University of Virginia Library

John Nichols's Notes in the Scholarly Commentary of Others
by
Arthur Sherbo

The contributions of John Nichols to the scholarly literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are both invaluable and widely known. As is almost inevitable in vast editorial enterprises like his, he often drew on the help of others. One of the earliest of such contributors was Isaac Reed, the retiring and modest conveyancer who was a close friend of Nichols until Reed died in 1807. Already in 1775 he had assisted with Nichols's editions of the works of William King and of the twenty-fourth volume of Swift's works. Less recognized is how Nichols himself contributed to the scholarly editorial projects of others, many of which also involved Reed.

Although one will learn from the Dictionary of National Biography that George Colman, the elder, was the editor of the 1778 ten-volume edition of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, that same biographical compilation will not inform one that Reed helped Colman to the extent of over two hundred notes. Reed, it is known, signed his notes "R," but there are also fifteen notes signed "J.N." J.N. is John Nichols. Alexander Dyce, editor of the still indispensable edition of Beaumont and Fletcher because of the fullness of the commentary, so identifies him, i.e. "J.N[ichols]" in a note on The Pilgrim (VIII. 29), as does George B. Ferguson, editor of the critical edition of The Woman's Prize (1966, p. 223). In addition to the fifteen notes in the Beaumont and Fletcher edition, notes which exhibit him, early in his editorial career, as a commentator on the drama, a rarity for him, Nichols also aided in Reed's 1780 edition of Robert Dodsley's collection of Old Plays, as well as in the 1794 edition of Johnson's Lives of the English poets, a work to which Reed also contributed.

The Beaumont and Fletcher plays had been edited in 1750 by Lewis Theobald, Joseph Sympson, and Thomas Seward, and seven of Nichols's notes express disagreement with those of the editors of that edition. The principal differences are over emendations.[1] Only twice does Nichols agree with, in these instances, Mr. Seward;[2] twice he ventures upon emendations of his own, once to change "he" to "ye," explaining that "The corruption is very easy," and once to add a comma.[3] The first of these emendations is accepted in the Cambridge

Beaumont and Fletcher (1979, IV. 448); the second, silently, by Alexander Dyce (VIII. 40). Twice Nichols explains "obscure" expressions, explaining that "Great as your beauty scornful" means "As remarkable for your scorn and cruelty, as for your beauty" (III.265) and that "seal it with my service" means "put a period to my service" (III. 409). In his one gloss, he defines "brave" as "well-dress'd" (III. 457). His most interesting note is on the lines, "Let's remove our places. / Swear it again" in V.iii of The Woman's Prize, for it recalled Shakespeare to him: "This is plainly a sneer at the scene in Hamlet, where (on account of the Ghost calling under the stage) the Prince and his friends two or three times remove their situations.---Again, in this play, p. 317, Petruchio's saying, 'Something I'll do; but what it is, I know not!' Seems to be meant as a ridicule on Lear's passionate exclamation, '---I will do such things— / What they are, yet I know not!'" Ferguson, editor of the critical edition of this play, gives Nichols credit for both parts of his note.

It remains only to complete the evaluation of these notes. Dyce quotes Nichols's notes three more times, identifying him only as "J.N."[4] And while Dyce does not quote or cite Nichols's other notes, he has no notes where Nichols has one (V. 313; VII. 379) and, most curiously, disagrees with Nichols's note on The False One (IV. 159), writing that "a correspondent whose signature is I.N." [sic] explained that passage; Dyce quotes Nichols's note and concludes that I. N.'s interpretation was "forced and far-fetched" (VI. 299), evidently forgetting or not yet making the identification with Nichols.

In the Preface to his 1780 edition of the collection of old plays originally edited by Robert Dodsley in 1744 Isaac Reed acknowledged that "those notes which have the letter N annexed to them, are such observations as occurred to the printer of the first six volumes in reading the proof sheets" (I. xxi). The volumes were "Printed by J. Nichols," Reed's friend. I have found only seven notes by N. in the first six volumes. Nichols invokes Dr. Johnson's Dictionary for the definition of "seat" meaning "situation"; explains that a "come-you-seven" (not in OED) is "a gambler, a dice-player"; and sees an allusion to "the sign called The Saxon's Head" in the words "the picture of Hector" in The Hog hath Lost his Pearl.[5] Of greater interest are his notes on "scotch boot" in The Malcontent, and on "Peter-man" and "figent" in Eastward Hoe. "The torturing-boots," he wrote, "are mentioned by Swift, vol. xiii. 1768, p. 314, to have been hung out in terrorem to Captain Creichton in 1689" (IV. 57). A "Peter-man" was "the common appellation of those who formerly used unlawful engines and arts in catching fish in the river Thames" (IV. 227), a much more informative note than the definition of the OED, "A fisherman; formerly app. one who practised a particular kind of fishing." The third note reads, "Figentia (in chemistry) are things which serve to fix volatile substances. Figent, therefore, as applied to memory ["figent memory"], may be synonymous with retentive" (IV. 246). OED, quoting the same passage from Eastward Hoe, defines "figent" as "Fidgety, reckless," but has no entry for

"figentia." One note remains. Reference is made in The Roaring Girl to the "six wet towns" between the "Lambith workes" and "Windsor-bridge," and Nichols, native Londoner who lived all his life in that city, was ready with the identification, naming Fulham, Richmond, Kingston, Hampton, Chertsey, and Staines, and adding, for good measure, "The other intermediate towns are Chelsea, Battersea, Kew, Isleworth, Twickenham, and Walton" (VI, 116).[6]

There was also an appendix of "Additional Notes" in volume twelve; it contained eight more notes by Nichols. In the first of these he gave a biographical sketch of the heroine of The Roaring Girl: "Mrs. Mary Frith, alias Moll Cutpurse, born in Barbican, the daughter of a shoemaker, died at her house in Fleet-street, next the Globe Tavern, July 26, 1659, and was buried in the church of St. Bridget's. She left twenty pounds by her will, for the conduit to run wine when King Charles the 2d returned, which happened in a short time after. From a MS. in the British Museum (p. 398)."

