Over the past few years I have had published a number of articles on
or deriving from eighteenth-century periodicals, largely but not exclusively
in Studies in Bibliography.[1] As before, I am still on the
lookout for
that which has gone unnoted or has long been forgotten.
The Westminster Magazine, or Pantheon of Taste
(hereafter WM) was first published in January 1773 and
ended
publication in December 1785, microfilm of the thirteen volumes being
made in 1973 by University Microfilms of Ann Arbor, Michigan. While
scholars working before 1973 were able to consult some volumes of the
periodical in scattered locations, I am not sure that any of these scholars
was able to consult all the volumes. Thus, Mary E. Knapp used the first
volume of the WM in her Checklist of Verse by David
Garrick (1955), but no other, with the result that at least twenty-five
more entries might have been included for appearances of verse by Garrick
in the WM.[2] In the
1779
WM (pp. 459-461) a memoir of Garrick has an appended
footnote which identifies his earliest contributions to the Gentleman's
Magazine, poems in the volume for 1740 on pages 460, 461, 462,
464 and eight verses added to a poem
by Gilbert Walmesley (p. 567). This last is not in Miss Knapp's
Checklist, nor is a poem on p. 462 of the 1740
Gentleman's Magazine, a poem which she lists only in its
autograph form in the Folger (#8a), i.e. Garrick's answer to some verses
by L. (Mr. Logie) to Chloe.[3]
Number 364 in Knapp, Garrick's "Prologue for the Benefit of the
Theatrical Fund of the Drury Lane Theatre," appeared in many periodicals,
but its appearance in the WM in 1776 (p. 327-328) is
overlooked in her Checklist and in an article devoted solely
to
that poem.[4] Number 199 in the
Checklist is Garrick's own epitaph; it appears in the
Whitehall Evening-Post for March 2-4, 1779 and
can be read in an "extra-illustrated set of [Arthur] Murphy's
Life [of Garrick], and [Garrick's]
Private
Correspondence, X. 170, newspaper clipping, with letter dating
verses, August 1777. [Tom] Davies,
Life [of Garrick],
(1781),
II. 400" (p. 32). The epitaph is not included in the two-volume collection
of Garrick's poems published by George Kearsley in 1785. Unless the index
to the definitive biography of Garrick is incomplete, there is no mention of
the epitaph or the circumstances leading up to it.
[5] Now, those not fortunate enough
to have
access to the few places where the text of the poem is available may be
grateful for the opportunity afforded by the
WM for 1779 (p.
162). I quote both the head-note and the poem.
In August, 1777, Mr. Garrick, accompanied by his neighbour and
friend, Mr. Hen. Hoare, of the Adelphi, made a visit to Mr. Hoare, of
Stourhead, in Wilts. Being particularly charmed with the Grotto, he said he
should like it for his burying-place; upon which one of the company wished
him to write his own Epitaph; which as soon as he returned to the house,
he did. Extempore.
Tom Fool, the tenant of this narrow space,
(He play'd no foolish part to chuse the place)
Hoping for mortal honours e'en in death,
Thus spoke his wishes with his latest breath.
"That Hal, sweet-blooded Hal, might once
a-year,
Quit social joys to drop a friendly tear;
That Earle, with magic sounds that charm the
breast,
Should with a requiem teach his soul to rest;
Full charg'd with humour, that the sportive Rust
Should fire three vollies o'er the dust to dust;
That Honest Benson, ever free and plain,
For once shou'd sigh, and wish him back again;
That Hoare too might complete his glory's plan,
Point to his grave and say—I lik'd the man."
Hal is identified in a footnote as "Henry Hoare, jun. Esq. of the Adelphi
Buildings;" Earle, as "Benson Earle, Esq. of Salisbury"; Rust, as "John
Rust, Esq."; Benson as "John Benson, Esq."; and Hoare, as "Henry Hoare,
Esq. of Stourhead." Benson Earle is William Benson Earle who became a
Fellow of the Royal Society on 4 March 1773, and John Rust's connection
with Garrick is demonstrable from the fact that there are two extant letters
from him to Garrick, written on January 7 and 17, 1777, the same year as
the visit to Stourhead. I find no reference to John Benson in the Stone and
Kahrl biography nor in Garrick's letters.
