Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/174

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. MAMH 3, 1900.

interest, and knowing of no printed book on the subject by an author named Davis although well acquainted with John Macky's 1 Court Characters ' I inspected the same with a view to purchase as an addition to my extensive collections, and then at once perceived from the context that it was merely a transcript (in a large and fair clerical hand of the early part of the eighteenth century) of Macky's work as above, but with no such title as given, nor, indeed, any. And the ques- tion thereupon occurred to my mind whether the words of the original title had been quoted, and whether this MS. ever contained the like on a leaf which had been purposely abstracted, or (as being loose) lost since it was catalogued for sale. As the result, I need hardly state that I was "off" the pur- chase.

The 'Court Characters,' published with the 'Memoirs of Macky's Secret Services,' although not printed until 1733 (i.e., some seven years after his death), was, according to the title-page, drawn up by him pursuant to the direction of H.R.H. the Princess Sophia (Electress Dowager of Hanover), at some time between, as it would appear from internal evidence, 1703 and 1706, when the author visited that kingdom and the other Courts of Germany en route for the Island of Zant, in the dominion of Venice, where he possessed a portion of an estate. At the desire of the princess he then gave her, we are told,. " the characters of the great men of England and Scotland " meaning, no doubt, a transcript of the original and then unpublished MS. which service, with many others, her Royal Highness acknowledged by letters to him. Another (the Tixall) transcript must have been made, about 1712, by the above-named Mr. Davis possibly from that which had been some years previously given to the princess ; for, unless we are to understand that the word " written " con- tained in the note on the fly-leaf thereof was loosely intended (as I can well imagine it was) for the more precise " transcribed," the first portion of such note is incomprehensible. In any case it would be interesting to have some further light thrown on its subject.

The price of 3. realized at the sale for the Tixall transcript was, in the circumstances, remarkably high, and I think fully justifies my opinion that the unfortunate purchaser and nis competitors considered they were bidding for a valuable original unpublished MS. by one Davis; and I regret that (in the public interest) 1 should have to cause the buyer any disappointment with his "little lot." T<> the auctioneers no

blame is attributable. Manuscripts are " ticklish " things to dabble in ; and the legal maxim caveat emptor may well be applied to their purchase, whether at auction or pri- vately. W. I. R. V.

"HEEL-BALL" OR "COBBLERS' WAX." (See ante, p. 137.) I am surprised that MR. Tnos. RATCLIFFE should speak of these two quite distinct articles as if they were the same thing. Both are correctly described in the ' H.E.D.,' and I should have thought that every one knew the difference in composition and use. Heel-ball is a hard substance made of wax, lamp - black, &c., and is used for polishing the sides of the heels and soles of boots and shoes, also for making rubbings of brasses, &c. Cobblers' wax is not so hard, and it softens at once in the warmth of the hand. It is made of pitch and rosin, and is used, as MR. RATCLIFFE says, in making " waxed ends"; also as an application to some wounds, being considered to be "a very drawing thing." I remember a poor, but characteristic joke in the 'Pogmoor Almanack,' in the forties, of a schoolmaster hearing his class go through their spelling lesson. Seeing one lad with something in his mouth, he asked what he was chewing. "A piece o' cobbler wax," said the lad ; " I Ve heard tell it 's a very good thing for to get a spell out." But the " spell " of the lad's informant was a sliver of wood buried in the flesh. J. T. F.

Durham.

LETTER - WRITING. (See ante, p. 101.) The decay of letter- writing admitted and lamented has not been caused solely by the penny post. It has been brought about more by the quickness of communication which the railway system has rendered possible, and by the multiplication of cheap daily newspapers. It is needless for me to write to my friend in the country an account of what is happening in town when, perhaps, he himself may be travelling thither by the next express train, and, if not, can learn to- day's events from to-morrow's morning paper. What we need, in literature as well as in letter-writing, is to resist the impulse to live as quickly as we can. W. C. B.

'THE EVOLUTION OF EDITORS.' Under this heading Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his * Studies of a Biographer,' tells us that in the last edition of 'Johnson's Dictionary' "published during his life" we find that in 1785 (Johnson, by the way, died in 1784) the word "editor" meant "either 'publisher' simply, or editor in the sense in which the name describes Bentley's relation to Horace or Warbijrton's to Pope,"