Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/223

 9* S. XL MARCH 14, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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found at pp. 96, 97 of the first volume, and is entitled 'The Original of "Not a Drum was Heard."' After giving the Beaumanoir story which was, of course, a pure invention ending with "Fides sit penes lectorem," there followed an excellent French version of Wolfe's well-known poem, containing the stanza cited ante, p. 105, from the paragraph in Truth. One should feel surprised that the editor of Truth had been taken in, were it not that the Spectator an essentially literary paper was caught in the same trap some years ago.

It may amuse some of your readers who are interested in clever translations to turn to the complete edition of the ' Keliques of Father Prout' or to the volumes of Fraser for 1834 and of Bentley's Miscellany for 1837. An account of Francis Sylvester Mahony and his writings will be found in the 'D.N.B.' EDMUND T. BEWLEY.

The verse on the above subject quoted from Truth is taken from the * Keliques ' of Father Prout, where the whole poem is given in French, entitled ' Les Funerailles de Beau- manoir.'

It is nothing but one of the clever mysti- fications of which Mahony was so fond.

T. F. FEY.

DOROTHY GIFFORD = JOHN PAGETT (9 th S. xi. 128). Dorothy Gifford was not related to Elizabeth Gifford, who married Sir Peter Courthope. Sir Peter Courthope, of Little Island, co. Cork, who was knighted 16 March, 1660/1, married as his second wife, by licence, Dublin, 14 July, 1662, Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir John Gifford, of Castle Jordan, co. Meath (who was knighted 16 January, 1635/6, and died 24 April, 1657), by his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir John Jephson, of Mallow, co. Cork, who was knighted 18 De- cember, 1603 (not 18 October, as in Metcalfe's 'Book of Knights'). The name Dorothy does not occur in the family of Giffo'rd of Castle Jordan. G. D. B.

BACON-SHAKESPEARE QUESTION (9 th S. ix. 141, 202, 301, 362, 423 ; x. 43, 124, 201, 264, 362, 463; xi. 122). MR. CRAWFORD in the article at_the last reference so strangely arid indeed injuriously misrepresents the arguments and even the contents of my book that I must beg the favour of being permitted to expose some of his errors. He says that I give a collection of 230 words " as of Bacon's coinage." Arid this is important, for if, in this and the other instances which MR. CRAWFORD presents, there is no claim on my part that Bacon coined the words or phrases on which MR. CRAWFORD comments, his entire criticism falls to the ground. Your readers

will be surprised to learn that my book con- tains no such collection at all. The list of 230 words which I have given is not a list of words coined by Bacon, but of words used in Shakespeare in a classic sense, not exactly corresponding to their ordinary use. MR. CRAWFORD might have seen that this is the import of these words, even if he had only so far inspected them as to notice, what he himself points out, that "in most cases I forget to show where Bacon uses them in his acknowledged works." Some attempt to do this would certainly be necessary if I claimed the words as coined by Bacon. I cannot find any excuse for MR. CRAWFORD'S enormous blunder. For (1) I expressly point out that the list includes (and I might have added

chiefly includes) " ordinary English words

carrying a larger import than their vernacular employment can account for." (2) I myself refer to Ben Jonson, Hooker, Spenser, Raleigh, and others as using many of these words, and I quote passages proving this. (3) As the list contains such words as act, extra- vagant, comfort, inequality, inform, permission, and a large number of equally familiar terms, the inaccuracy of MR. CRAWFORD'S asser- tion is " gross 'and palpable." (4) I nowhere enter upon the philological aspects of the argument, and very rarely do I lay any stress upon Bacon's originality in the use either of words or phrases in which paral- lelisms are pointed out between him and Shakespeare. I admit that other writers may be found using the same phrases or words. My argument depends on the multitude of parallels, and not on the irresistible evidence of any one or any number. I am careful to explain this in many passages of my book, e.g. : " No two writers help themselves in pre- cisely the same way to the current phrases and notions that may be floating in the air at the time." Currency is thus expressly admitted.

I do not think MR. CRAWFORD'S style of critical analysis can be easily justified on literary, or even on ethical grounds. He either misstates, or understates, or leaves entirely unstated, the real points of my in- stances. For example, he speaks of my " quite accidental discovery" of the phrase "out of tune " in Bacon's ' Novum Organum,' com- paring it with Shakespeare's

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. He is careful not to quote the Latin, which is absolutely necessary for a clear statement of the case duras et absonas. And this is only half represented by MR. CRAWFORD'S "out of tune." And he leaves out the curious signi- ficance of the fact that in two successive aphorisms in the first book of the ' Nov. Org.'