Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/191

 ii s. ix. MA*. 7, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

185

In the Dyce copy only the title of the poem, the half-title at the commencement of it, and the words " Miss Fanny Murray " are in red letters. Further, this copy has at the end the words " The end of Mr. Wilkes's book." How Fitzgerald ever came to say that this was an original of which Mr. Dyce became possessed by some rare chance passes my understanding. Of the quarto Mr. Ash bee soundly says :

" It was not, as stated on the title-page, repro- duced in facsimile from a copy printed at the private printing press in Great George Street, but from some reprint, from which the edition I am now noticing [the same as the Dyce copy] was in its turn ...... reprinted." ' Ind. Lib. Proh.,' 230.

Yet the critic was of opinion that about twenty years before he wrote, which would indicate about the year 1857, there was a genuine copy.

" For I have before me a copy of the edition I am at present noticing, on the title-page of which the owner has facsimiled from a copy of the original, which he had then in his hands, the design in question and the following inscription ' [and the three Latin words].'"

Ashbee does not say if the

was in the oval, and the Latin motto below,

nor if this copy was of twenty -four pages.

So we cannot conclude it to have been an

original.

Yet though neither originals nor fac- similes, these two versions give us the parodies with substantial accuracy. Every passage set out. in the Information is to be found in them. The passage quoted in Farmer's ' Plain Truth ' is in each. Each conforms to Kidgell's minute account and to Walpole's various allusions, particularly in the well-known letter to Sir H. Mann.

Each, moreover, follows Pope verse by verse, as we are informed the original did. And it is worthy of note that none of the many spurious versions do anything of the sort, being parodies only in the roughest sense. In these two true copies many a line is taken from Pope unaltered.

Any man can read these parodies for himself and decide, as between Wilkes and Kidgell, whether this was a work " which idolises the sex " (Wilkes to Brocklesby, 19 Dec., 1763), or, as Wilkes rather incon- sistently put it to the electors of Aylesbury, "a work which contained nothing but fair ridicule of some doctrines I could not believe " ; or whether it was, as it was found to be. "a wicked, obscene, and impious ERIC R. WATSON.

(To be continued.)

BLACKFRIARS ROAD. In the course of a letter written by Robert Fulton to Lord Stanhope, dated 12 May, 1 ! 796, we read :

" Has your Lordship heard of a Gent" at Mr" Roundtree's factory in Blackfryars Road, who has constructed an engine acting by the expansion of air, or inflammable air Created by Spirits of tar? "

The letter is quoted by Mr. H. W. Dickin- son in his recently published ' Life of Robert Fulton,' p. 49. This is the earliest instance I have met with of the use of " Blackfryars Road " to designate the street leading from the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge to the obelisk. Thomas Rowntree, as his name should be spelt, took out five patents between the years 1789 and 1805 ; and he is variously described as of " Surrey St., parish of Christ- church, county of Surrey," and " Great Surrey St., Blackfriars Bridge, county of Surrey." In addition to the above the thoroughfare appears to have been known at various times as " St. George's Road," " New Surrey St.," and " Surrey Road." Portions of the street were known as " Albion Place," " St. George's Place," and " Surrey Row."

The earliest note I have of " Blackfriars Road" .is 1810, in John Lockie's 'Topo- graphy of London,' giving *' a concise local description of and accurate direction to every square, street, lane, court, dock,, wharf, inn, public office, &c." Under " Surrey Road " he gives a cross-reference, " see Blackfriars Road." It seems, however, to be certain from Fulton's letter to Lord Stanhope that the present designation was known in 1796, though it may not have found its way into books. Perhaps this note may be useful to those who are engaged in identifying the houses in one of our lead- ing South London thoroughfares.

I may add that " Blackfriars Road " is an unfortunate name, as the great house of the Black Friars was on the north side of the river. The anomaly was aggravated by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Com- pany, when they gave the name "Black friars " to their station on the southern side of the bridge, which was, however, closed some vears ago, and is now only a goods depot/ R. B. P.

HYDE PARK CORNER, LEEDS. An inquiry was lately made by the present writer in the columns of The Yorkshire Post to ascer- tain the origin of the use of the name of " Hyde Park .Corner " in the city of Leeds, a term which, in the Metropolis, has probably been always confined to the south-eastern corner of the Park, and has not, like " Marble