Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/91

 11 S. X. AUG. 1, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

1783. " The Family Picture ; or domestic dia- logues on amiable subjects ; illustrated by his- tories, allegories, tales, fables, anecdotes, &c., intended to strengthen and inform the mi ml. By Thomas Holcroft, Author of Duplicity, a comedy. London. Lockyer Davis, 1783." 2 vols. duodecimo. 6.

Hazlitt in the ' Memoirs ' (p. 104) assigns this to the year 1781. But he speaks merely " from memory," and other evidences point to 1783. Cf. Monthly Review, August, 1783 (69: 170); British Magazine and Review, July, 1783 (2: 43); and English Review, March, 1783 (1: 255), where the work was reviewed. Some of the stories are original, some selected.

1783. " Human Happiness ; or the Skeptic. A poem in six cantos. By Thomas Holcroft, author of Duplicity, a comedy. Non satis est risu diducere rictum auditoris. Hor. La Nature est donne" aux Philosophes comme un grand e'nigme, oil chacun donne son sens dont il fait son principe. Rochefoucault. London : Printed for L. Davis, Holborn ; J. Bobson, New Bond-Street ; J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church- Yard ; J. Sewell, Cornhill ; J. Fielding, Paternoster- Bow ; and J. Stockdale, Piccadilly, MDCCLXXXIH." Quarto.

Hazlitt places this piece as either 1782 or 1783 (' Memoirs,' p. 104). But it was noticed in The Monthly Review later than ' The Family Picture,' November, 1783 (69: 410), though The European Magazine reviewed it in April, 1783 (3: 283), and The English Review (1: 135) and The British Magazine and Review (2: 129) as early as February, 1783.

1784. " Philosophic essays on the manners of various foreign animals ; with Observations on the laws and customs of several Eastern Nations. Written in French by M. Fpucher D'Obsonville, and Translated into English by Thomas Holcroft. London : Printed for John Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul's Churchyard, M.DCC.LXXXIV." Octavo, viii+ 1-395 pp.

My sources of information concerning this book have been the ' Memoirs ' (p. 107 and note), the review, and the British Museum Catalogue. I cannot account for the work very well. Holcroft had been to Paris, yet his whole interest at the time was chiefly theatrical, and he probably translated the book as a piece of sheer hard work, with the advantage of learning the language previous to his future Parisian trip. In fact, unless I had found a review in The European Maga- zine for August, 1784 (6: 108), or The English Review, August, 1784 (4: 108), I should not have included the piece in this Bibliography. See also European Magazine, December, 1792 (22: 403). Cf. Monthly Re- view, 1783 (69: 529) ; English Review,

January, 1784 (3: 57) ; New Review, May r 1784 (5: 318) ; and European Magazine for October, 1783 (4: 273), for notices of the- 1783 French edition.

1784. " The Noble Peasant ; a comic opera in. three acts, as performed at the Theatre-Boyal,. in the Hay-Market. By Thomas Holcroft.- London : Printed for George Bobinson (No. 25) Pater-noster-Bow. 1784.: Octavo, 6+5-68 pp^

This play was produced at the Haymarket, 2 Aug., 1784. Some of the glees and one of the songs are parodies, and very cleverly versed. Cf. ' Memoirs ' (p. 87, and note- p. 109) ; ' Biographia Dramatica ' (3: 85) - r an announcement in The European Maga- zine for September, 1784 ; and a review of the printed work in The Monthly Review for December, 1784 (71: 441). There is in the Yale University Library what appears to* be a presentation copy of the work from the- author. Six of the songs were reprinted in The Town and Country Magazine for August, 1784 (16: 439). ELBRIDGE COLBY.

Columbia University, New York City.

( To be continued.)

A CRYPTIC UTTERANCE OF FIELDING'S. In the opening sentence of chap. ii. of the fifth book of ' Tom Jones ' (in which takes place the battle between Thwackum and his- quondam pupil) Fielding refers to " the well- wooded forest of Hampshire," and remarks in a foot-note that

" well-wooded is an ambiguous phrase, and may mean either a forest well clothed with wood or well stript of it."

That Fielding at times expanded his ideas- in foot-notes is seen in his ' Vemoniad,' ' Tom Thumb,' and ' Aristophanes,' but as- the annotations to the voluminous ' Tom. Jones ' number only twenty-two in all, it has ever been perplexing at any rate, to- me why Fielding went out of his way to- define a word which, in its usual acceptation,. is sufficiently well defined. In the absence- of a motive suggesting irony one could only suppose that it was the explanation of a- technical term.

Having some time since to consider a point connected with New Forest law, I went into the literature of the subject, and in doing so Fielding's note coming to mind, it became evident that his play on words con- stituted an oblique reference to one of th& gross abuses of his times.

J. B. Wise in his book ' The New Forest * (Gibbings & Co.) described with much pre- cision the state of things to which Fielding,