Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/167

 i2s.vnT.pjsB.i2.iMi.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 133 &c. ' It is an unvarnished aocount of the tricks and ruses of a scoundrel put forth as a warning to" the public, the preface stating: "... .Whatever were the motives that drew from him [Carew] this narrative. .. .the Editor would not have brought it to the light had not he apprehended that it might be of use to guard well-meaning people against ,the impositions of the like impostors [i.e., mumpers or gypsies] for the future." Goadby would then be 24 years of age only and, so far as is known, unconnected with Exeter. That the mumpers were giving trouble at the time is clear from contem- porary newspapers, e.g., The Reading Mer- cury for Jan. 14, 1745. The next issue of the book, the first to connect it with Goadby, is undated, but was probably the one referred to in the Register of Books in The Gent. Mag. for October 1749 (p. 480). It will be noticed that the title has assumed a bolder form : " An Apology for the Life of Bampfylde Moore Carew commonly known throughout the West of England by the title of King of the Beggars, and Dog-Merchant-General. . . .Printed by R. Goadby and SoldL by W. Owen, bookseller,* at Temple Bar, London." New material is incorporated which is balanced by some omissions, but the most noticeable difference is the change of tone. Warnings to the beneficently-minded find no place, and in lieu are substituted certain specious arguments justifying Carew's mode of life. Clearly some one with a turn for satire had revised the book. The next or third edition, bearing dete at the end of the preface of Feb. 10, 1750, was much enlarged, and the work is for the first time broken up into chapters. The imprint now becomes " Printed for R. Goadby and W. Owen, Bookseller, at Temple Bar.'" Of added matter is a footnote to p. 313 con- taining a depreciatory remark on Fielding's 'Tom Jones ' which, but for the event, would pass unnoticed. The next edition is announced in The Whitehall Evening Post, Nov. 12 to 14, 1751 : " This day was published in a pocket volume, neatly printed, the second edition, with consider- able additions and a Dedication to Justice Fielding, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Bamp- fylde Moore Carew who has been for more than twenty-eight years past, and is at this time, the King of the Beggars With a parellel drawn between Mr. B. M. C. and Tom Jones printed for R. Goadby in Sherburn, and W. Owen at Temple Bar." ' By calling this "the second edition " the j editio princeps and the edition of 1749
 * appear to be disavowed, which probably

caused the Exeter origin of the book to be- ultimately forgotten. The text of this 1751 edition was greatly altered, the narrative, including a long dedication, being made subservient to 8r rancorous attack on Fielding as opportunity offered. In this form it ran through many editions, the last two, of which I possess copies, being the eighth of 1768, and the ninth of 1775. Even if it be supposed that Mr. or Mrs. Goadby recast the 1749 and 1750 editions it is difficult to believe that they were con- cerned in the book, other than financially ,- when it became a professed attack on Fielding. In 1751 Fielding had many enemies in London quite ready enough to assist Owen who, in fact, published in that year an ' Examen of Tom Jones,' a malicious- criticism of the novel. It was not uncommon at that period for books sold in London to be printed in the country. In 1766 the first edition of Goldsmith's ' Vicar of Wakefield ' pub- lished by Xewbery of Pater Noster Row was printed by B. Collins in Salisbury. In 1782 an edition of the Apology ' was produced by J. and R. Tonson and other London publishers "omitting the parallel between Mr. Carew and Tom Jones The remarks on Mr. Fielding's performance being so very ill-natured and appeared much more like private pique than candid criti- cism." There is one point that gives secret satis- faction to those with friendly feelings towards Fielding. One of Carew's victims was Mrs. Rhodes of Kingsbridge from whom the arch villain obtained money by false- pretences. Had Fielding's detractors only known that this lady, as Sarah Andrew, had been his first love what scurrility they would have indulged in ! One word in praise of the book. It is invaluable to the topographer. The frauds of the itinerant were practised over so wide an area that he obtained an extensive and detailed knowledge of places in, and a wide acquaintance with the inhabitants of, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire and Cornwall, and to such purpose that the work may not inaptly be called a Georgian Kelly's Directory of those counties. In 1810 Thomas Price, of Poole in Devon,, had access to Carew's journals which were then said to be in the possession of his^ family. Are these still extant ? J. PAUL DE CASTBO. 1 Essex Court, Temple.