[6] Incidentally, the index to Miss
Knapp's
Checklist lists Number 199 as a reference for Henry Hoare,
but
there is no mention of him there, and the reader who knows nothing of the
circumstances of the epitaph is left in ignorance. Henry Hoare is mentioned
only once in the Stone and Kahrl biography of Garrick and there simply as
neighbor and acquaintance (p. 121). The
WM date for the
anecdote, August 1777, will serve to correct the conjectural 1776 date of
letters 1035 and 1039 in Little and Kahrl. Nor will one find any reference
there to the "Verses from Sir Thomas Mills to Mr. Garrick, on receiving
his Portrait painted by Mr. Dance" printed in the 1776
WM
(p.
271), or to Sir Thomas Mills himself,
who died on 28 February 1793 at Mary-le-bone (
European
Magazine, 1793.i. 240). Further, the 1779
WM (p.
461),
in a bibliography of Garrick's writings, states that he wrote some pieces in
the
St. James's Chronicle under the name of Oakley. I
believe
there is no mention of this, nor any attempt to locate the pieces in question,
in any of the literature on Garrick.
In addition to the reprinting of poems by Garrick, the
WM printed an anecdote about him which is absent from
Stone
and Kahrl. If it is true, it is sufficiently interesting for inclusion in any
account of Garrick. The March 1779 WM (p. 120) printed
an
anecdote of Garrick's "first appearance in the character of Richard III at the
Theatre in Goodman's-Fields" which had him so hoarse at the end of the
second act that he could not have gone on had not a gentleman present
behind the scenes "having luckily a Seville orange in his pocket" gave it to
him, with the result that he finished the part to great applause. But, "had
it not been owing to this trifling incident, we might have been deprived of
the greatest ornament the British, or perhaps any other stage ever
acquired." Incidentally, Tom Davies and Arthur Murphy, early biographers
of Garrick, evidently did not know the anecdote.
The WM would not, of course, be of more than passing
interest, if all one could glean from it was the Garrick material. And there
is bigger game. Assuredly, one of the pleasures derivable from the turning
over of the pages of old periodicals is the discovery of completely forgotten
pieces, usually by minor writers, even obscure ones, for the works of major
writers have usually surfaced because of the researches of many scholars.
And when one comes upon an attribution in one of these periodicals to a
major author the chances are excellent that the piece in question is not his.
But there is always the off-chance it may be his. So very much has been
written about Jonathan Swift that one is understandably chary of attributing
a new piece to him, but the WM has not had wide exposure,
and the attribution, a tentative one, is by a correspondent to that periodical
and not by me. I refer to "A Humourous Description of Mortality, Said to
be wrote by the Late JONATHAN
SWIFT, D.D. DEAN OF ST. PATRICK's, DUBLIN." I quote the whole,
depending upon others more knowledgeable about Swift's prose to render
a decision.
As you have been pleased very generously to honour me with your
friendship, I think myself obliged to throw off all disguise, and discover to
you my real circumstances; which I shall with all the openness and freedom
imaginable. You'll be surprised at the beginning of my story, and think the
whole a banter; but you may depend upon its being actually true; and, if
need were, I could bring the Parson of the Parish to testify the same. You
must know then, that at this present time I live in a little sorry
(a) house of clay, that stands upon the waste as other cottages
do; and, what is worst of all, am liable to be turned out at a minute's
warning. It is a sort of copyhold tenure, and the custom of the manor is
this: for the first thirty years I am to pay no rent, but only do suit and
service, and attend upon the (b) Courts, which are kept once
a-week, and sometimes oftener; for twenty years after this, I am to pay
(c) a Rose every year; and further than this,
during the remainder of life, I am to pay a Tooth (which you'll say is a
whimsical sort of an acknowledgment) every two or three years, or oftener
if it should be demanded; and if I have nothing more to pay, "Out" must
be the word, and it will not be long ere my person will be seized.—I
might have had my tenement, such as it is, upon much better terms, if it
had not
been for a fault of my great (
d) grand-father: he and his wife
together, with (
e) the advice of an ill neighbour, were
concerned in robbing an (
f) orchard, belonging to the
(
g) Lord of the Manor, and forfeited this great privilege, to
my
sorrow I am sure; but, however, I must do as well as I can, and shall
endeavour to keep my house in tolerable repair. My (
h)
kitchen,
where I dress my victuals, is a comical little roundish sort of a room,
somewhat like an oven; it answers much to the purpose it was designed,
and that's enough. My (
i) garrets (or rather cock-lofts) are
very
indifferently furnished; but they are rooms which few people regard now,
unless to lay lumber in. The worst part of the story is, it costs me a great
deal every year in (
k) thatchings; for, as my building stands
pretty much exposed to the wind and weather, the covering you know must
decay faster than ordinary; however, I make shift to rub on in my little
way, and when (
l) rent-day comes I must see and discharge
it
as well as I can. Whenever I am turned out, I understand my lodge, or
what you please to call it, descends upon a low-spirited creeping
(
m) family, remarkable for nothing but being instrumental in
advancing the reputation of a great Man in Abchurch-lane*; but be this as
it will, I have one snug (
n) apartment that lies on the left side
of my house, which I reserve for my chiefest friends: it is very warm,
where you'll always be a welcome guest; and you may depend upon a
lodging as long as the edifice shall be in the tenure and occupation of
J.S.
