Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/131

 ii s.x. AUG. is, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

125

Holcroft had a friend in Paris, De Bonne- ville, who was keeping him informed of literary phenomena. So the following seems to fit with perfection into the Holcroft trans- lation hypothesis :

In the French edition, pp. i ii :

" Extrait d'une Lettrc de Paris du 2 Mai, 1784, pour servir de Preface a celte Edition des

Memoires de Voltaire.

" . .Ce n'est pas-la tout ce qu'il y a ici de nouveau On parle beaucoup des Memoires de M. de VOL-. TAIRE, Merits par lui-meme. On a deja saisi deux ou trois Editions. II y a sept Libraires d'arret^s. Le Boi de Prusse est in-ite". Ce Voltaire est si ingrat ! On clit que le Roi de Prusse travaille a r^pondre a ces Memoires. Personne ne doute de leur authenticity ; ses amis 1'avouent. Le Ministre de.... son ami, assure qu'il les avoit jettes au feu ; mais que son infidele Secretaire en avoit probablement gard^ copie. On accuse aussi M. de Beaumarchais d'imprudence : mais on a beau faire ; les Memoires sont regiment [sic] de Voltaire, & ils se vendront t6t qu tard. Ce Voltaire a Fair d'un malin Genie qui n'est venu sur la terre que pour aigrir nous maux & s'en rejouir."

In the English edition, pp. i-ii : "Extract of a letter from Paris, dated May 2, 1784*

Which may serve as a PREFACE to this Edition of the MEMOIRS of VOLTAIRE.

" This is not all the present news of Paris. They speak very much of the Memoirs of Voltaire, written by himself, two or three editions of which have already been seized. Voltaire is called ungrateful. The King of Prussia is highly irritated, and is said to be very busily employed in writing an answer to these Memoirs. The friends of Voltaire allow them to be authentic, and nobody doubts it. The Ambassador of *****, his most intimate friend, has assured me he threw them in the fire ; but his deceitful Secretary, had, in all probability, reserved a copy. M. de Beaumarchais likewise is accused of imprudence. But accusations are fruitless. The Memoirs are really written by Voltaire, and must, soon or late, become public. This Voltaire is a sort of malignant spirit, who came upon earth only to embitter the cup of life, and afterwards laugh at our wry faces."

The whole tone of the ' Memoirs of Vol- taire,' abusive of Frederick II., would natur- ally have drawn Holcroft. Hazlitt tells us in the 'Memoirs' (p. 116) that Holcroft, though translator of Frederick's ' Posthu- mous Works,' had no admiration for the Prussian king that in very fact he made elaborate preparations, and collected a large number of books as source-material, for an historical study of bad government, which should centre about Frederick. I would mention the attacks on Frederick in the Life of Baron Trenck. Perhaps we say enough about the " tone " of the ' Memoirs of Voltaire ' if we quote from a notice of the book, Town and Country Magazine, June, 1784 (16: 323) :

" The picture he draws of kings and courts,, greatly lowers the ideas which those who contem- plate them at a distance, usually conceive of such persons and such places. The King of Prussia appears here what he has always appeared to the lovers of justice, a dangerous and despicable byrant ; despicable, because he philosophized,, and understood the sacred rights of those he trampled on."

The omission of the title from the list of Holcroft's works that appeared in The European Magazine for December, 1792 (22: 403), is of small importance when we remem- ber that many other translations were also omitted from this list. The ' Biographia Dra- matica ' (1: 1, 354) and Watt's ' Bibliotheca Britannica' (I., 1: 504, t) are unnecessarily misleading when they list the book as ' The Private Life of Voltaire.' The ' Biographie Universelle ' (20: 478) has the same mistake^ saying, " II a traduit la ' Vie privee de Vol- taire.' " Such slipshod recording of titles soon becomes a nuisance, especially when the book deals with Voltaire, concerning whom so much has been written. Madame de Grafigny's ' Vie Privee de Voltaire,' Paris, 1820, is the only work of the title which the three books above mentioned give, and to try to connect it with a translation of 1784 would require something of the miraculous It is easier to explain it in the correct way. ELBRIDGE COLBY.

Columbia University, New York City.

( To be continued.)

EMENDATIONS IN ' ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL' AND 'CYMBELINE.'

(a) I see that men make rope's in such a scarre. All 's Well that Ends Well,' IV. ii. 38. (&) Had ever scarre for. ' Cymbeline,' V. v. 305, A crop of hopeless " emendations " of this vexed passage in ' All 's Well ' may be found in the ' Cambridge Shakespeare.' Out of these, two can be selected which, in, combination, form a very passable reading, viz., may cope's for " make ropes," the con- jecture of W. W. Williams (in The Parthenon- for 6 Sept., 1862, p. 595, as quoted by Dyce), and in such a case for " in such a scarre," the conjecture of Mitford, which is adopted by Dyce in his text. It is remarkable that both words are found in the same line in Marlowe's 'Edward II.,' 1. 1751 (ed. Tucker Brooke, 1910) :

Our kindest friends in Belgia have we left, To cope with friends at home : a heauie case When force to force is knit.

If Shakespeare wrote cope ' (i.e., cope us, encounter us), it is possible he did so from.