Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/251

 11 8. X. SEPT. 26, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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a private impression by a lover of the Biblical, who had no compunctions about literary piracy.

.Mi-s Sally Nelson Gravatt, Librarian at th<- \Vallace Library, Frederic ksburg, Va., writes me :

' v I am unable to find anything concerning. . . . L. G. Mullin. The Rev. Mason L. Weems was Rector of old Pohick Church in Fairfax Co. when Washington attended that church, was also author of a Life of Washington and one of Marion. Later [1790] he was book-agent for Matthew [sic] Carey of Philadelphia."

From Henry Howe (' Historical Collec- tions of Virginia,' Charleston, 1845, pp. 2.36-7) and Bishop William Meade (' Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia,' Philadelphia, 1857, vol. ii. pp. 234-6) we can fill out the picture of a parson who travelled through the South selling books for Mathew Carey, amusing himself and others with his fiddle, writing and preaching eloquently against drunkenness and gam- bling, working for a Catholic publisher, and carrying Paine's ' Age of Reason ' and the Bishop of Llandaff s answer side by side in Irs shaky little wagon, but withal enjoying life, making himself and others laugh, and supporting his large family.

" He knew no distinction of Churches. He preached in every pulpit to which he could gain access, and where he could recommend his books." His chief claims to fame are that he once sold, in a single year, three thousand copies of a high-priced Bible, and that it is on his questionable authority that the story of Washington and the cherry-tree ultimately rests. The edition of the ' Sacred Dramas ' was all in the day's work, nothing more.

Geriest evidently ignored, or was ignorant of, Holcroft's version when he remarked (6: 464):

"A translation of Mme. de Genlis's ' Theatre of Education' was printed in 1787, but there seems to have been a prior translation in 1781."

Yet his summary shows very little duplica- tion of the 1787* translation over Holcroft's. Letters between Madame de Genlis and Holcroft, 1785, which say that a new (French) edition is in the press, and that a copy will be forwarded to him, would seem to indicate that Holcroft's was the authorized version (' Memoirs,' pp. 268, 281).

' Theatre a 1'usage des jeunes personnes, ou Theatre d'e'ducation,' was issued at Paris, 1779-80, in four volumes octavo, and also four volumes duodecimo. Another edition appeared in 1785, seven volumes duodecimo, and it is to this that Madame de t :<-nlis refers in her letter. (Thus it is in

the Bibliotheque Nationale Yf 5975-5981 though Querard says five volumes in his^ 'France litteraire,' 3: 311). We find that in the early editions Madame de Genlis had followed her piece on ' The Death of Adam ' with that of the same title by Klopstock in Friedel's translation (Querard also in the ' Nouveau Theatre Allemand '). It will be remembered that Friedel was a co-worker with De Bonneville, a Parisian intimate- of Holcroft's, so the Genlis dramas were probably brought to Holcroft's attention through one or the other of these men. Holcroft's work appeared, as noted above,, in 1786, and was apparently taken from, the second Paris edition which Madame de Genlis had offered to forward to him. Holcroft's is only a selection.

Now as to the prior translation :

" Theatre of Education. Translated from the- French of the Comtesse de Genlis. Lecon com- mence, exemple acheve. La Motte, Fable de 1'Aigle et 1'Aiglon. In four volumes. Second, edition. London : Printed for T. Cadell and P. Elmsly, in the Strand, and T. Durham, Charing-Cross. 1781." Octavo. L, 8+9- 522 ; II., 4+3-463 ; III., 4+3-432 ; IV. r 2+22+23-408.

Vol. I. was reviewed in The London Maga- zine for December, 1780 (49: 569), and Vols. II.-IV. in the March, 1781, issue of ther same periodical (50: 141).

This second edition, in the Yale Uni- versity Library, is the only one I have beer* able to examine, but the British Museum Catalogue notes, in addition to this, a first edition of 178.1, and "another edition," irt four volumes, Dublin, 1783. Some interest is to be found in the statement in the ' Ad- vertisement ' that the work " in less than a- year from publication has been translated into six foreign languages " ; and in a no te- at the end :

" The original of the Theatre of Education,, imported by P. P^lmsly, opposite Southampton- Street in the Strand, London."

' The 1787 translation noted by Genest is recorded in the British Museum Catalogue- as " a new translation," and was evidently done by more than one person, mention being made in the Preface of " the trans- lators." This, the third translation to appear, bore the following title-page :

" The Theatre of Education. A new translation, from the French of Mme. la Marquise de Sillery, late Mme. la Comtesse de Genlis^ London : Printed for J. Walker at Charing. Cross. 1787."

Copies are in the British Museum and ia the Yale University Library.