Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/396

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. NOV. 15, 1902.

major genn'll out of the estate of the principles, no estate of Imanul Perada being extant ; out the Court doth allow the said Solomon Franco sixe shillings p. week out of the treasury for teu x weeks for his subsistence till he can get his passage into Holland, so as he doeth \v,ithin that time."

Further information of any kind as to Franco or Perada is solicited. JOSEPH LIBOWICH. Cambridge, Mass.

'ViLIKINS AND HIS DlNAH.' (See 9 th S.

viii. 341.) Who was the author of the ballad of ' Vilikins and his Dinah,' sung by Robson in the farce of ' The Wandering Minstrel ' ? G. A. Sala, in his 'Autobiography,' says :

" The words and the air of ' Vilikins ' were, if not as old as the hills, considerably older than the age of Queen Elizabeth. The story told in the ballad of a father's cruelty, a daughter's anguish, a sweet- heart's despair, and the ultimate suicide of both lovers, is, albeit couched in uncouth and grotesque language, as pathetic as the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

Robson appears to have first introduced the song into the farce of ' The Wandering Minstrel' at the Grecian Saloon ; there is another song in the printed copy of the farce. Clement Scott, in his life of E. L. Blanchard, says that Robson sang ' Vilikins ' for the first time in London at Leigh Murray's benefit at Drury Lane, 27 May, 1865 ; but this is a mis- take, as Robson, who was born in 1822, died in 1864. Without attributing to the ballad the antiquity claimed for it by Sala, it is possible that it may be older than the last century, and that it was originally a serious composition, although afterwards converted into a comic song. JOHN HEBB.

[See 1 st S. xii. 183, 293, 374 ; 3 rd S. v. 223; vi. 158, 236, 260, 319 ; 6 th S. viii. 67, 94.]

GARDNER BARONY. I should be glad to be informed if the peerage conferred about the year 1800 on Admiral Gardner was granted with any special remainder to his brothers and their descendants, or merely to his own male issue. H.

COLERIDGE'S ' CHRISTABEL.' (9 th S. x. 326.)

I TAKE it that what H. T. wants is a trust- worthy account of the textual changes in 'Christabel.' I make no apology, therefore, for intervening with a few words on this matter, which MR. R. H. SHEPHERD'S note (8 th S. vii. 443) not only fails to clear up, but obscures and confuses.

1. There is but one title-page of the first edition of ' Christabel ' : that, namely, which H. T. himself has correctly transcribed, and

which is also given, with verbal accuracy, but certain errors of punctuation, &c., in the revised bibliography edited by COL. PRIDEAUX. The omission by MR. SHEPHERD of the words

" Printed for Albemarle St.," <fec., is simply

an error either of inadvertence or (more pro- bably) of ignorance, since, to judge by his remarks on the text, it is hard to believe that he can ever have handled a copy of the first issue.

2. MR. SHEPHERD observes that ' Chris- tabel ' " passed rapidly through several edi- tions, which underwent some slight verbal alterations." Now the truth is that ' Chris- tabel ' first appeared early in June, 1816, and speedily went into a second edition, which, however, differs in no respect from the first, save only in regard of the title-page (cf. Dykes Campbell's ' Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge,' 1893, App. K. ix. p. 549). MR. SHEP- HERD, indeed, asserts elsewhere (' Poetical and Dramatic Works of S. T. Coleridge,' Pickering, 1877, vol. i., Memoir, p. xcy) that 'Christabel' "ran through three editions in 1816," but he gives no authority for this state- ment, which Mr. Dykes Campbell neither confirms nor denies. In the bibliography appended to Mr. Hall Caine's ' Life of Cole- ridge,' moreover which, be it observed, was compiled by Mr. John P. Anderson, of the British Museum only two early editions are mentioned viz., the first and second editions of 1816. Be this as it may, the text of ' Christabel ' remained unaltered till 1828, when a revised version was included by Coleridge in the three-volume edition of his poems and plays published by Pickering.

Next, as to the couplet

Sir Leoline, the Baron, which Hath a toothless mastiff bitch,

said by MR. SHEPHERD to occur in the first edition : I regret to say that MR. SHEPHERD'S note here is simply a tissue of mistakes mis- takes arising in part from his total misappre- hension of the sense of a passage in Allsop's 'Letters, Conversations, &c., of S. T. Cole- ridge.' Allsop, who professes to report the words of Charles Lamb, writes as follows (third edition, 1864, p. 110) :

"I advised Coleridge to alter the lines in

'Christabel'

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,

Had [sic] a toothless mastiff bitch,

into

Sir Leoline, the Baron round, Had a toothless mastiff hound ;

but Coleridge, who has no alacrity in altering,

changed this first termination to ivhich, but still

left in the other, bitch."

Now this is very ambiguously put ; and MR. SHEPHERD may well be excused for having