Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/16

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. xi. J AS. 2, 1915,

Hoe ') seems far removed from the " arro- gant assumption " of superiority to his fellow-dramatists characteristic of Jonson. Such unqualified praise of his competitors is, indeed, utterly unlike him, and for this Teason alone it is difficult to believe that this Prologue can be his.

There can be little doubt that Chapman's was the hand that penned it. Compare his Prologue to ' Bussy D'Ambois ' :

Not out of confidence that none but we

Are able to present this tragedy,

Nor out of envy at the grace of late

It did receive, nor yet to derogate

From their deserts, who give out boldly that

They move with equal feet on the same flat,

Neither for all, nor any of such ends

We offer it, gracious and noble friends,

To your review ; we, far from emulation,

And (charitably judge) from imitation,

With this piece entertain you, <&c.

' Eastward Hoe ' was first printed in 1605, the latter first appearing in the second quarto of 1641. It would seem as if Chap- man had deliberately chosen his earlier ' Eastward Hoe ' Prologue as a model for that of the later play. Had the author of ' Bussy D'Ambois ' been addicted to borrow- ing, their close resemblance would carry but little weight. But as none of the Eliza- bethan dramatists is less open to charges of imitation or plagiarism, the evidence of identity of authorship could scarcely be more conclusive. H. DUGDALE SYKES.
 * Bussy D'Ambois ' in 1607, the Prologue to

Enfield.

PBINTING AT PONTYPOOL. Col. J. A. Bradney in a paper on ' Rare and Early- Printed Books relating to Monmouthshire ' (Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, i. 169-80), states that " the first printing press established in Monmouthshire was one at Pontypool, belonging to Miles Harry, the minister and founder of the Baptist Chapel at Pen-y-garn, near that town, in 1727," and, so far as he was aware, the only books printed at this press were religious works, and all of them in Welsh. Col. Bradney also says that the first book was an answer to some remarks of George Whitefield, the founder of the Methodists. In connexion with this it is of interest to note the following advertisement, which was printed in The Gloucester Journal of 29 July, 1740 :

" Whereas the Art and Mystery of PRINTING being now Established in the Town of PONTY- POOL, in the County of Monmoufh, by SAMUEL and FELIX FARLEY, Printers, in the City and County of BRISTOL, at the Instigation of many worthy Gentlemen of the said Town and other parts of the Principality of Wales, who are so

kind as to promise Encouragement to so useful an Art, in its Infancy esteem'd by the Learned of Divine Institution; the first Thing committed to the Press there, is intitled, CHRIST, a Christian's Life : Or, A Practical Discourse on a Believer's Life Derived from CHRIST, and Resolved into CHRIST. Being the Substance of several SERMONS preach'd by the Author upon his Recovery of a Fit of Sickness, and since extracted from him by the Importunity of Friends. By the late Rev. Mr. JOHN GAMMON. Corrected and Recommended by Several DIVINES. Now faith- fully Translated into WELCH from the 5th. and

last Edition of the English N.B. Several other

Pieces of Divinity are preparing for the Encourage- ment of the said Press."

This work is not recorded in Rowlands's ' Cambrian Bibliography,' though the titles of three works printed at Pontypool in 1740 are entered there (Nos. 8, 11, 16), each stating that the book was printed by the new printing press (" Argraphwyd yn yr Argraph-Wasg Newydd "). The advertisement above speaks of the Parleys having set up their press at the instigation of some of the inhabitants of Wales, and possibly Miles Harry was one of those interested.

There are four editions of Gammon's ' Christ a Christian ' in the British Museum, the earliest being dated in the Catalogue ( ? 1680), but the Welsh translation is not one. There is not a copy in the Bodleian, the National Library of Wales, or in the Welsh Collection at Cardiff. Neither Col. Bradney nor Mr. John Ballinger was aware of the Farleys having been connected with Pontypool until their attention was drawn to the adver- tisement. Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q. ' may be able to locate a copy of this translation of Gammon's book. BOLAND AUSTIN.

Gloucester.

" FROM CHINA TO PERU." When Johnson introduced this phrase into the second line of his ' Vanity of Human Wishes,' his editors tell us that it was suggested to him by Soame Jenyns's ' Epistle to Lord Lovelace ' (1735) :

The wonders of each region view From frozen Lapland to Peru.

It may be worth noting, therefore, that Johnson's phrase occurs in full in Sir William Temple's essay ' Of Poetry,' an essay whose concluding sentence was so much admired by Johnson's friend Oliver Gold- smith that he more than once, we are told, adopted it as his own. A couple of pages before the end of the essay Temple writes : " What honour and request the ancient poetry has lived in, may... be observed from the universal reception and use in all nations from China to Peru."

G. C. MOORE SMITH.