Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/132

 124

NOTES AND QUERIES.

. x. A. IG, 1902.

the following, each described as "a Favorite song in the Whim of the Moment " :

5. Poor Jack. 4 pp. Price Is. ; arrangement for German Flute.

15. Colin and Chloe. 2pp. Price Qd.

18. The Return of Ulysses to Ithica [aic]. 2 pp. Price 6d. For Ger. Flute.

The following, also published by Preston & Son, are described as " Written, Composed and Sung by Mr. Dibdin at the Lyceum ":

I. Wives and Sweethearts, or Saturday Night. 4 pp. Price Is. Arrt. for Guittar.

6. The Chelsea Pensioner, "a celebrated Song" (i.e, The Soldier's Grave). 3 pp. Price Is. Arr. for German Flute or Guittar.

Another copy, price 6d.

9. The Voice of Nature. "An admired Indian Song." 3 pp. Price Qd. Arr. for German Flute.

10. The Jolly Fisherman, " a favorite song." 3 pp. Price Qd.

II. The celebrated Indian Battle. 4 pp. Price Is.

None of these are signed ; neither are the following, which are printed by Longman & Broderip, No. 26, Cheapside, and No. 13, Haymarket:

28. A Linnet's Nest with anxious care. A Favorite Ballad. Composed and Sung at the Lyceum in the Strand, by Charles Dibdin. Enter'd at Stationers Hall. Pr. Is. 4 pp. Scored for violins, oboes, horns and basso. Also arranget. for Guitar.

29. I was, d'ye see, a Waterman [My Poll and Part- ner Joe]. A favorite Ballad Composed, &c., as above, but in short score. Also arr* for Guitar.

Other early folio editions of separate songs :

5. The new Song of Poor Jack. Composed by Dibdin. 1 p. Dublin, published by John Lee.

5. Poor Jack. Dibdin. Price &d. London, Printed & sold by Dale, 19 Cornhill, &c. (from Dale's 9th book of songs). 2 pp.

5. Poor Jack. Composed by C. Dibdin. Pr. In. 2 pp. Printed & sold by H. Andrews, No. 11 Little Canterbury Place, Lambeth Walk.

1. Wives and Sweethearts. Written and Com- posed by C. Dibdin. Price la. 2 pp. No publisher's name. Water-mark date 1803.

29. I was d'ye see a Waterman. A Favorite song, Composed by Mr- Dibdin. For the Piano Forte. Price Is. 2 pp. London, Printed for G. Walker, 106, Great Portland Street.

Several of the songs in this entertainment have appended arrangements for German flute or guitar. Some of them were published in 'The Bystander,' 1789, q.v.

E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN. Morningside, Sudworth Road, New Brighton. (To be continued.)

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE QUESTION.

(Continued from p. 44-)

UP to the present I have made but little attempt to illustrate passages in Bacon by others in Ben Jonson, and I have deliberately refrained from doing so, it having been my object to show that the 'Promus' notes

and other matter adduced by Baconians can be paralleled out of the work of all writers of the period or previously. There is little or nothing that is new in the ' Promus ' ; and the vocabulary, phrasing, and learning dis- played in Shakespeare's work are common- place. The examples that I dealt with, except in one or two cases, were chosen because of their supposed difficulty ; and almost in- variably they prove not only that Shake- speare was not necessarily a Latin and Greek scholar, but that the Baconians had not mastered Bacon's own work. That is a point worth remembering. These men, who pretend to know so much about their master's work, are apparently wilfully ignorant of vital matters with which they should be acquainted ; and they either do not know or pretend not to know that Bacon's notes and other matter which they adduce to dethrone Shakespeare are commonplaces. If they had honestly worked the ' Promus ' with other writers, such as John Lyly, Robert Greene, Beaumont and Fletcher, or with any other authors who produced work equal in volume to -that of Shakespeare, they would have known that the work of Mrs. Pott is a huge joke, and that the attempt to filch Shake- speare's work from him is a task beyond their strength. The manner in which Shake- speare is made to furnish parallels for the 'Promus' is sometimes highly diverting ; as, for instance, when we find the same passage at one time doing duty as an English pro- verb, then as an allusion to a Bible sentence, next as an adaptation of Ovid, and, finally, grinning under a French proverb. That kind of thing very frequently occurs in Mrs. Pott's work, which is full of gross inaccuracies and wild assertions. However, I saw it would never do to let the chance of a complete answer to the Baconian case slip by, and therefore, as Mrs. Pott had taken the trouble to illustrate the 'Promus' by copious extracts from Shakespeare, I thought - it would be wise to follow suit by showing that other men's work was equally, or even more, fruit- ful of parallels ; and as the entries are nearly all commonplaces, the task, although laborious, was not difficult of achievement. I tried Marlowe, Spenser, Lyly, and Beau- mont and Fletcher, and found they were all strong " Baconians "; but finally I selected Ben Jonson, not because he used or paralleled the ' Promus ' entries more frequently than others, but because he was a close student of Bacon and copied from him. The Baconian case is centred in the assertion that the repe- titions in Bacon and Shakespeare are not commonplaces ; and that the learning they