Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/564

 462 NOTES AND QUERIES. tlsa. x. JuNB 17, 1022. en ormolu " at p. iii. of the preface of the 2d Edition. Tell him further that my express mention of your name was, from what had appeared before the public with your name attached, and from habits of old and friendly intimacy but as much as from either, from a conviction that your Athen[ae] Oxon[ienses] had not been treated as it ought, in more places than one " a prophet hath no honour in his own country," &c. Tell him all this and tell him further that nothing in the shape of disrespect, slighting, or want of bibliographical sympathy has operated on this occasion. One word more. I hope to come among you about the middle of Novembr. I will affirm by word of mouth what my pen here inscribeth. Bodley, Bandinel and Bliss for ever 1 ! Sweet and soothing alliteration. Let me touch a more chirupping [sic] note. So > ou like my book : bear with my conceits, pleasantries, and all the bizarrerie of the Dibdiniana ! Show me a proof of your perusal, by a string of corrections and additions. Critics must not think of what is omitted, but of what is inserted, Certainly, the mass of useful intelligence very much exceeds what may be considered merely curious. I confined Divinity, History, and Voyages and Travels, [to] one [chapter], throughout useful. In Poetry and the Drama I was ever running over the course with a stiff curb in my horse's mouth (N.B. I have attended the races this week), I could have dash'd on and never tired, but the " certi denique fines " [sic] checked my blood steed. The book will do good ; it has done good : and so help me God, that " good " was first, and will be last in my thoughts ! Epistles from all quarters flow in upon me. I ought to be a Bishop for the sake of frankage. Among the volunteers, is a very pleasing, lively, and intelligent one from the Duke of Newcastle my parishioner but whom I never saw. Not only does He (I should say His Grace), but several, yea many, big wigs and little wigs, call it a " most entertaining (now this I did not bargain for) and instructive volume." Drury, Palgrave, D. Turner, D'Israeli, The B[isho]p of London, assent to this character of the work. True it is, Sir B[ichard] Phillips kicks, curvets and curses in his heart at its success because he meant to do something like it ; and what is equally inexplicable and contemptible, the Editor of the British Critic my friend Archy Campbell- who has quaffed my port and munched my mutton, has chosen to fall foul of it in what he conceives to be a very witty production in order to give a fillip to the dull diatribes of his Journal. Now that review is, in all respects, thoroughly heartless and superficial. The wit is impotent, the statements are false, and the deductions utterly contemptible. When game of this sort is up, and especially in this shooting season, I must expect plenty of sharp-shooters to be winged by one, to be legged by another, and to be breasted by a third. We shall see. My broadside, by way of return of fire, will be reserved for 'the preface of the second edition. Meanwhile furnish me with all the weapons you can. Urge Parker to push the book, as no second edition can appear till late in the Spring. At Cambridge they go off like partridges. I should like to take a peep at the marginal corrigenda of Elmsley's copy for I learn he has purchased it. Perhaps he will take me up in a corner at Althorp, this approaching Xmas, and give me a hundred and one lashes but, then, his whip must be composed of cock pheasant's feathers. The second volume will contain Grammars, Dictionaries, Geography, Antiquities and Fine Arts, Romances and Novels, &c., with a general Introduction to the Sciences the latter to be supplied me by a very competent friend. Meanwhile, I am busy with my new edition of the Classics and am occupied with Hebrew Bibles ; and so pray count over for me the number of leaves, very carefully, in your copy of the first edition -of 1488 in the Auctorium. Have you any other, and what, H.B. ? I mean of earlyish date. Now listen. My candlelight occupations are devoted to an abridgement of my Tour in 2 vote. demi 8vo, with a third vol. containing all the accounts of the foreign libraries : to be sold, together, or apart at the option of the purchaser, perhaps 15/- per volume. The book is wanted as a circulating library book, which, in its present form and costly price is out of the question. The hint at such an abridgement came from a high professional quarter, 3 years ago, and poor Rennell encouraged the idea. The bibliography will sell with the L.C. [Library Companion] and I may put 100 clear, per volume, in my pocket. Publisher, unsettled : but mum. Listen yet further. I am going to abridge the whole of the B.S. [Bibliotheoa Spencer] in one demi 8vo volume of about 800 pages at 1. 1. cost ; one alphabet, from beginning to end, and every reference [?] inserted. At present, the size, cost, and various beggs [beginnings] and ends, render it, tho' a valuable, yet a comfortless book to consult ; besides, its cost is prodigious. I calculate upon the sale of 500 copies at Paris, and 1500 here, and to have a steel plate of his Lordship's head (if he will allow it) at the begg [beginning]. And why should I not do these things ? Who has worked harder and fared worse than myself ? I have never recovered the Tour business. Besides, I have got an honest reputation, and have a right to make an honest use of it. My books are too costly, and sealed books to the many. When I complete my bibliography I will attack the Reformation, or rather the Hist[ory] of it and, in the meantime, put forth a 7/6 manual which shall put 700 into my pocket. So runs my life away and thus God fits the back to the burden ! but my Summer has been embittered by many painful and trying avocations and occurrences of which I will say nothing more at present : only, if J. H. ! (nota bene, not Joseph Haslewood) and myself become two remember, I prepared you for the intelligence. I hate bluster, priggishness, and intolerance of every description. But, I rely upon your honour for secrecy. Old Hassey [? Haslewood] is spending two or three days with us, and is now gone to a battue, while I write my sermon for to-morrow. On Monday we are going to see the diversion of hawking about 5 miles off. My life, here, is smooth and uniform. I am obliged to write all my sermons afresh as plain as a pikestaff, which I rather like and now and then give them a quaint touch a la Latimer. The consequence is, that the Gospel shop is just