Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/412

 404

NOTES AND QUEEIES. [ii s. i. MAY 21, 1910.

From 1615 to 1818 its history is a blank ; at the latter date it was offered for sale in London, the price being about 100Z.-150L The Earl of Crawford subsequently purchased it for 1,1501. , and from him it passed to Mrs. Rylands. PERCY D. MUNDY.

ROOSEVELT : ITS PRONUNCIATION. Lis- tening the other night to Rear- Admiral R. E. Peary's lecture on his expedition to the North Pole, before the Royal Geographical Society, at the Royal Albert Hall, I was reminded of the query in ' N. & Q.' concern- ing the pronunciation of Mr. Roosevelt's name. Peary, in pronouncing the name of the American President, sounded the first five letters, in two syllables, like our word x 'rosy." As the name Roosevelt is Dutch, it would appear that the true Dutch pro- nunciation is kept up in the United States, the name, which means "rose field 5 ' or pronounced " Rozevelt, ?? with the accent on the first syllable.
 * 'rose garden,"' as we should say being

FREDK. A. EDWARDS.

[Two American correspondents gave at 10 S. -vii. 35 similar three-syllable renderings of the name.]

PUTTENHAM'S ' A.RTE OF ENGLISH POESIE.' May I call attention to an interesting note in Sir John Harington's handwriting that I found in the beautiful MS. of the translation of Ariosto in the British Museum, Add. MS. 18,920 ?

" Mr. Feeld. I dowt this will not come in the last page, and thearfore I wowld have (it) im- medyetly in the next page after the fynyshinge of this last booke, with some pretty knotte to set down the tytle, and a peece of the Allegory as followeth in this next page. I would have the Allegory as also the Appolygy and all the prose that is to come except the table in the same printe that Putnams book ys."

A reference to the first edition of Haring- ton's ' Ariosto,' 1591, p. 405, will show that these precise instructions were carried out, and prove how closely Elizabeth's godson superintended the make-up of his book.

" Putnam's book " is the ' Arte of English Poesie,' published in 1589, and Harington's note is addressed in 1591 to the same Richard Field, native of Stratford-on-Avon, who published in 1593 'Venus and Adonis,' and in 1594 ' The Rape of Lucrece.' This j message to Field may be accepted as the absolute proof that Puttenham Wrote the editor, Mr. G. Gregory Smith, considered | as hitherto not forthcoming. It is curious that Harington, in the Introduction to the volume as to which he was giving instructions
 * Arte of English Poesie,' which its recent I

to his publisher, described the ' Arte of English Poesie ? as set forth by an " unknown godfather." CHAS. HUGHES.

Manchester.

' RASSELAS ' : THE FIRST ITALIAN TRANS- LATION. " I have got an Italian ' Rassalas,' ?> wrote Johnson to Mrs. Thrale from Edin- burgh on 12 Nov., 1773 ; and Baretti tells us it was by " a foolish fellow who called himself Cavalier Mei." This version does not appear to be known in England : it is neither included in J. Macaulay's biblio- graphy in his facsimile edition of 1884 nor is it mentioned by Dr. Birkbeck Hill. It is entitled " II Principe d'Abissinia, novella in due volumi tradotta per la prima volta dalP originate inglese in toscano da Mimiso Ceo. Padova, G. A. Volpi, 1764 n (2 vols., 16mo, vol. i. pp. 135, vol. ii. pp. 141). "Mimiso Ceo " is Mei's pseudonym. Cp. Luigi Piccioni ' Per la fortuna del " Rasselas n di Samuele Johnson in Italia,' in Giorn. storico della letter ital., vol. xv., 1910, p. 339. Prof. Piccioni calls it the worst of the Italian versions, saying it is inaccurate, affected in style, and dull ; but he well remarks that Baretti's severe strictures on Mei may be due to the fact that his own French version (the MS. of which, by the way, is now in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino, MSS. Francesi E. 2) was, thanks to the dilatori- ness of the Venetian licensers of the press, anticipated and rendered useless by this translation of Mei's, though Johnson himself had dictated the first sentence to Baretti. Prof. Piccioni, however, can find no signs of Mei having used Madame Belot's French version, as Marchesi suggested to help him in his rendering of Johnson's English. The article in question contains a detailed de- scription of Baretti's MS., which was originally discovered by Prof. Piccioni.

LACY COLLISON-MORLEY.

CANDLE AUCTIONS. The Chard and II- minster News of 16 April gives an account of the letting of a piece of land at Tatworth, near Chard, on 9 April, by " candle auction." Only thirty persons are entitled to bid, and ten Were present on the above occasion. The bidding commenced at IOL, and by additions of 5s. ran up to 13/., when t candle went out, having burnt for thirty- five and a half minutes. The land was knocked down to the latest bidder, who became the tenant for the ensuing year. Last year the candle burned twenty-seven minutes ; whilst in 1906 it lasted for the unusually long period of forty-two and half minutes.