. It was on the 29th of that month that he found copies on his table, and he records in his diary : " I read my book and Thucydides's, which I am sorry to say I found much better than mine " (Trevelyan's ' Life '). The volumes were reviewed in The Athenceum on Decem- ber 9th, 16th, and 23rd. Macaulay, in his modesty, had " never dreamed " 'of the immediate success of his ' History.' Three thousand copies were sold in ten days, and Black said there had been no such sale since the days of ' Waverley.' Macaulay now thought, "though with some mis- givings, that the book will live:" His delight was great when he went to Clapham and found the family reading his book again: "How happy their praise made me, and how little by comparison I care for any other praise ! " On the 27th of January in the new year he went into the City to discuss the matter with William Longman and Bevis Ellerby Green, father of the present senior partner, Mr. Green, and was surprised to find that the publishers were confident that "thirteen thousand copies would be taken off in less than six

months." The third and fourth volumes were issued in December, 1855, when The Athenceum devoted twenty-seven columns to the work, the articles appearing on the 22nd and 29th. It was these two .volumes which produced the celebrated cheque for 20,000*.

Macaulay, as will be remembered, lived only four short years after this. He died on the 28th of December, 1859, suddenly. His nephew records that he and his mother

found him in his library, and dressed as usual, with his book on his table beside him, still open at the same page."

Although Macaulay died on the Wednes- day at Campden Hill, his death was not known in London until the Friday. The news reached The Times office while the paper was at press, and when a large number had been printed. The machines were at once stopped, and a small paragraph in- serted announcing the death of the great historian. This was in the copy we had at Wellington Street. My father at once sent me off to Hep worth Dixon at St. John's Wood. When I told him he could hardly believe it, as it was not in his copy. There was only time to insert a short notice in The Athenceum of the 31st, the obituary not appearing until the 7th of January.

It was my privilege to be among those who followed him to his grave in Poets' Corner on Monday, the 9th.

The history of the Longmans and the great services of the firm to literature has yet to be written. I believe they were the first to publish a huge catalogue of English books long before that of Henry Bohn. In 1817 they had shown their generosity to Moore by paying him 3,OOOZ. on the day of the publication of ' Lalla Rookh.' To Thomas Longman, who died in his seventy- fifth year on the 30th of August, 1879, we are indebted for the beautiful illustrated edition of the New Testament, which was the hobby of his life, and which The Athenceum described as " standing by itself as a speci- men of illustration on wood."

" No time, labour, or expense was spared to make it successful. His object was to produce in black and white the effect produced in colour in the old illuminated MSS."

Another member of the firm, William Longman, who died on the 18th of August, 1877, is remembered by his lectures on the history of England down to the reign of Edward III. as well as. a life of that monarch. He also wrote a monograph on the three cathedrals dedicated to St. Paul in London.