Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/9

 11 S. X. JULY 4, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

which suggest that he was the author, and ho gives the words of eight of the songs (2: 54-62).

In the ' Musical Tour of Mr. Dibdin ' (1787) he includes two songs from the play (Xos. 9 and 14) ; he gives the piece as No. 65 in his list of productions (pp. 305-6) ; and he says, " My agreement for this piece was to have a third of the nine first nights " an author's, not a composer's, method of remuneration.

In the ' Collected Songs ' (5 vols., 1790, &?.) Dibdin gives some of the lyrics, and the 1842 edition gives twelve.

In addition, I myself can bring forward the following : The introductory memoir (by Hogarth) to the 1842 edition refers to ' The Shepherdess of the Alps ' in no uncertain terms as the work of Dibdin. The West- minster Magazine, in the issue of January, 1780, speaks of Dibdin as the author ; and The European Magazine in 1792 (22: 403) does not include it in the list of Holcroft's works, and some years later (55: 177) gives it as Dibdin's.

MR. DIBDIN has what he calls a " con- temporary news-cutting " which says : " Mr. Dibdin is author as well as composer of the new comic opera ' The Shepherdess of the Alps.' '

I have not yet verified or dated this quotation, but am now certain in my own mind that Holcroft and Dibdin each did an opera of this title, and that Dibdin's was presented on 18 Jan., 1780, and later printed, whereas Holcroft's was not. Both writers did comic operas, and both took stories from the French Dibdin at this time especially, as he had just returned from France. The British Museum designates the piece as "From the French," and The Westminster Magazine, January, 1780, says that it is based on a tale of Marmontel. I have not traced the matter further, though there is probably some relation to ' La Bergere des Alpes ' of Nougaret, played in the French provinces. ELBRIDGE COLBY.

Columbia University, New York City.

(To be continued.)

JOHN WEBSTER A CONTRIBUTOR TO SIR THOMAS OVERBURY'S '. 'CHARACTERS.'

IT cannot be denied that the popularity of Sir Thomas Overbury as a writer was largely owing to the extraordinary circum- stances connected with his death. No sooner had he passed away (13 Sept., 1613)

than his friends undertook to publish the MSS. of Rochester's friend and victim, among which the poem ' A Wife ' was con- spicuous. The book, entered in the Sta- tioners' Registers on 13 Dec., and issued early in the following year, met with such success that a second edition was printed, which contained, besides the poem and several elegies by friends and dependents of the author, his portrait by Simon Pass, and 21 prose Characters. In the Preface, dated 16 May, 1614, Laurence L'Isle the printer expressly informed the readers that

" this surplusage. . . .was. . . .in some things only to be challenged by the first author, but others now added. . . .first transcrib'd by Gentlemen of the same qualitie."

How many of these Characters, if any, are

to be ascribed to Sir Thomas, and whether

he forestalled or imitated Joseph Hall in

this line of literature, is out of the question

here. In my own opinion, the style in

these short essays is altogether different

from, and superior to, the prose writings

subsequently printed under the name of

Overbury. The Characters portrayed are :

A good woman. A wise man.

A very woman. A noble spirit.

A dissembler. An old man.

A courtier. A fine gentleman.

A golden ass. An elder brother.

A flatterer. A Welshman.

A timist. A pedant.

An amorist. A servingman.

An affected traveller. An host.

So successful, again, was the new volume that a third edition had to be supplied promptly, which was followed within three months by two others (the fifth one dated 24 Aug., 1614), nine new Characters being contributed by an anonymous writer :

A good wife.

A melancholy man.

A sailor.

A soldier.

A tailor.

A puritan.

A whore.

A very whore.

A mere common lawyer.

The vogue of the book, far from decreasing, proved so persistent that a sixth edition was called forth, which was published in 1615, with the following title-page :

New and Choice Characters, of severall authors, together with that exquisite and unmatcht poeme, The Wife, written by Sir Thomas Overburie, with the former characters and conceited Newes, all in one volume. With many other things added to this sixt impression.

Mar. Non norunt hcec monumenta mori. London. Printed by Thomas Creede, for Laurence L'isle, at the Tygers head in Pauls Church-yard. 1615.

In this volume we find, besides the matter contained in the former edition, a new set