P.S. This room that I value so much, was set on (o)
fire
once, and my whole building in danger of being demolished, by an unlucky
(p) boy throwing his lighted torch in at the window, the
casement happening to be open.-----I must not forget to tell you. that the
(q) person who is sent about to gather our quit-rents
before-mentioned, is a queer, little, old, round-shouldered fellow, with
scarce any hair upon his head; which grotesque figure, together with his
invidious employments, makes him generally slighted, and oftentimes much
abused. He has a prodigious stomach of his own; whatever he gets, it goes
all into his unrighteous maw, which makes a fool of the Ostrich for
digestion; he is continually exercising his grinders upon one thing or
another, and yet he is as poor as a rake, and by that means goes so light
that he is often at a man's heels before he thinks of him; he is very absolute
and ready in executing his commission; and has a relation, one
(r) Tide a Waterman, that is full as saucy and
peremptory as himself. If you meet with either of them, and cry out "Stop
a little," the devil a moment they'll stay. (1780, pp. 70-71)
I append the footnoted explanations of the allegory: a
(The body.), b (Divine Service.), c (The colour
from his cheek.), d (Adam and Eve.), e (The
Devil.), f (Paradise.), g (Jehovah.),
h
(His Stomach.), i (His Head.), k (Clothes.),
l (His death.), m (The worms.),
n (The
heart.), o (By love.), p (Cupid.),
q
(Time. This description is elegant, and the slighting and abusing Time, the
Teeth of Time, and Man's abuse of the precious jewel, even when he is at
his heels, i.e. Death, reminds me of a line I have somewhere seen, "Every
moment of Time is a monument to God's Mercy."), r The
Author, no doubt, had the old Proverb in his Thought, viz.
"Time and Tide will stay for no Man." A "great Man in Abchurch-lane" is
explained as "Probably alluding to some Physician or Quack Doctor,
resident in that place, who might at that time be famous for curing those
vermin
in the body." Whoever wrote these notes, and it was not the author, was
right. In Swift's The Importance of the Guardian Considered
"Mr. John Moor the Apothecary at the Pestle and Mortar" is
mentioned (VIII. 9 in The Prose Works, ed. Herbert Davis
and
Irvin Ehrenpreis), but not otherwise identified. He is, however, the
worm-powder man. See Pope's poem, "To Mr. John Moore, Author of the
Celebrated Worm-Powder," (Twickenham ed., VI, 161-164) with its
reference to
"
Abchurch-Lane" l. 33, and the note thereupon naming the
Pestle and Mortar.
George Lyttelton, first Baron Lyttelton, friend of Pope, patron of
James Thomson and David Mallet, and to whom Fielding dedicated
Tom Jones, has been called "A Minor Augustan" by his
modern
biographer.[7] His poems were
included in that collection of English poets for which Dr. Johnson wrote the
Lives, and of those poems Johnson wrote that "they have
nothing to be despised and little to be admired. . . . His little performances,
whether Songs or Epigrams, are sometimes sprightly and sometimes insipid.
His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot much tire
because they are short, but which seldom elevates or surprizes" (ad
finem). In any event there is one poem by him in the
WM
which does not appear in any collection I have seen. It is titled "On Good
Humour," with the first line "Tell me ye sons of Phoebus, what is this,"
and was said to be "[By the late Lord Lyttelton]" in the April
1774 number
(p. 431).
Charles James Fox is better known to historians than to students of
literature, but he was no exception to the rule that most educated men of the
eighteenth century could turn their hand to verse, often of the occasional
kind. I wish to call attention to three of his verse efforts that appeared in
the WM. The first to appear, in the June 1775 number (p.
