Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/420

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vra. NOV. 2, 1907.

"both Punch and Thomas Hood, whose claims are not irreconcilable. The credit has also been claimed for Michael John Barry, who was regarded in his day as one of Jerrold's peers in wit.

From this it would appear that the authorship of the couplet is quite uncertain. But there is nothing in Mr. Spielmann's Temarks to contradict the categorical state- ment of Mrs. C. Mackintosh that Miss C. Wink worth sent up to Punch the joke " ' Peccavi,' I have Sindh," and that Mr. Punch acknowledged the same by a cheque. A. L. MAYHEW.

Oxford.

DRYDEN'S ' ALEXANDER'S FEAST ' : Two READINGS. It is always perilous to judge -an author's treatment of minutiae from reprints, but it is never unfair, and it is frequently both interesting and instructive to compare and contrast two or three of these on points that offer scope for the exer- cise of editorial preference or decision. If an author's work were invariably presented -as it is finally left by himself, there would be no possibility of divergence among thou- sands of reproductions ; but for various reasons such exactness is not always illus- trated in practice. New sponsors are prone to step into the tracks of their predecessors, and to make their own stride when they are uncertain of the movement or when they feel there is a danger of stumbling. The presence of this personal element is often a disturbing factor, even when it affects punctuation only, as it does in the second stanza of ' Alexander's Feast,' here selected for consideration. The text of the Aldine edition of Dryden may be taken as a con- venient basis for comparison, especially as the editor states that it " has been carefully collated with the earliest and best copies." In this version the passage descriptive of Jove's descent to Olympia stands thus :

A dragon's fiery form belied the god : Sublime on radiant spires he rode. When he to fair Olympia press'd : And while he sought her snowy breast : Then, round her slender waist, c.

This may have been Dry den's punctua- tion, although one feels that the third and fourth lines are more decisively parted than they need have been, and that a comma would have been a sufficient division between them. Still, the arrangement makes the meaning perfectly clear, which cannot be said for that presented in Mr. Humphry Ward's ' English Poets.' Here a semicolon stands at the end of the third line and a

comma closes the fourth, which seriously dislocates the construction. In the popular edition of Palgrave's ' Golden Treasury,' published in 1904, the second of the above lines is followed by no punctuation mark, while the two next in order are separated merely by commas, first from each other and then from that which begins the fresh part of the description. This produces a crowded huddling of effect, which is al- together unworthy of Dryden, and less pleasing than the stately precision secured by the Aldine editor.

In the rattling culmination of the stanza the Aldine text and that of Mr. Humphry Ward coincide, their reading being as follows:

With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod. And seems to shake the spheres.

One would have thought that this was per- fectly explicit and final, and that no alter- native could possibly offer itself for editorial consideration. In the edition of the ' Golden Treasury,' however, to which refer- ence has just been made, a semicolon interrupts the rapid march at the end of the third line, while those that follow have no separating mark between them. The effect of this is to produce an unnecessary and awkward pause where the sense brooks no delay, and to give the impression that the two remaining clauses are hastily thrust forward together as an appendix or after- thought. THOMAS BAYNE.

PARIS GARDEN. As the later history of this manor is a subject of inquiry (ante, p. 167) the following notes, taken from a printed ' Abstract of Title,' may be found useful. Reference should be made to some articles in 1 S. x., xi.

In February, 1684/5, on the marriage of Thomas Burrow, of London, merchant, and Jane, daughter of Christopher Lethieullier, of London, merchant, a settlement was made of an estate which was late parcel of the demesne lands of the manor or lordship of Paris Garden, in the parish of St. Saviour's, Southwark. In 1755 it was described as in that part of St. Saviour's parish which is called the parish of Christ Church. Some of the houses were then or later known as " Burrow's Buildings," a name which is found on maps of the late eighteenth century. Under the Act of 9 George III. part of the property was taken to make a road from Blackfriars Bridge to the turnpike across St. George's Fields, and thence to the house