Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/13

 12 s. m. JAN. 6) 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Discomposure, ii. 82 . . . ., you will be able to ^account for pay discomposure ; ii. 99. She re- turned, in visible discomposure, (D. not 1828- 1741.)

Disconsolation, iii. 120...., and the Hermii shook his head hi profound disconsolation, (D not 1840-1755, nor later.)

Dish, iii. 97 . . . . : will you have the goodness
 * to give me a dish of coffee ? (T. uses it. The D.

has it from 1855 and 1679 only.)

Dole, i. 16...., mending my usual dole oi stockings ;

Dressing-room, i. 37. . . ., and the stranger was soon introduced into a dressing room, ii. 1 1 .... and on their adjourning to her dressing room, accom- panied by Lord Drew, Mrs. Leland, and Martha, .iii. 46...., was much surprised on being intro- duced into the dressing-room, to find her at- tended by two lovely girls, his cousins, iii. 124. Zoriada consented, and the Doctor retired to the dressing room, where she promised to join him ; iii. 127. . . ., hurried her into her dressing room, where Doctor Withers tenderly received her. (Not D. 1803-1683. It has apparently the sense -of a reception-room adjoining a bedroom.)

Drop in, ii. 35 . . . ., until he had dropped La at Heath-house, (D. not 1850-1754.)

Drops, ii. 6 . . . ., recollected she had put some 'drops in the front pocket, iii. 6. Zoriada begged A few drops ; (In the sense of medicine not D. 1810-1728.)

_ Ductile, i. 143. . . ., the parson's mean and duc- "tile soul waiting to catch its colour of action . . . (D. not 1835-1765.)

EDWABD S. DODGSON.

(To be continued.)

[We cannot agree with our correspondent so far -as he implies that all the words in his list which -appear in the ' N,E.D.' need further illustration.]

FIELDING AND RICHARDSON ON THE CONTINENT.

IN 1810 Anna Laetitia Barbauld wrote a Life^of Fielding for the "British Novel- ists." The lady obviously knew nothing of her subject, save what Murphy had told her, and this she garbled. Murphy had said that Fielding " was remarkable for tender- ness and constancy to his wife," and this Mrs. Barbauld changes to, " though he might not be a very faithful, he was a very affectionate husband." One wonders at this until we read that

" any portion of learning in a woman is con- stantly united in this author with something disagreeable. It is given to Jenny, the supposed mother of Jones. It is given in a higher degree to that very disagreeable character Mrs. Bennet in ' Amelia.' Mrs. Western, too, is a woman of reading. A man of licentious manners, and such was Fielding, seldom respects the sex." There, the secret is out, for Mrs. Barbauld was a woman of reading. In another place she tells us that Fielding's works " are not ,greatly relished by foreigners," while on the -Continent Richardson is popular. For this

she gives no figures, no proof of any kind, yet for over a century it has been repeated by others as something obvious. Fielding's popularity in England is conceded, but it is insisted that really to understand him one must be born within sound of Bow Bells. BlackwoocC s Magazine for March, 1860, con- tains an article ' A Word about Tom Jones ' in which the anonymous writer finds much that is ill and little that is good in Fielding's work, and paraphrases Mrs. Barbauld thus : " While in France and Germany we find men willing enough to welcome Goldsmith, Sterne, or Richardson, they never at any time wel- comed Fielding." Yet this writer knows his Fielding so little that he refers to Mrs. Waters as " Lucy," thus confusing the reputed mother of Jones with the ill-reputed mother of the Duke of Monmouth.

To take another long jump, we find Prof. William Lyon Phelps saying in The Book- man (New York) for December, 1915, that " one reason why Richardson was so much more popular on the Continent than Fielding was because Richardson lost nothing in translation ; Fielding lost irreparably." Here is another editor of Richardson giving fancies for facts. That Prof. Phelps knows Richardson, we may take for granted ; but he could not have known that Fielding wrote an admiring criticism of ' Clarissa ' in The Jacobite Journal, or he never would have written : " Richardson's opinion of Fielding we know from his letters ; Field- ing's opinion of Richardson, apart from his first novel, is not preserved, which is just as well, for it was probably unfit for pub- lication." After all, would it not be as well to reduce these loose statements to figures ? Let me give Fielding's record, and let some devotee of Richardson give the record for his favourite.

' Joseph Andrews ' was published in 1742, and within fifty years thereafter there were nineteen editions printed in Great Britain and Ireland, but in the same period there were twenty editions on the Continent.

' Tom Jones ' appeared in 1749, and in the next half -century thirty- five editions were published in Great Britain and Ireland, while the Continent produced forty-six.

The first edition of ' Amelia ' was dated 1752, and by 1802 only nine editions were jrinted in Great Britain and Ireland, against ifteen on the Continent. The second edi- ion of ' Amelia ' was dated in London in 1775, while there were eight foreign editions during that period.

But does this leave anything for the other side to do ? If these figures prove anything