325),
is titled "Upon Mrs. C--E. By Mr. C. F--X,"
beginning "Where the loveliest expression to features is join'd" and
continuing in similarly complimentary vein. Frances Crewe, daughter of
Fulke Greville, married John Crewe in 1766 and soon became a famous
Whig hostess and politician.[8] Next
chronologically is "An Invocation to Poverty. Said to be written by the
Hon. Mr. C. F-x, after the Reflexion on his Penury, thrown out in the
House of Commons last Sessions by Mr. Ad--s," in the August 1776
number, "Oh! Poverty! of pale consumptive hue" (p. 440). The poem was
also printed
in the Sept. 1776 Gentleman's Magazine (p. 428), without
"by
Mr. Ad--s" and again seven years later in that same periodical (p. 379).
The editors of the WM, possibly influenced by the
Gentleman's Magazine reprinting, also reprinted the poem in
1783 (p. 585). In the winter of 1773-74 Fox owed some £140,000 in
debts, his father finally bailing him out.[9] The only "Mr. Ad--s" in the
House of
Commons at this time has to be William Adam (no "s") with whom Fox
fought a duel on November 29, 1779, in Hyde Park (DNB).
Fox suffered a slight wound and remarked, "I should infallibly have been
killed, if Mr. Adam had not been using government powder." The last of
the three poems also has a political atmosphere. It is the "Epistle from the
Hon. Charles Fox, partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townshend,
cruising" in Jan. 1780 (p. 46), a long, three-column affair beginning "While
you, dear Townshend, o'er the billows ride" and full
of political allusions.
The DNB states that Henry Fox's marriage to the
daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, was "secretly solemnised
at the house of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the Lady's parents having
refused their consent." The March 1773 WM (p. 221)
contained
the following poem, which I quote
in full, since it is not in the three-volume collection of the works of Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams.
The Review, Written on George II.
By Sir Charles H. Williams.
Serene the morn, the season fine,
Great G--e advances on the plain
To view his troops and concubine,
The godly blessings of his reign!
The trumpets sound, the colours bound,
The fields all blaze with arms;
Thus Trojan true the Tacticks shew,
And Helen all her charms.
The God of War and Love by turns
Preside upon his phiz;
One while you'd think for war he burns,
Another while for Miss.
You'd think when he surveys his men,
He'd waste the world for fame;
And that he'd people it again,
When he surveys his dame.
'Tis all a farce, and nothing more;
This am'rous martial Knight
Age won't allow t' enjoy his W--e,
Nor courage let him fight.
In 1737 George II, on the advice of the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of
State, sent some one other than Hanbury Williams on a diplomatic mission
to Naples, despite Sir Robert Walpole's advocacy of young Williams's
claim.
[10] Possibly this was the reason
for
The Review. Another possible reason was the King's
displeasure at something for which Hanbury Williams expected
praise.
[11]
When the 1773 Johnson-Steevens Shakespeare was
published Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, evidently sent a set to a
young lady of his acquaintance, for the November 1773 WM
(p.
668) includes a poem titled "Verses sent to a Young Lady, with the New
Edition of Shakespeare. By the Right Hon. the Earl of C--.", beginning
"Poet of Nature, thou whose boundless art," a thoroughly conventional
piece of versification and literary appreciation. Some three years later, May
1776, two poems attributed to him appeared (p. 327), one entitled simply
"Verses by the Earl of Chesterfield," beginning "Chlorinda still rejects my
hand"; the other, "By the Same," beginning "Let social mirth with gentle
manners join." One imagines that the key words in the opening line are
"social" and "gentle," the Earl being notoriously hostile to more unseemly
mirth.
Next to coming upon new pieces, one is almost equally excited by the
discovery of textual variants in known pieces. The WM for
June
1773 (p. 388) printed a poem, "On the Day of Judgement. By Dr. Swift,
and not published among his Works," the text of which differs radically
from the accepted text.
Sir Harold Williams makes no reference to the
WM text, but
writes of a version which he has ignored: "The faulty version printed in
The Friend, London, 1773, ii. 75-77, is the outcome of
imperfect memorizing, and may be ignored."
