Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/98

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. JAN. 29, 1910.

WATSON'S * HISTORY OF PRINTING.'

(10 S. xii. 428, 511.)

I AM obliged to Mr. SCOTT for his answer, although it does not give the information as to where Blades makes the statement that Watson's ' History of Printing ' was a translation of the French author, J. de la Caille. His ' Pentateuch of Printing ' is not the book. I suspect that the statement may have been made in a ' Bibliography of Printing * which Blades contributed to The British and Colonial Printer about 1875, but I have no means here of consulting the file.

In regard to the further question of the authorship of the Preface to the ' History,' MB. SCOTT says I '* appear to have no doubt " that it was Watson's. Well, in this case appearances are deceptive, for I do not know. All I know is that Watson has been credited with the authorship, and that it has also been assigned to John Spottiswood, his contemporary and law-agent. For that matter, the other book usually ascribed to Watson the ' Choice Selections - has also been handed over to Spottiswood. The title-page of the ' History * is quite explicit : it speaks of " A Preface by the Publisher," and Watson's name appears below as publisher. The newspaper advertisement which he sent out on the day in 1713 when the ' History ' was ready has the same phrase. In his ' History of Edinburgh ' (1788) Hugo Arnot, who is fairly accurate in his references to bibliography, wrote of " young Watson, author of the ' History of Printing ' " (p. 437). The Editor of the Spottiswood Club Miscellany, Vol. I., who contributed a short life of Spottiswood to that volume (pp. 229-32), in which he gives a list of the latter's works, seems to know nothing of his authorship of the Preface.

So far as I can trace, the first who made the definite assertion that Spottiswood was the writer was George Paton, the Edinburgh antiquary, and he did so about the beginning of the last century a hundred years after the book had appeared. He gives no proof. If it could be shown that Dr. David Laing referred to a claim by Spottis- wood himself, the question would probably be considered settled. One or two additional facts will appear in a paper on Watson in the forthcoming number of The Scottish Historical Review.

If Paton' s story is not a myth, it has one of the prime qualities of a myth : it grows as it goes. Messrs. Bigmore and Wyman in their ' Bibliography of Printing * (Quaritch, 1886) say : " The didactic part, as stated in the preface, was written by John Spottis- woode, translated from a celebrated French writer." The meaning of the sentence is hard to discover, and shows considerable confusion of mind, but it is needless to say tihat the Preface makes no such statement.

Bohn's edition of Lowndes has also a curious item in reference to the book. Among the sales at which copies were dis- posed of it notes " Bright, 5960, 5s. Large Paper. Roxburghe, Suppl., 650, II. 10s." It is impossible from the punctuation to say whether it was at the Bright or Roxburghe Sale this so-called large-paper copy was sold. Was there ever a large -paper copy ? No mention of such an issue is made in the original advertisement ; and I have never seen or heard of one, nor even of a second edition of the book. Has any one ? And to what does the Bohn entry refer ?

W. J. COTJPEB.

Glasgow.

' SHOBT WHIST,' BY MA JOB A. (10 S. xii. 264, 318, 357). I was the first to disclose, in the ' Handbook of Fictitious Names,' 1868, the fact that Major A***** was C. B. Coles, and but for that it is probable the name of the compiler would be still un- known to the public. It is satisfactory to have the fact confirmed at the last reference by a living authority. But if Coles had not been the author, surely he would have repudiated such a piece of plagiarism as is disclosed in my ' Handbook.'

In 1868 C. B. Coles was a mere name to me, and only lately have I found the date of his death and some particulars about him in searching for Mr. Boase, in whose ' Modern English Biography,' vol. iv., the facts then known about him will be found. But these facts were all on the assumption that "C. B." and " Charles Barwell u were identical.

His name, with initials only, is in Halkett and Laing from my ' Handbook.' In 1882 the first volume of the Catalogue of our National Library was published, and in that the Christian name is given in full, on what authority I do not know. Until MB. NICHOLSON'S reply there has been no authoritative confirmation or identification of C. B. Coles with Charles Barwell Coles. What induces me to observe on this is that