Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/587

 io" s. iv. DEC. 16.1905.) NOTES AND QUERIES. 485 a new title. Dyce gives in full the title of another tract, ' Mihil Mumchance His Dis- coverie of the Art of Cheating in false Dyse Play,' with a list of fourteen sorts of false dice. I have not seen it. It is another of those attributed to Greene, who perhaps refers to it at the beginning of his'Art of Coney-catching' (1591). If so, it would pre- cede Greene's series. The word " coney- catching" does not appear upon its title. Greene says :— "Pardon me, Gentlemen, for although no man could better then myself discover this lawe and his tearmes, and the name of their Cheats, Barddice, Flats, Forgers, Langreta, Gourds, Demies, and man; other, with their nature, & the crosses and contraries to them upon advantage, yet for some special! reasons, herein I will be silent." All these terms (except "Forgers") are part of Mihil Mumchance's title, and several of them are not used again by Greene, or occur only in 'The Defence of Conny- catching,' which is not by Greene. Were these " speciall reasons'' that he knew he was about to be anticipated by another writer? A dated copy of ' Mihil Mumchance' in Malone's collection is, according to Lowndes, of 1597. Having mentioned these few pieces, I wish to call attention to Dekker's piracy in ' The Bellman of London,' 1608. Dekker was a craftsmaster at this gentle art. His un- acknowledged appropriations of Harman's ' Caveat' at the beginning of his ' Lanthorne and Candle-Light,' 1609, have often been noticed. The end-parts of that tract seem to me wholly unreal, a sort of parody on the genuine article, with all the rubbish about Falconers, Woodpeckers, Lures and Eagles, &c. I doubt if it represents any real state of affairs, or has any corroboration except in the faintest way. But to return to 'The Bellman.' It should be divided into two parts, the first ending at the dismissal of the old beldam on p. 112 (pp. 62-112 Grosart's 'Dekker,' iii.). This much is wholly from Harman, often verbatim, with the exception of a little aid from Awdely apparently (•' Irish Toye," ''heaving the booth," "swigman"). The second part would begin at p. 116, after some intervening chatter. We have first an exact reprint (misprints oxcepted) of Mihil Mumchance's list of false dice, fourteen all told. What follows for eight pages is safe to be purloined from that tract. Then we come to Greene at "of Barnards Law " (Greene, _x. 38), with chance alterations such as a mention of the ' Comedy of Wily-Beguily.' Pp. 128, 129, are Greene x. 10, 11, mainly. Pp. 132-5 are Greene x. 82, 83, 85, a little jumbled, but in the main word for word. Pp. 137-8 are Greene x. 128, 129, 122, 123. Pp. 141-4 are Greene 87, 75, 76, 77. P. 146 is Greene x. 118. And so on, with much jumping about and trifling changes. One caught my eye. At p. 151 Dekker has "The theefe that commits the Eobbery (and is cheife clerke to Saint Nicholas) is called the High Lawyer." This is Greene x. 37, but the bracketed words ar& not Greene's, and are an interesting corrobo- ration of Shakespeare's use, ' 1 Henry IV., II. i. 68, 71, being the earliest. Sometimes* one of these two corrects the misreadings of the other (" Scripper," " Banker,"&c.). Pp. 156- 157 are Greene x. 107, 106. We come then to bits from ' The Defence of Conny-catching (Greene, but not by Greene), xi. 43, on p. 161 in ' The Bellman.' On p. 163 of Dekker is a scrap of Greene's ' Quip' (xi. 289). On p. 164 we are back to ' The Defence' (xi. 77). But these pages about 'Leap-frog,' 161 to 169 (the end), seem to be Dekker's own work and of no reality. Sixty years later, Head, in ' The English Rogue' (Part II., chap, xv.), gives all these "Ordersand Degrees of the Canting Beggars from Dekker's 'Bellman,1 as though they were his own discovery. Probably they were extinct when he found them out. H. C. HART. (To be continued.) TRAFALGAR: LAST SURVIVOR.—The follow- ing appeared in The Daily Tdvjraph of 17 October:— SIR,—With regard to the centenary of the battle of Trafalgar, it may be interesting to note who were the last British survivors of that great event. It i& curious—in view of the considerable discussion as to who was the last survivor of Waterloo—that no doubt appears to exist as to the last survivor of This honour belongs to Lieut.-Col. James Fyn- more, K.M., who died April 15, 1887. aged ninety- three, and who therefore survived the battle just eighty-two years. He entered the navy in 180d? being present at Trafalgar as signal-midshipman of the Africa, which vessel was so severely knocked about in her engagement with the Spanish admiral s ship (the Santissima Trinidad) that she nearly foundered in the great storm that followed the battle, and was only saved by ^lie buoyancy of her cargo. In 1808 he joined the Marines, and retired, in 1848 after forty-five years' service. The last six survivors (among officers) who diecc previous to Col. Fyntnore were the following :— 1. Vice-Admiral Spencer Smyth, died April 3, 1879, aged 87. Midshipman on the Defiance. 2. Admiral William Ward Percival Johnson, died Dec. 26, 1880, aged 90. A guest on the Victory; attached to the Childers. 3. Commander William Vicary, died March 21, 1882, aged 89. First-class Volunteer on the, Achilles.