[12]
The Friend, a little
elementary
research reveals, is an error for "
The Friends, or original letters of
a
person deceased. Now first published from the manuscripts
in
his correspondent's hands [sic], 2 vols. 12 mo. published by Bell,"
where on page 77 of the second volume the poem appears in Letter LXXX,
enclosing a letter from Dublin College, signed F. A. Among other things,
F. A. writes "As
Swift never gave a Copy of it [the
accompanying poem], it has been only preserved in Memory, by a few
Friends of his, ever since, to whom he had privately repeated it. From one
of whom, Mr.
Rochfort, I, this Morning, received the
oral
Tradition." Swift numbered members of the
Rochfort family resident in Dublin among his friends, it is true, but
unluckily I can discover nothing about the author of
The
Friends. The work attracted very little attention, the reviewer for the
Monthly Review remarking "We suppose the letters are what
the Editor seems to mean by the term
original; for (though
the
Writer was not destitute of abilities) we have found nothing very surprizing
or interesting in them" (XLVIII, 321). F. A. from Dublin College cannot
be Francis Annesley, thrice mentioned in Swift's correspondence and a
graduate of Trinity College Dublin in 1682, the year Swift matriculated
there, but he might be another Francis Annesley who matriculated in
1719.
[13] In any event, the error in the
title of the work has been corrected, the possible (even probable) identity
of F. A. has been suggested, and I now append the text Sir Harold chose
to ignore, as
The Friends, from which I print the text, is a
rare
work, and the
WM on film or in the original is not always
easy
of access.
With undigested thoughts opprest,
I sunk from Reverie to Rest.
An horrid vision seiz'd my head;
I saw the graves yawn up their dead;
Jove arm'd with terrors ope'd the skies,
The thunder roars, and lightning flies;
While each pale spectre hangs its head,
Jove nodded, burst the clouds, and said,----
"You whom the various Sects have shamm'd,
"And come to see each other damn'd,
"As Priests have threaten'd (tho' they knew
"No more of my decrees than you)
"The world's vain business now being o'er,
"Such Dogmas may prevail no more;
"I 'gainst such Blockheads set my wit:
"I damn you all!----Go, go, you're bit."
Recourse to Sir Harold's edition reveals that the above text has readings in
common with other versions of the poem, i.e. "sunk" in l. 2, "yawn" in l.
4, "The" in l. 6, and "whom" in l. 9. Given the various versions of the
poem that exist, that in
The Friends should have been
included
in Sir Harold's collation.
From one text to another. The April 1774 WM (pp.
205-207) prints
Oliver Goldsmith's poem
Retaliation with some textual
variations from the received text in Arthur Friedman's edition of
Goldsmith's works (1966), IV. 352-359. A headnote to the poem reads,
How the following poem by Dr. GOLDSMITH stole into print, we
cannot tell, as it was only intended by the Author for the laugh of a
convivial party who belonged to a Club at the British
Coffee-house, and only three or four copies were given by the
Doctor
to his most intimate friends. The incorrectness of the versification will shew
that the Author never intended it for the public eye in its present
form.
This jibes with Goldsmith's statement, as reported by William Cooke, that
he had given copies to various friends (Friedman, IV. 346).
Retaliation, like Swift's
Day of Judgement, has
had
a checkered textual history (Friedman, IV. 346-348), but the
WM text has not hitherto played any part in that history.
Variants in the
WM text in lines 37 (he's fit), 41 (play), 55
(wrangling), and 69 (left) derive from
errata, but those in
lines
83 (While), 92 (Scotchmen [twice]), 99 (ill judge in), 123 (receiv'd), 128
(one
om.) and 129 (this) are, with one exception, either
wrong
or of no substantive importance. The possible exception is in the use of
"Scotchmen" twice in line 92, since it comes at the end of a series of
plurals. "Scotchman" can, of course, be considered a generic plural. There
is a nice question, then, about the treatment of texts such as the two
discussed, i.e. should they be totally ignored, mentioned only, or collated?
I obviously do
not believe they should be ignored.
I am not sure what, if any, significance to attach to the attention paid
to Goldsmith's work in the WM. Arthur Friedman writes,
Goldsmith's last four essays appeared in the first and third numbers
of the Westminster Magazine, published 1 January and 1
March
1773 . . . all four essays were reprinted in Essays and Criticisms, by
Dr. Goldsmith (1798) on the authority of Thomas Wright, who,
according to John Nichols, 'printed the "Westminster Magazine" in which
he marked the Writer of every article in a copy which probably still exists.'
