Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/9

 n s. i. JAN. i, MO.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 1010.

CONTENTS.-No. 1.

NOTES' Who was Richard Savage? 1 London Topo- eraohical Prints, 4 Bibliography of Publishing, 5' The Book-Trade, 1557-1625,' 6-' N. & Q.' on the Stage-Mrs. Sarah Battle Anticipated" Revels "=Parish Festivals- Noah as a Girl's Name A Modest Author American Miser's Will, 7.

QUERIES : China and Japan: Diplomatic Intercourse - 'Dialogues of the Dead' Swift and 'The Postman '- Swift at Havisham-Swift on Eagle and Wasp, 8-The Frere Caromez Banished Covenanters Mrs. Quarme Rotherhithe -' N. &Q.': Lost Reference Montpellier as Street-NameShort Story-Pothinus and Blandina Cannon Ball House, Edinburgh, 9-M^rimee's "In- connue" Funeral Plumes Stave Porters Calthrops in Early Warfare Princess Amelia, Daughter of George II. St. Gratian's Nut Pronunciation of "oo" Mrs. Eliz. Draper, 10 Col. Gordon in 'Barnaby Rudge 'Joseph D' Almeida, 11.

REPLIES :" Parsons " not in Holy Orders, 11 'The American in Paris,' 12" Betubium," 13 Lady Worsley, 14 St. Margaret's, Westminster Westminster Abbey, 15 Copper's 'La Greve des Forgerons 'Bhang : Cuca Flaubert's 'Tentation de St. Antoine, 1 16 Madame D'Arblay's Diary Shakespeare Statuette Shakespeare Allusions Francis Kindlemarsh English Navy during the Civil War, 17.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'The Gilds and Companies of London' Whitaker's Almanack and Peerage.

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

WHO WAS RICHARD SAVAGE ? MORE than fifty years ago an able series of articles by MR. W. MOY THOMAS on Richard Savage appeared in ' N. & Q.' for 6, 13, and 27 November, and 4 December, 1858 (2 S. vi. 361, 385, 425, 445). Boswell had pulled a brick or two from the edifice of good faith established for Savage by Johnson in his biography. MR. MOY THOMAS'S articles had the effect of shattering the building for the commentators on this difficult subject up to our own time. My own book ' Richard Savage : a Mystery in Biography, is likely, without a brief elucidation of its aim, to embarrass the researches of those who in future may be tempted into what seems fated to remain a region of delicate and dark inquiry. I included in it no preface, because I wanted all the attention of which an earnest reader was capable for the book itself. To rehabilitate the credit of Savage was less my immediate object than to offer his portrait in a new light. That it was a portrait, received more recognition from my critics than I could have expected ; nor was I surprised to find this recognition

frequently tinged with a protestant ardour to assert the writer's personal disinclination to regard Savage as anything but an impostor. I had presented a portrait, but had given no reasons for my own disinclination to regard it as anything but the portrait of the man. The question, How much of this is " pure " biography ? how much fiction ? is bound to couple itself with a healthy interest in my book ; and as none but myself can answer the question in such a way as to smooth the paths of conjecture, I address the following observations to all those whom the inquiry concerns.

Since Carlyle wrote ' The Diamond Neck- lace,' the relations of what are loosely labelled History, Biography, and Fiction have become much more intimate. Under the pleasing influence of this change my narra- tive of Savage's life was written. The differ- ence between fact and fiction is indeed less appreciable than is universally admitted ; but those who court a hearing are wise in selecting an appeal, not from the un- scrupulous array of facts arranged in an arbitrary order, but from the " open lying " which Carlyle rightly claimed as the legiti- mate privilege of romantic history. It was in accordance with his perception of this principle that he wrote of 'The Diamond Necklace l (and I might with equal truth have written of my life of Savage) : " An earnest inspection, faithful endeavour has not been wanting, on our part ; nor, singular as it may seem, the strictest regard to chronology, geography (or rather, in this case, topo- graphy), documentary evidence, and what else true historical research would yield. n

True historical research yields little, how- ever, in the case of Richard Savage ; and whoever interests himself keenly in his history is constrained in the long run either to shroud himself in a silence impenetrable as the kernel of his inquiry, or, hazarding speech, upon the high seas of conjecture, to be borne now and again into a region where the historical landmarks are out of sight. He is not bound on this account either to misrepresent their whereabouts or wilfully to mutilate their dim outline.

All the scenes in my life of Savage are based on what may be called facts historically ascertained ; in their presentment the minutiae of action and the motives of the actors have been supplied by my view of the characters. To so much " open lying " I confess with all the more contentment for the discovery of some " closed lying " into which, as I shall here show, MR. MOY THOMAS was innocently betrayed by a zeal