Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/423

 io S.V.MAY 5, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

347

farmer about his new vicar, and the reply was, "He's a shocking good man." The verdict on another clergyman (of the " goody-

foody" type) was, ''He's pious pitiful." hree years ago we had an alarming gale one night ; in the morning I met the milkman, from the country. I remarked that it had been a wild night ; his only answer was, " Awful altogether ! " The next man I met described it in one word "scandalous !"

ERNEST B. SAVAGE, F.S.A. S. Thomas', Douglas.

SIXTEEN BISHOPS CONSECRATED AT ONE TIME. The consecration by the Pope on 25 February of sixteen French priests to the episcopate is an event unparalleled, I believe, in the history of the Church. I cannot find that even after the French Revolution so many were consecrated at one time. It is interesting to note that, instead of being carried in to St. Peter's,. as is customary in great ceremonials, the Pope walked in, wear- ing the usual white cassock, and without the tiara. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

WOOD-PIGEON'S LAMENT. A wood-pigeon's call is the same everywhere, but the transla- tions differ considerably. One of them is somewhat peculiar, hence the heading of this note. The "coos" are resolved into

What shall I do?

Other birds lay five eggs ;

Poor me only two !

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

CHAPMAN'S 'ALL FOOLS.' In preparing an edition of Chapman's * All Fools ' and * The Gentleman Usher ' for Heath & Co., of Boston, I have become interested in the question of the authenticity of the dedi- cation of the former play to Sir Thomas Walsingham.

This dedication, a sonnet in the Shake- spearian form, does not appear in any old copy that I have been able to see, viz., those in the Edinburgh University Library, Advocates' Library, British Museum, Bod- leian, and Victoria and Albert Museum. Nor is it found in the Duke of Devonshire's copy at Chatsworth.

The first reprint of 'All Fools' (Dodsley's 'Old Plays,' 1780) did not contain this dedi-

cation. The second reprint (' Select Collection of 'Old Plays,' ed. by J. P. Collier, 1825) contains it, with the following note by the editor :

" This dedication by Chapman to his patron is now for the first time inserted, the copies of ' All Fools' seen and used by Mr. Reed [i.e., the editor of the 1780 Dodsley] being without it. Whether it was inserted in a few impressions in 1605 and afterwards cancelled does not appear, though it seems probable that it was so, because in the dedi- cation of his 'Byrons Conspiracy and Tragedy/ 1608, to the same distinguished individual, Chap- man apologizes for previous neglect and seeming ingratitude to his patron, 'in dispensing with his right in his other impressions.' It was found in a copy in the possession of Mr. Rodd, of Great Newport Street."

This copy seems afterwards to have come into Collier's own possession, for a MS. note in Dyce's hand in the copy now in the Victoria and Albert Museum says :

" The Dedication to Walsingham is found only in a single copy of this play which belongs to Mr. Collier. He reprinted twelve copies of that Dedi- cation, and one of them is inserted here."

Had we no other testimony to the authen- ticity of the dedication than Collier's state- ment, we might be inclined to look upon it as one of the "mystifications" of that in- genious scholar. And this view is apparently supported by the inconsistency of Cojlier's own statements in re the dedication in his two editions of ' The History of Dramatic Poetry.' In 1831 he says (iii. 393) Chapman's dedication of his 'All Fools,' 1605, > " seems to have been cancelled in many copies." In 1879 he speaks of it (iii. 74) as "a sonnet prefixed to only a few copies"; but later (iii. 196) he says it "seems to have been cancelled in all extant copies." This is an extraordinary remark if he had himself possessed a 1605 quarto containing an undoubted copy of the dedication.

It has been suggested to me by Mr. T. J. Wise that the sonnet may be a genuine poem by Chapman wrongly bound up in a copy of 'All Fools,' with which it had no connexion (there is no mention of the play by name in the sonnet). This could be determined, I suppose, by an investigation of the Collier quarto. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt informs me that Collier's copy did contain the dedication, and that it was sold with the library of Mr. Ouvry at Sotheby's.

In Sotheby's catalogue of the sale of the library of Frederic Ouvry, 30 March, 1882, Lot 254 is " 9. Chapman's Al Fooles, a comedy : with the Dedicatory Sonnet to Sir T. Wal- singham, T. Thorpe, quarto. 1605." This copy was sold for \l. 12s. to " Robson "initials not given, or at least not known to me.