(III. 205)
Wright's attributions, while a number of them are incorrect (Friedman, III.
88), are valuable in fixing the canon of Goldsmith's writings, and it was
almost surely Wright who influenced the editors of the
WM
to
include so much of Goldsmith's work and material on him. Friedman
reprints "The History of a Poet's Garden" from the January 1773
WM; the "Essay on the Theatre; or, a Comparison between
Laughing and Sentimental Comedy" (Jan. 1773); "The History of Cyrillo
Padovano, The Noted Sleep-Walker" and A Register of Scotch Marriages,"
both from the March 1773
WM. In addition to these, in order
of appearance in 1773: "Humorous Anecdotes of Dr. Goldsmith" (pp.
176-177), partial answer to the "Essay on the Theatre" by K.W. [William
Kenrick?] (pp. 193-194), a "Critique" of
She Stoops to
Conquer
(pp. 217-218), and the Prologue and Epilogue to that play (pp. 223-224),
all in March 1773. In 1774: "Literary Anecdotes of the Late Dr.
Goldsmith" (p. 167), William
Woty's "Epitaph" on Goldsmith (p. 207), a four-line laudatory poem on
him (p. 263), the poem "Retaliation" with its head-note (pp. 205-207), and
Goldsmith's "Epilogue" for Mr. Lewes, in the character of Harlequin (p.
263). In 1775, an extract from the life of Beau Nash (pp. 478-479); in
1776, "Observations on a Simile in Dr. Goldsmith's
Deserted
Village," i.e. "So some tall cliff" etc. (p. 432); and in 1777, some
more anecdotes (p. 456) and Garrick's poem "Upon Dr. Goldsmith's
Characteristical Cookery" (p. 665). None of the above, which would come
under the heading of "Writings about Goldsmith," is included in Samuel H.
Woods, Jr.'s
Oliver Goldsmith, A Reference Guide
(1982).
[14]
And then there are other bits and pieces. Dr. Johnson's
Dictionary is such a formidable affair, more than 3000 pages
in the two folio volumes of the revised 1773 edition, that few have been
hardy (or foolhardy) enough to analyze its contents to any great extent. Any
detailed or statistical information about it should, therefore, be very
welcome. Helen Louise McGuffie records that in the WM for
March 1776 "Leveller" essay number 14 "Includes a brief burlesque of SJ's
diction,"[15] but unaccountably fails to
notice in the same issue (p. 136) another, much more interesting piece on
Johnson. A correspondent who signed with four asterisks wrote,
While Political Writers are estimating the national debt, or
enumerating our forces by land and sea, a friend of mine, a great
Philologist *, has employed himself in computing our literary forces; that
is, the words which compose the English language, those which are derived
from Greek and Latin, and more especially those which are borrowed from
the French—with whom we have had a constant literary intercourse
for
above seven hundred years, ever since the introduction of the Normans
under William the Conqueror. The following list exhibits a distinct view of
the words derived from the French by Bailey and Johnson, under each
respective letter of the alphabet:
|
Johnson |
[Nathaniel] Bailey |
Difference. |
P |
692 |
894 |
202 |
C |
434 |
831 |
397 |
I |
424 |
675 |
251 |
S |
387 |
641 |
254 |
R |
372 |
467 |
95 |
A |
290 |
495 |
205 |
M |
287 |
442 |
155 |
T |
264 |
418 |
154 |
F |
235 |
351 |
116 |
D |
216 |
531 |
315 |
U |
200 |
277 |
77 |
G |
182 |
249 |
67 |
B |
169 |
263 |
94 |
E |
159 |
359 |
200 |
L |
159 |
191 |
32 |
H |
106 |
201 |
99 |
O |
92 |
166 |
74 |
N |
91 |
122 |
31 |
Q |
41 |
51 |
10 |
K |
7 |
9 |
2 |
W |
5 |
28 |
23 |
Y |
0 |
2 |
2 |
Z |
0 |
3 |
3 |
---- |
---- |
---- |
---- |
|
4812 |
7670 |
2868 |
The Philologist friend is identified in a footnote as "The Author of a
Dictionary of Proverbs lately published for
Broke in the
Strand," but I can find no record of the bookseller Broke or Brook(e) in the
Strand, nor have I discovered a dictionary of proverbs of around this date.
