Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/229

 us. VIIL SEPT. 20, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

223

borrowing from the additional matter appear- ing in any edition later than the sixth.

I will first deal with the passages in Webster that seem to show indebtedness to Sir Thomas Overbury's poem ' A Wife,' the first edition of which appeared in 1614.

In the dedication of ' The Duchess of Malfy ' 'to George Harding, Baron Berkeley, Webster makes use of a phrase to which Prof. Sampson has drawn special attention as characteristic of the frankness and pride of the dramatist's attitude towards rank :

" I do not altogether look up at your title, the anciens't nobility being but a relic of time past."

Webster puts a similar utterance into the mouth of Romelio in ' The Devil's Law Case ' :

What tell you me of gentry ? 'tis nought else But a superstitious relic of time past.

' D.L.C.,' I. i. (HailitTa 'Webster,' iii. 10). Unfortunately, one can never be sure, in praising the sentiments expressed in Webster's plays, that one is praising Webster. The source of both these passages is in Sir Thomas Overbury's poem :

Gentry is but a relique of time-past.

' A Wife,' st. xx. 1. 5.

In the course of his eulogy of the Duchess in Act I. sc. ii. of ' Malfy,' Antonio observes that when she speaks

" she throws upon a man so sweet a look that it were able to raise one to a galliard that lay in a dead palsy."

. . . .but in that look There speaketh so divine a continence As cuts off all lascivious and vain hope.

' D.M.,' I. ii. (Hazlitt, ii. 165). The speech is full of borrowed matter, and these particular lines seem also to have been suggested by the poem

Womens behaviour is a surer barre Then is their No ; that fairely doth deny Without denying ; thereby kept they are Safe ev'n from Hope.

' A Wife,' st. xxxvi. 11. 1-4.

H. D. SYKES. Enfield.

(To be continued.)

PALL MALL, Nos. 50, 50A, AND 51.

THE demolition of these buildings removes houses with many pleasant memories for book-lovers. At the commencement of the nineteenth century I suggest 1814 as the date the house No. 50 and 50A Pall Mall was built by George Nichol, the King's Bookseller, who, with his uncle David Wilson, had taken over at the end of the eighteenth

century the premises known as " Tully's. Head" since Robert Dodsley commenced there as a bookseller-publisher, 17 May, 1735.

The Dodsley era furnishes the chief memories connected with this site. For almost half a century it was an horizon for literary constellations of exceptional size : Pope,, Johnson, Gray, Sterne, Walpole, Whitehead, Burke, Chesterfield, Boswell, and many others were its frequenters, coming to- patronize or engage the support of the always suave, sincere, kind-hearted " Dody." Although Andrew Millar was probably more important, we may consider Dodsley the most interesting and characteristic pub- lisher of the mid -eighteenth century.

James Dodsley, his surviving partner, was less enterprising, or had not the same power to attract genius. The writers of immortal diaries and biographies had passed to other interests or beyond this sphere. " Honest Tom Payne's " was a greater resort; James- Edwards a greater bookseller.

Mr. E. Marston is mistaken in writing of James Dodsley ( ' Sketches of some Book- sellers of the Time of Dr. Samuel Johnson.' p. 86):-

" For many years he kept no public shop, but carried on the business of a wholesale dealer in his own publications only."

At the sales at the " Queen's Arms Tavern " he was a constant buyer of shares in books. He published ' Leland on Revelation ' jointly with Longman ; purchased an eighth share in The London Magazine; bought alt shares in The Child's Plaything as they occurred for sale ; and from Robert Dodsley 's retirement in 1759 until 1776 at least, carried on an ordinary publisher's business, which then, of course, meant trading in all new books. A considerable number of Robert and James Dodsley's agreements for the purchase of copyrights and shares in. books is before me. It was James who, in 1761, was the victim of Collyer's deception with the translation of Gessner's ' Death of Abel.' Lysons says this was englished by a Mr. Mackey, who gave the MS. to M. Collyer, a printer in Plough Court, Fetter Lane. To obtain Court recognition for it, this printer added a dedication to Queen Charlotte, signed by his wife, Mary Collyer. One passage is worth transcribing :

" Placed by the hand of Providence at an humble distance from the Great, my Cares and pleasures are concentred within the narrow limits of my little family, and it is in order to contribute to the support and education of my children I have taken up the pen. Your Majesty's