Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/209

 S. IX. MARCH 15, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1902.

CONTENTS. -No. 220.

FES: 'A Dream of a Queen's Reign,' 201 Bacou- lakespeare. 202 R. Argentine 'The Cambridge Con- )r' " Wagues," 204 Barley, a Forgotten Poet Seal the Great Steward of Scotland -Cambridge Heath, South Hackney, 2i)5 First British Subject born in New South WalesMistakes in Michelet-Royal Adjectives- National Anthem, 206.

CRIES :-Defoe at Tooting-Preceptory of Dinmore High Street, Oxford Carlyle and Scripture, 207 Bards- Batty, Printer Post- fine " Multiplicands " Mont- gomery MSS., i?08 Knollys Road. Streatbam Hodges Family Authors Wanted Descendants of Sir W. de la Pole Pins and Pincushions, 209.

'LIES: Bruce and Burns, 209 " Endorsement ": Dorso-ventrality " Uncovering at National Anthem Weeks's Museum, 212 Bell Inscription at Puncknowle Window Glass Sleeping Garments Lady Nottingham- Chocolate, 213 Ships of War on Land Chalices of Wood, 214 Isle of Roseneath " Bar sinister," 215 Fireplaces in Cathedral Churches Thackeray Quotation " Yclep- ing" the Church " Ludi magister" Lord Mayors' " Pageants," 216 Staunton "Beanfeast "Christmas Decorations and Shrove Tuesday " High-faluting," 217 Widow of Protector Somerset Beranger : ' Le Roi d'Yvetot' Portuguese Naval Supremacy, 218" Skirret" Barl of Cromartie "Le premier pas," 219.

ON BOOKS : Duignan's ' Staffordshire Place- Names ' ' New Testament in Braid Scots ' Dyer and Hassall's ' History of Modern Europe.'

Notices to Correspondents.

<A DREAM OF A QUEEN'S REIGN': 'GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.'

IN my possession is a fine uncut copy, in the original buff-coloured paper covers, of an extremely rare small 8vo book, entitled fifty-five pages with six preliminary leaves, and published by John Tern pieman, of 248, Regent Street (near Oxford Street), London, in 1843. It includes, at the end, a sixteen- page catalogue of books issued by the same publisher. The title-page bears the quota- tion from Shakspeare, " I have had a most rare vision." There is no copy in the British Museum, nor can the existence of any but my own, or even any mention of the book, be traced. This singular production is stated in the somewhat lengthy preface to be edited from a MS. belonging to the " Rev. Theo-
 * A Dream of a Queen's Reign,' containing

philus C, the octogenarian curate of

G [apparently in one of the Midland

counties of England], lately deceased," who, in consequence of its evident interpolations and alterations by different hands, at different periods, and for different purposes, had little or no faith in its general authenticity, nor

could he read it in so connected a manner as to understand its drift or moral, or to deter- mine the locality to which it refers, or the period or periods when the chief portions of the context were written. The editor, who obtained the MS. direct from his friend the owner as above, upon due examination and reflection, concludes, however, that the main portion of this report of the dream was probably written a little after the accession of King James I. It appears from the editor's statement that the names of all persons and places had been erased in the MS., except the initial letters, and from certain crowded interpolations and marginal addenda it would seem that somebody wanted to pub- lish the dream in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that amongst the various illuminated title-pages which were rolled up with the MS., one bears a date coeval with the reign of Queen Mary, her sister and pre- decessor ; and that there are plain directions to the printer, with dates to them, showing that in the time of Queen Anne the necessary steps were actually taken to put this dream forth in a connected form to the world ; but, owing, probably, to the constitutional timidity or unexpected demise of that princess, it was considered to be totally inapplicable, and the manuscript was re- consigned to oblivion, or passed from hand to hand only amongst the curious.

This MS. was purchased, with other lite- rary curiosities, by the said reverend gentle- man's grandfather, at the public sale of the effects of a learned antiquary at Huntingdon, whose ancestors had been for ages forming the collection. And it is added, with some expression of doubt as to the truth of the statement, that the MS. was greatly desired by Sir Robert Cotton, sometime of Conning- ton, Bart., at any price ; but that all his offers were rejected.

The dream deals with the events of the reign and the conduct of an imaginary or ideal Queen of England, and the dreamer whose Utopian ideas were possibly stimulated by Sir Thomas More's famous philosophical romance, and who had probably studied such works as 'The Trauayled Pylgrime,' printed in 1569

was one Master Bernard M, of S , who,

as the editor infers, was a bachelor and a gentleman of what is called a good family, a scholar, and had travelled, of a religious and kindly disposition, and of a cultivated taste for the period in which he lived. We are further informed by the editor that the book produces the dream for the first time printed in one uniform contexture. Among the more noteworthy contents is (on p. 54)