The rest of the letter to the
WM is a rather spirited albeit
facetious defence of the English language against words taken over from the
French. Johnson is praised for his omission of many Gallicisms; Bailey is
labelled a "laborious Etymologist."
Professor McGuffie (p. 201) includes a "'Letter signed C. Risp.'
Writer reports on number of borrowed words in the
Dictionary"
in the WM for January 1777 (p. 25). The nature of her work
obviated against any more elaborate digest of the letter, yet the literature on
the Dictionary, abundant as it is, contains few pieces as
detailed
as this letter and that for March 1776. C. Risp writes,
Having, in my leisure hours, carefully perused Dr. Johnson's
Dictionary of the English Language, curiosity prompted me to mark the
number of words, which are supposed to be derived from other nations. If
you will be so obliging as to give the following List a place in your
Magazine, you may probably entertain some of your numerous Readers,
and will particularly oblige
Your Correspondent,
C. RISP.
Words derived from the
- Latin 6732
- French 4812
- Saxon 1665
- Greek 1148
- Dutch 691
- Italian 211
- German 106
- Welch 95
- Danish 75
- Spanish 56
- Islandic 50
- Swedish 34
- Gothic 31
- Hebrew 16
- Teutonic 15
- Arabic 13
- Irish 6
- Runic 4
- Flemish 4
- Erse 4
- Syriac 3
- Scottish 3
- Irish and Erse 2
- Turkish 2
- Irish and Scotish 1
- Portuguese 1
- Persian 1
- Frisic 1
- Persic 1
- Uncertain 1
- Total 15,784
The rest of the letter is given over to "the sources from which we have
derived our literary treasures, and to what languages we are most
indebted," i.e. the Romans, the Normans, the Saxons, and the "many
valuable books written in Greek," C. Risp concludes, "I shall only add, that
there is, upon a general computation, about 40,000 words in Johnson's
Dictionary, out of which I have only reckoned 15,784 derivatives. The rest
are adjectives, adverbs, compounds, or substantives, formed by analogy."
Faute de mieux, one may use the statistics in these two letters
as a base of departure for further possible study.
[16]
William Richardson, Professor of Humanities at Glasgow, is
principally
remembered, when remembered at all, for a series of essays on
Shakespeare's characters, with a very few more on other aspects of
Shakespeare's plays and on the drama in general. His chief effort in this
area was his
Essays on Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters of
Richard
III,
King Lear,
and Timon of Athens,
with an Essay on the Faults of Shakespeare, 1783, 1784,
1785.
He had analyzed the character of Hamlet in an earlier volume, published in
1774, and provided additional observations on that character in the 1783
volume. What has gone unnoticed is that
parts of the essays
on
Hamlet, Richard III, King Lear, and on Shakespeare's faults appeared,
respectively, in the January, February, March, and August numbers of the
1784
WM. All are signed "W. R." The question arises: Why
did Richardson, if indeed it was he, although he was alive and could protest
the use of parts of his essays and his initials, submit these pieces to the
WM? And do
these parts therefore represent what he thought the essential arguments for
the various essays? The essay on
Hamlet (pp. 36-39) consists
of all but the first and last paragraphs and sections four and five (of five
sections) of the additional observations on that character. The critical
observations on Richard III (pp. 70-72) consist solely of the first three and
last two paragraphs, approximately one third of the original essay. More
perplexing is the last sentence of the observations on King Lear (pp.
121-123), the first ten paragraphs (approximately two-thirds) of the original
essay, for it reads, "Some further remarks on the distinguished character
will conclude these observations in our next number," a promise that was
not kept. Finally, and most puzzling, is the essay "On the Imperfections of
Shakespeare. In a Letter to the Editor of the Westminister Magazine" (pp.
404-406). First, there is a change in the original title which had "Faults"
instead of "Imperfections."
Second, the assumption that this was written for the
WM, i.e.
"In a Letter to the Editor. . . ." Third, the concluding sentence: "Perhaps
a future occasion, you will have some further remarks on this subject, from
W. R.," another unkept promise. The essay in the
WM
consists
of paragraphs nine through twelve of the original essay. While all this may
not be unique in editorial practices in eighteenth-century English
periodicals, it is certainly very rare and raises a number of unanswered
questions.
