Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/369

 ii s. x. NOV. 7, i9u.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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1812 (2: 263), gives it to "Marshall"; )xberry's ' New English Drama,' in 1819, it in a list of plays ascribed to Holcroft, the parenthetical note, " Under the isme of Marshall"; but Genest, in 1832, ?ays " it was probably written by Mr. rlolcroft." Here we have the earliest direct ndication of Holcroft's authorship forty-two years after the representation and publica- rion, except for the not very certain ascrip- ion to be found in the Waller-Glover edition >f the ' Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft ' p. 116), " a friend undertook for a time to ather the piece." There is a Mr. Marshall nentioned elsewhere in the ' Memoirs ' p. 181). In the Preface to 'The School for Arrogance ' (1791) Holcroft tells us that Ir. Marshall,

in consequence of the prejudices which it raa imagined Mr. Harris laboured under .... cted for a time ... .as the author of the piece."

A Mr. James Marshall, as we learn from Cegan Paul (' William Godwin : his Friends md Contemporaries,' vol. i. pp. 38. 234, 283), vas intimate with Godwin and Holcroft, vas actually living with Godwin in 1790, md was so close a friend that he alone witnessed the Godwin- Wollstoiiecraft mar- iage.

In the Account Books of Co vent Garden phca're for this season (British Museum, erton MS. 2291),! find only (f. 34) : " Paid Marshall | author | in full 991. 8s." j'rom the weekly salary list we find a Mr. shall whom we may assume to be the e, since no distinguishing initials are I drawing a weekly salary of 41. as an >r. But the concealment in the case of School for Arrogance ' must have been sry short, for less than a month from the night we find the Co vent Garden lagement paying " Mr. Holcroft | author," )ll. 16s. and 351. 5s. 6d., on 2 March and The Preface to 'Seduction' (1787) gives details of Holcroft's differences with Harris of the Covent Garden Theatre, jgh 'Duplicity' (1781) was dedicated Mr. Harris, and several other Pre- complimented him. Indication of sther possible cause for this anonymity to be found in the Preface to ' Knave or
 * March, 1791, respectively.

?' (1798):

The unrelenting opposition which the pro-
 * tions of the author of the present comedy

those who pay attention to the public amuse- "s. . . .Since the appearance of The Road to ,' his comedy of The Deserted Daughter ' lias escaped ; and that, as he imagines, [cause it \vas not known on the day of its first
 * ve experienced for several years is well known

performance by whom, it was written. ' Love's- Frailties,' ' The Man of Ten Thousand,' and 4 Knave or Not ? ' have sustained increasing: marks of hostility."

Holcroft also referred to the unfriendly attitude of the public in his Advertisement to 'The Vindictive Man,' 2nd ed., 1807. The disapprobation of ' Love's Frailties ' is indicated in its Advertisement as due to the " heat of political zeal." Oulton (2: 176) in 1796 says of ' The Deserted Daughter ' (1795):

" The piece was supposed to be written by Mrs. Inchbald ; the author, for political reasons,, having deemed secrecy expedient.

' He 's Much to Blame ' (1798) was, accord- ing to the ' Memoirs ' (pp. 162-3), " brought out in the name of a friend " ; and ' Deaf and Dumb ' (1801) was brought forward under the name of " Herbert Hill" (cf. Ox- berry's edition).

From conditions surrounding the produc- tion of these other plays we learn that Holcroft was accustomed to have his work go to the theatre anonymously or pseudonymously r and often to the press without his name. Also we learn that the very next year after the appearance of ' The German Hotel,' he employed the same Mr. Marshall as sponsor for another play. His reasons for doing" this were probably not the same as in the case of the later dramas political reasons r because in 1790 he was not yet a prominent political Radical, arid because the play con- tained practically no political dynamite.

Before we decide with absolute certainty,, however, it is well to examine Holcroft's means of access to the original German T ' Der Gasthof ' of J. C. Brandes, of which this is an adaptation. It is well known that r prior to 1800, knowledge of German was- very exceptional in England. Holcroft travelled in Germany in 1799, and shortly before he made the trip he translated Kotzebue's 'Indian in England.' Hazlitt records in his paper ' On the Conversation of Authors ' an assertion by Holcroft of having read Kant's ' Critique of Pure Reason ' iik the original, but this may have been probably was subsequent to Holcroft's- visit to Hamburg in 1799. ' The German Hotel ' came many years earlier, and we must go further back.

Holcroft was very intimately acquainted with a young Frenchman by the name of De Bonneville. From 1782-5 M. Friedel and De Bonneville issued the ' Nouveau Theatre Allemand ' at Paris. Our suspicions are immediately aroused when Holcroft says in the Preface to ' Love's Frailties ' (1794)