Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/410

 338

NOTES AND QUERIES, [lo* s. in. APRIL 29, iocs.

Act, by Charles Dickens." The writer of the article says that this play

"was produced at the St. James's Theatre in 1837. It was apparently printed in England about that time, but no copies of this early edition are now in existence, and the oldest edition known to col- lectors a year ago was one that was printed in Boston, U.S.A., in 1877. This recently discovered pamphlet is one of a hitherto unsuspected English edition printed in the early seventies [xj'c], and, being unique, it is naturally a great prize." There is, of course, in the above a clerical error. I have the authority of the author of the article (Mr. J. T. Herbert Baily) for saying that " printed in the early seventies " should in the late thirties.

According to 'The London Stage ...... from

1576 to 1888,' by H. Barton Baker, 1889, vol. ii. p. 145, 'Is She his Wife?' was pro- duced at the St. James's Theatre on 6 March, 1837, " but with only moderate success."

EGBERT PIEEPOINT.

BRIDGER'S HILL (10 th S. iii. 189). I find that Bridget 1 is an ancient county name, cha- racteristic of Hampshire and also of Sussex. Can any reader give the earliest record of the name in Hampshire? The earliest date I have is in 1599 (Petersfield district). F. P.

PILLION : FLAILS (10 th S. iii. 267). I well remember seeing threshers at work with flails in the forties, and there must be many readers of 'N. & Q." who have the same pleasant re- miniscence. ST. SWITHIN.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Conjat'x Crudities : Hastily gobbled up in five Moneths Travells, Ac. By Thomas Coryat. 1 vols. (Glasgow, MacLehose & Sons.) IF books have their destinies few can have experi- enced a fate stranger, or in a sense more per- verse, than that known as ' Coryat'a Crudities, 'a delightful reprint of which we owe to the enter- prise of Messrs. MacLehose. First issued in 1611, it found extreme difficulty in obtaining a publisher; nor was it without the interference of royalty in the person of Prince Henry, and literature in that of Ben Jonson, that it won its way to the light. The circumstances under which it appeared conspired to assign it a character to which it is not entitled. A useful, serious, scholarly, and trustworthy work, the result in part of a study of Scaliger and other authorities, and one of the earliest books of land travels, it is treated in some influential quarters as if it was a "marvel" of Marco Polo or a romance of Mandeville. By a freak of destiny it has become associated with the great records of Hakluyt and Purchas, and it is as a species of supplement to these that it is republished in its present attractive form. Add to this that it is now one of the very rarest of English works, of

which but a single copy is known to exist, and ifc will be seen that its fate has been strange. Coryate' own destiny seems scarcely less eccentric than that of his work. Encouraged by the success of his 'Crudities,' he set out the year following on an Eastern journey which, if successfully accom- plished, would presumably have enriched the world with a second book no less quaint and interesting than the first. He did, indeed, send home a few letters issued in 1616 with the title 'Thomas Coriate Traveller for the English Wits: Greeting From the Court of the Great Mogul, Resident at the Towne of Asmere in Easterne India.' A " very temperate man," he encountered a fate such as was ascribed to Shakespeare, but seems more appro- priate to Falstaif or Friar John of the Funnells. At Surat, where he was kindly used by some of the English, he was given sack which they had imported from England. "Sack, Sack," he cried, "Is there such a thing as Sack? I prajr give me some Sack." Drinking of it too heartily, he "increased his Flux which he had then upon him," and left under a small monument which was erected over him the indefatigable feet which had walked so many miles, and presumably the shoes, which had obtained a species of im- mortality of their own. Of the shoes, at least, in which ho walked from Venice to London a pic- ture, showing them strung together with laurel, appears among the illustrations of the first volume. Coryate can scarcely be said to have travelled i search of adventure. He is not a very close observer, and says little concerning what occurred by the way,, niakes few comments upon humanity generally, and is most interested in the monuments he sees, the mottoes he copies, and the learned men with whom he converses. The tongue he employs with the last named is ordinarily Latin ; but Greek is no less available for purposes of conversation, though the opportunities for indulging in it are naturally few. His book is, indeed, written principally in the style of a guide-book of Murray, Baedeker, or Joanne. When he reaches Venice, where he spends most of his time and indulges in his strongest raptures, he is more discursive. On the history and the archi- tecture of the place he expands. He gives admirable advice to future travellers concerning the ways of the gondoliers, who, when they meet a stranger ignorant of their language, judge for them- selves where he ought to go, and deposit hin> among gentry from whom he does not escape, except at the cost of a deplenished purse. He has much to say concerning mercenary fair ones, a commodity for which Venice had long been renowned ; and though he proffers much good counsel he sets no good example, since a plate shows him impetuous in accost of one of these resplendent and dangerous lures. By primitive proceedings which could be witnessed at certain Swiss baths he is a little amused and much shocked ; he seems impressed by the costume of the maids of Zurich, with two " plaited rowles of haire over their shoulders, wherein are twisted ribbons of divers colours at the endes," and he observes, as surely Englishmen have since done, many of the women " to be as beautifull and faire as any I saw in all my travels ; but I will not attribute so much to them as to compare them with. our English women, whom I justly preferre, and that without any partialitie of affection, before any women that I saw in my travels, for an elegant and most attractive natural beautie." We have read