Who wrote for the WM? According to two friends of
Isaac Reed, both of whom wrote biographical accounts of him, Reed began
to contribute biographical articles to the WM about 1773 and
continued to do so until about 1780.[17]
None of these biographical articles has been identified. Indeed, Nichols's
statement, "The biographical articles are from his pen" (p. 80), if taken
literally, means that all the biographical articles are Reed's. Reed,
according to the same authorities, also wrote biographical articles during
this same period for the Gentleman's Magazine and the
European Magazine, although the latter did not begin
publication until 1782. One of Reed's earliest manuscripts is a collection of
"Anecdotes of Sundry Eminent Personages—1765,"[18] and he both collected biographical
material and published biographical accounts much of his life. Among other
biographical compendia are the fourteen
Lives he added to a 1790 edition of The Works of the
English
Poets, the collection for which Dr. Johnson had written the
original
Lives. And, of course, he was the editor of the 1782
Biographia Dramatica. Both as biographer and inveterate
play-goer he was much interested in actors and actresses. As an editor of
the works of various literary figures, he was equally interested in men of
letters. And hence, while for the most part identification of specific
biographical contributions may be impossible, the fact that so very many of
these accounts in the years from 1773 to 1780 are of actors, actresses, and
writers suggests Reed was, as both Nichols and Bindley noted, contributing
rather considerably to the
WM in these years. In the years
from
1773 through 1779, of eighty-four biographical accounts that were the lead
contributions thirty were of actors, actresses, and men of letters, and of that
number ten were of actors and actresses. There were no such accounts in
1778 and 1780 and only two in both 1781 and 1782,
evidence, I believe, of Reed's declining role in the
WM and
his
prominent part in the establishment of the
European Magazine
which published its first number in January 1782. For the record, however,
in the last three years of the
WM there were biographical
accounts of two actresses, two actors, and of Samuel Johnson. Of some
possible evidential value is the fact that the accounts of Tobias Smollett and
Sir John Hill in 1775 (pp. 225-228, 628-630) and of Mrs. Elizabeth
Griffiths and Henry Carey (1777, pp. 451-453, 567-568) are repeated in
part, and in part verbatim, in the 1782
Biographia Dramatica
edited by Reed. Nor is it without significance that one of the biographical
accounts in 1775 is of a man, Isaac Madox, of whom Reed had compiled
a brief life.
[19] However, Reed wrote
biographies of Paul Whitehead, Charles Churchill, Robert Lloyd, and
Samuel Johnson, among others, for the 1790 seventy-volume edition of
Johnson's
collection of the English poets and these bear little resemblance to the
biographical accounts of those poets in the
WM. Indeed, the
sketches of Churchill and Lloyd are by a friend and not by Reed. Reed used
C. D., i.e. Isaa
c Ree
d, as a signature for a
series
of contributions to the
European Magazine.
[20] The August 1779
WM (p.
413) includes a letter signed C. D. introducing a passage from Johnson's
life of Edmund Smith, the same letter with the same signature having
appeared on July 31, 1779, in the
St. James's Chronicle, the
periodical with which George Steevens, Reed's close friend, was intimately
associated.
[21] Reed's, is then, the only
name one can confidently identify as a major contributor to the
WM.
A few, very few, remaining pieces must come under the heading of
miscellaneous information. Thus, a memoir of Bishop Richard Hurd in the
May 1781 WM contains a bibliography of his writings (p.
229)
which includes "Discord: A Satire, 4to 17----", not elsewhere attributed to
him. The British Library catalogue of printed books lists an anonymous
1773 quarto, "Discord. A Satire [In Verse]," which is almost positively the
work attributed to Hurd and which must now be included in any discussion
of Hurd's career. In November of this same year a contributor pointed out
for the first time that Henry Layng, on the evidence of certain lines from
one of his poems, quoted in a footnote (p. 633), had helped Pope in his
translation of the
Odyssey. Austin Warren, in 1932 in an article in the
Review of English Studies, brought up the matter of Layng
and
Pope's translation, quoting a contribution to the May 1793
Gentleman's Magazine (pp. 391-392) by Thomas Park in
which
the relevant lines from Layng's poem, "The Epistle to Lady Charlotte
Fermor," are quoted.
[22] But Park had
been anticipated by twelve years by the anonymous contributor to the
WM. Finally, a five-installment critique of Thomas Otway's
Venice Preserved in the 1775
WM, simply
signed
"W.", should be mentioned, as I did not find it in the literature on
Otway.
[23] While I do not think it
remarkable as criticism, it, like other pieces in the
WM that
I
have discussed, may be grist to somebody else's mill.