Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/247

 11 S.VIIL SEPT. 27, 1913.1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1913.

CONTENTS. No. 196.

NOTES : Bibliography of John Gay, 241 The Forged ' Speeches and Prayers ' of the Regicides, 242 Crab, the Pretended Astrologer, 243 Webster and Sir Thomas Overbury, 244 Egerton's ' Faithful Memoirs of Mrs. Old- field,' 245 Cambridge University Nicknames " Mark Rutherford" as a Practical Astronomer Town Clerk's Signature Epigram Court Influence on Letters, 246.

QUERIES : Armour Serial Issue of Two Stories Authors Wanted Spilman Monument in Walthain Abbey, 247 Nairne John and Benjamin Mosse Bio- graphical Information Wanted Historical Manuscripts Despicht Dr. Nehemiah Grew, 248 "Fairy-Tales " Quotation Wanted Graham's 'Last Links with Byron' ' Confessions of a Catholic Priest ' ' Gadara ' " Auken- <jale " " Queen's Trumpeter "Oldest Living Railway Traveller "Slav scholar," 249 Emeritus Professors "Men, women, and Herveys" Sons of the Clergy: 'Who's Who' Death of John Wilkes Ferguson of Kentucky, 250.

REPLIES : An Elzevir, 250 Col. Gordon in ' Barnaby Rudge,' 251' The Mask 'Soap Bubbles Cambridge : Ely : Hull Old Novel Beardmore at Khartum Rabel's Drops " Seen through glass," 252 Illegitimacy in Middle Ages Rings with Death's Head Markyate Emeline de Reddesford, 253 Whichcote Quaker Documents Vandervart ' Brusanus, Prince of Hungaria,' 254 Disraeli Queries Downderry Powlett : Smyth, 255 Authors of Quotations Wanted Jules Verne Lancashire Sobriquets" Cat-Gallows "Clay Pipes of Gentility, 256 Smuggling Queries Hebrew or Arabic Proverb, 257 "Whistling Oyster "Janus Cross Bishop T. Barnard, 258.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Fabre, Poet of Science '' Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOHN GAY.

THE following errors and omissions occur in the Bibliography of John Gay which appears in ' The Cambridge History of English Literature,' ix. 480-81.

Under ' (1) Collected editions,' sub-head 1727. To the best of my knowledge such an edition does not even exist. The item was probably given on the authority of the British Museum Catalogue, but if the com- piler had used the copy in the Reading-Room of the Museum at any time within the last year and a half, he would have noted a pencilled correction by the cataloguer, and on calling for the book would have found the date to be 17-37.
 * Poems/ the compiler cites the edition of

The next section, ' (2) Poems published separately,' sub-head ' Fables,' gives the edition of " 1736." The copy of the British Museum Catalogue in the Reading - Room gives the date as follows : " MDCCXXXVI. [or rather MDCCLXXVI. ?]." The latter date is far more likely to be correct, as is shown

by internal evidence. Even granting that the date 1736 is correct, the compiler had evidently never examined a copy, for if he had done so he would have found that it contained both series of the ' Fables,' and should have been placed under his next sub- heading, ' Fables complete.'

This sub-head, ' Fables complete,' has mention of Austin Dobson's 1882 edition of the ' Fables,' and it is described as having a " bibliography." As a matter of fact it contains only a " Bibliographical note " concerning the first edition of each of the two series, and the briefest mention of three other editions. It has, however, what the compiler has failed to note a most valuable and stimulating memoir of Gay.

The following sub -head is ' Gay's Chair . . . .with a sketch of his life from the manuscripts of Butler, p. ..." Even a student of Gay might be excused for failing to recognize Gay's nephew, Joseph Bailer, under that misprint.

The noteworthy omissions in the section of Gay's ' Poems published separately ' are (1) 'A Panegyrical Epistle to Thomas Snow,' 1721 ; and (2) ' Molly Mogg ' (1727 ?). Not noted here by the compiler are some ten other poems of Gay's, which made their first appearance in other places before being gathered into any collected edition of his works ; but a strict definition of the heading of this section might properly keep them out.

No mention is made of Gay's prose con- tributions to The Guardian, and to Swift and Pope's ' Miscellanies ' ; or of his five pamphlets, the most important of which is 'The Present State of Wit,' 1711. Of this, the late J. Churton Collins said :

"It is written with skill and sprightliness, and certainly shows a very exact and extensive acquaint- ance with the journalistic world of those times."

The fourth and last section, that on notable for what it omits. None of the numerous contemporary pieces which relate entirely to Gay's 'Achilles,' ' The Beggar's Opera,' ' Three Hours after Marriage,' and the ' What d'ye call it ? ' and which are indispensable to a correct understanding of them, is even hinted at. Nor does the compiler mention that some one hundred of the letters to and from Gay are to be found in Arbuthnot's ' Works,' ed. Aitken ; Pope's ' Works,' ed. Elwin and Courthope ; ' Suffolk Letters ' ; and Swift's ' Correspond- ence,' ed. Ball. Needless to say, Gay's correspondence throws much valuable light on his own life.
 * Biography and Criticism,' is especially