Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/513

 XL JUNE 27, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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last books, probably, that were published in the nineteenth century it created a great sensation. But can any one believe that such sensation would have been caused unless the public had believed in the genuineness of these 'Letters,' although many might have wondered how any person could have been found to surrender letters of such exquisite tenderness and pathos for publication ? I was one of that public. A few months ago I read in the Times the following statement :

" Mr. [I do not wish to advertise his name],

who, after much coy hesitation, has at length ad- mitted the soft impeachment of having written ' An Englishwoman's Love-Letters,' " &c.

So, after all, it would appear to have been nothing more than an author's or publisher's trick a trade advertisement to beguile the public into buying a book under what may be called a literary false pretence. Without that " explanation " the book whose charm consisted in this guarantee of its genuine- nesswould scarce have appealed to the public. An affidavit was, no doubt, con- sidered by the credulous public to be the embodiment of truth until the late Lord Bowen's famous epigram " Truth will out, even in an affidavit," dispelled that idea. Were Lord Bowen alive now he would doubt- less include an author's "explanation."

It is with a sigh of relief that one comes back to the thought that, at all events, we may be allowed to believe in the genuine- ness of those older-time love-letterssweet and fragrant as the herbs and flowers in the old garden in which they were mostly written ' The Love - Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple.'

But what I should like to know from the readers of ' N. & Q.' is whether there are any other instances of prefaces being written to vouch for the genuineness of the incidents in a book where the story was a concocted or made-up one, or whether it is but a sign of the times this commencement of another century which marks the general prostitu- tion of literature to advertisement, of which scarcely a periodical but affords an instance. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

WILLIAM SYMINGTON THE INVENTOR. The placing of a memorial in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate, to this almost forgotten inventor is an event worthy, I think, of record in the pages of 4 N. & Q.' William Syming- ton was born in 1763, and died in extreme poverty in 1831, so that the placing of this monument, which takes the form of an alabaster tablet, by the Lord Mayor is a tardy recognition of the genius of the con-

structor of the Charlotte Dundas, the first steamboat in England fitted for practical use. When Symington was within an ace of success, the death of his patron the Duke of Bridge- water, and the repudiation by his executors of his verbal contract, dashed Symington's hopes to the ground, reducing him to penury and abject poverty, in which state he died in the East-End of London, just seventy -two years ago. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

MOIR'S 'TABLE TALK.' A pleasant little book entitled 'Table Talk; or, Selections from the Ana French, English, and Ger- man, with Bibliographical Notices,' appeared as vol. x. of " Constable's Miscellany " in 1827. It is attributed to George Moir by Halkett and Laing, but is not mentioned in the notice ofhiminthe'D.N.B.'

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

ENGLISH AS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. Last year a friend of mine, whilst climbing in the Alps, had with him a guide from German Switzerland who could neither speak nor understand French. Passing the night at a hut on the border of French-speaking Canton Vaud, they met a peasant who understood no German. But the two Swiss sat up late into the night chatting together in English, which they both knew fairly well. Sir Frederick Cardew, late Governor of Western Africa, to whom this was mentioned, told me that some years ago, when travelling by steamer near Singapore, he met two Chinamen, from different parts of the empire, who could not understand one another's dialect, but got along merrily together in English. In this part of Switzerland the number of those who can talk English, over and above those employed in hotels and shops, is considerable. Besides those who take service in England to learn the language, a good many emigrate to America, and return with a competence and a knowledge of our tongue.

J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC.

Schloss Rothberg, Vaud.

DR JAMES NEWTON. More investigation about him is needed. The ' Dictionary of National Biography,' xl. 393, tells us that James Newton, M.D., was born "about 1670, and kept a private lunatic asylum near Isling- ton turnpike. The registers of St. James s, Clerkenwell, printed in 6 vols. by the Mar- leian Society, tell us something more. J was doubtless the son of a previous Dr. James Newton who kept the asylum before him. Persons "distracted, from Newton s, were buried from 1672 to 1744. At first he is