Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/393

 i2s. vii. OCT. 23, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

321

LONDON, OCTOBER 23, 1920.

CONTENTS. No. 132.


 * "Over against Catherine Street in the Strand,"

i "321 Among the Shakespeare Archives, 322 Notes on Dorothy Osborne's 'Letters. 324 English Army li*t of 1740 Extracts from the Ald*?burgh Records, 327 ^ir Philip Sidney's Personal Appearance " Decimate " Highest Giound in City, 329" Hun," 330.

r^TTERIE 5 * : Steepest Macadamised Road in Europe- Bottle Tickets or Wine Labels -Gainsborough's Picture of The Mall Chartularies Surname Puttick. 330 'Longevity in Lsessoe American War, 1776 Preparatory Schools in the Eighteenth Century. A Poem of Shelley Dixons of Beeston Hoather The Maksr of an Old Communion Paten Spencer Karl of Banbury : Win- -chester Castle Records : Duke of Wellington, 331 Remington " At 'Ome '' Dr Johnson : G. A. Sala Quarr Abbey Maughfling Family Inscription on Bell Gray Faraily-Budeus. 332

REPLIES: Frances Gastrell, 333 Ro* Armorials, 334 Ship on Arms of Paris Vagaries of Indexers Anglesey Hou-e, 335 Elizibeth Chudleigh H zn or H z n., 336 "The Horoscope of Jamaica Nunc Dimitlis Hodges Family Francis Lherondell St. Anthony of Padua Gnaton or Gunton. 337 -Epitaph : Author Wanted Charles Churchill Missing Words Juris;* Pa,yne- Burnaby Baronets of Broughton Hall 'I he Miner of Falun Sydney Smith's "Last Flicker of Fun" Novels of the North Woods Parliamentary Petitions, 33S Bibliography of Lepers The Clink Author Wanted, 339.

3JOTES OV BOOKS : 'Captain Myles Standish : his Lost Lands and Lancashire Connexions,' 'Th<* Origin and Evolution of Freemasonry.'

"K tic<;s to Correspondents.

"' OVER AGAINST CATHERINE STREET IN THE STRAND."

TIELDING'S 'Joseph Andrews ' of 1742 was rprinted, so the title-page runs, "for A. Millar over against St. Clement's Church in the Strand." In the following year Fielding's ' Miscellanies ' were put forth ; these were " printed for the Author and sold 'by A. Millar opposite to Catherine Street in the Strand." Clearly Andrew Millar, the Bookseller who published the works of James Thomson, of Fielding and of Hume had changed premises in the meantime.

The 'Miscellanies ' contained .the cele- brated allegorical ' Journey from this World -to the Next,' and in discussing its source Fielding humorously remarks :

" Whether the ensuing pages were really the vision of some very pious person .... or .... as infinitely the greatest part imagine, they were

Bethlehem. .. .it will be sufficient if I give an
 * the production of some choice inhabitant of New

account by what means they came into my possession. Mr. Robert Powney, stationer, who

dwells opposite to Catherine Street, in the Strand,

a very honest man .... who, among other excellent stationery commodities, is particularly eminent for his pens, which I am abundantly bound to acknowledge, as I owe to their peculiar goodness that my manuscripts have by any means been legible : this gentleman, I say, furnished me some time since with a bundle of these pens wrapt up. . . .in a very large sheet of paper full of characters, written in a very bad hand. Now I have a surprising curiosity to read everything which is almost illegible ; partly from the sweet remembrance of the dear Scrawls which I have in. my youth received from that lovely part of the creation for which I have the tenderest regard ; and partly. ..."

In 1743, therefore, there were two persons associated with Fielding living in the Strand whose houses faced Catherine Street. But there had long flourished at this spot a renowned firm of booksellers no less a firm than the house of Tonson, the original pub- lishers of Dryden's works. Larwood in his 'History of Signboards,' 1866, third edn., p. 335, wrote :

" In 1697 when Tonson moved to Gray's Inn Gate he adopted the Shakespeare's Head under which he became famous. After 1712 he took a shop in the Strand, opposite Catherine Street, but without altering his sign, and there he died in 1736."

At p. 63, Larwood makes the further statement :

" Andrew Millar, the great publisher, took the Buchanan Head for the sign of his shop in the Strand, opposite St. Catherine Street, the house where the famous Jacob Tonson had lived in whose time it was the Shakespeare's Head. But Millar preferred his countryman and put up the less known head of George Buchanan (1525-1582), the author of a version of the Psalms, and tutor to Queen Mary Stuart."

Mr. Austin Dobson in an article on ' Fielding and Andrew Millar ' in The Library for July, 1916, observed :

" Sarah Fielding's novel of ' David Simple ' came out in 1744, by which date Millar had apparently moved from his first shop near St. Clement's Church to a new one opposite Katharine Street in the Strand. Whether this was the Shakespeare's Head once occupied by the elder Tonson is not clear, as according "to Nichols [' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' 1812, i. 297] the former shop of Tonson the first was still tenanted by Tonson the third."

There being a well-founded doubt of topographical interest to students of the Georgian era, an examination of the con- temporary Rate -books "has been made with a view to confirming, or disproving, Lar- wood 's very definite statements. A ledger marked "St. Mary Le Strand Collecting Book for the Poor Rate for the year 1736 " shows that at the corner of Dutchy Lane and of the Strand (south side) Jacob Tonson. occupied a house rented at 60Z. on which he