Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/141

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

��71

��shank supplied, representing the hero passing the ' Bell/ On the fly-leaf is preserved this cutting :

" ' Gilpin' s Rig, or the Wedding Day kept : a Droll Story. Read by Mr. H. at F. M. Hall, and Mr. Baddely at Drury Lane Theatre, containing an account of J. G., the Bold Linen Draper of Cheapside ; how he went farther and faster than he intended, and came home safe at last.'

This called ' probably the first edition printed separately.'

" Another of my Gilpiniana is ' The Facetious Story of J. G., &c.' with a second part containing ' The Disastrous Accidents which befel his Wife on her Return to London,' 12mo, pp. 23, London, Fisher, 1792."

And on the 17th of May my old friend Mr. Ebsworth mentions that he has a curiously illustrated ' Second Journey of John Gilpin,' belonging to a date near the first appearance of Cowper's original. ' John Gilpin ' forms the subject of three long communications signed M. P. May 8th and 22nd, 1880, and June 24th, 1882.

Mr. T. S. Norgate on the 29th of November, 1879, in reply to a request of Mrs. Champney in the previous August as to Cowper's translation of Homer's ' Iliad ' (in ix. 11. 623-35, and in the Greek 11. 498-508), gives the passage with Cowper's note :

" Prayers are Jove's daughters, wrinkled, lame, slant-eyed, Which though far distant, yet with constant pace Follow Offence, &c.

On which his note of comment is :

" ' Wrinkled because the countenance of a man driven to prayer by a consciousness of faith is sorrowful and dejected. Lame because it is a remedy to which men recur late, and with reluctance. And slant- eyed either because, in that state of humiliation, they fear to lift their eyes to heaven, or are employed in taking a retrospect of their past misconduct.' "

The number for the 3rd of January, 1880, contains the first draft of the poem of ' The Rose,' sent by Mr. Fred. Locker, who possessed this first draft in the poet's autograph. Mr. Locker remarks that it is interesting as showing how much Cowper altered and improved his poems.

On the 1st of July, 1882, it is denied that the stone to John Gilpin in St. Margaret's Churchyard, Westminster, marks the grave of the hero of Cowper's poem. The writer, who signs himself " An Old Inhabitant," is sorry

" to disturb an illusion so pleasant and so harmless ; but I am the

Sjrson who under the order of one of the family of a modern John ilpin had the original faded inscription re-engraved."

The John Gilpin in question was a licensed victualler carrying on business at the " Mitre and Dove," at the corner of King Street, Westminster.

��J. Woodfall

Ebsworth :

' Second

Journey of

John Gilpin.'

��Mr Fred

Locker supplies first

�� �