He called upon two works he had recently edited for two notes, the first of which was on the words "he that farms the monuments" in James Shirley's The Bird in a Cage: "In a poem describing the tombs in Westminster Abbey in the last century (preserved in Nichols's Select Collection of Poems, vol. 4. p. 169) mention is made of the master of the shew. It there also appears, that the price of admission was one penny; it was afterwards raised to three pence; and, in 1779 (since the Earl of Chatham's effigies have been placed there) still further advanced to six pence. As a large sum must annually arise from the curiosity of individuals, it is to be lamented that the tombs in general are suffered to remain in so disgracefully dirty a condition (p. 417)." The second impressed into service was the works of William King, in an edition of which he had been helped by Reed. Here he quoted King on the "cittern" which he, Nichols, stated "began to be disused at the beginning of this century" (p. 432), a statement corroborated by the OED. His note on "love-locks" is much more detailed than that of the OED, which simply notes that a lovelock was "a curl of a particular form worn by courtiers in the time of Elizabeth and James I; later, any curl or tress of hair of a peculiar or striking character." Nichols wrote, "The love-lock was worn on the left side, and was considerably longer than the rest of the hair. King Charles and many of his courtiers wore them. The king cut his off in 1646. See Granger, vol. 2. p. 411" (p. 416), Granger being James Granger, whose Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution, to give it its short title, was notable chiefly for its engravings.

The second definition of "sollar" in the OED is "A place exposed to the sun. Obs." In Marlowe's Jew of Malta Barabas speaks of "Cellars of wine, and sollers full of wheat," and Steevens had correctly glossed a soller as "a loft or garret." Nichols volunteered that a "solarium, among the old Romans, was a

level place at the top of their houses. . . . At Rome there was a solarium in some part of almost every public edifice; it being esteemed an essential requisite for health as well as pleasure" (pp. 417-418). The first example of "solarium" in the OED is dated 1891. The last of the eight notes, three in number, are on the same page (424). Thomas Warton, in a note on Othello, cited by Reed for the words "Batchelor whifflers" in Jasper Mayne's The City Match, had defined a "whiffler" as "a light, trivial character, a fellow hired to pipe at processions," to which Nichols objected. Batchelor whifflers were "young men free of the company" and were considered, "by the company they belong to, pretty nearly in the same point of view as a gentleman considers the upper servants he keeps out of livery." According to the OED, both definitions are acceptable, although "the sense of 'piper, fifer' found in Dicts. from Hersey's ed. of Phillips (1706) on is baseless." In the context of Mayne's lines, however, Nichols was right. He was able to state, in the second of those notes, that the "Topographical MSS." of William Habington, author of The Queen of Arragon, "are now in the hands of Dr. Nash, and will be made use of in his History of Worcestershire, two volumes, 1781 and 1782, "Printed by John Nichols," who knew whereof he wrote in his statement about the Habington MSS.[7] Nichols's last note is keyed to the headnote to Shakerley Marmion's play The Antiquary: "Mr. Samuel Gale told Dr. Ducarel, that this comedy was acted two nights in 1718, immediately after the revival of the Society of Antiquaries; and that therein had been introduced a ticket of a turnpike (then new) which was called a Tessera." If Samuel Gale, the antiquary, whose MSS. passed through the hands of Dr. Ducarel and then were bought by Richard Gough, and many of which were printed by Nichols in Reliquiae Galeanea, was right, the editors of the multi-volume London Stage have not recorded two rare performances.

The 1794 edition of Dr. Johnson's Lives of the poets contains notes by R, N, and H, i.e. Reed, Nichols, and Sir John Hawkins, the notes of the last having first appeared in his edition of Johnson's works. One of Nichols's notes, the last of the thirteen he contributed, is actually signed "J.N." (IV. 324). He is right in all his suggestions, being cited twice and quoted once in G. B. Hill's edition of the Lives. He noted, of Cowley, that he was unsuccessful in 1636 as candidate for election to Trinity College, Cambridge, and that his satire Puritan and Papist was added to Cowley's works "by the particular direction of Dr. Johnson," a practice, he also noted, that obtained with Edward Young's works in the edition of the English poets to which the Lives were prefatory.[8] He knew when Richard Duke entered Westminster school and then Trinity College, Cambridge (II. 250) and that Nicholas Rowe was not elected a King's scholar until 1688 (II. 293), in the first instance offering information not in Johnson's account and in the second correcting him. Johnson had written of Thomas Yalden that he had "been chosen, in 1698, preacher of Bridewell Hospital, upon the resignation of Dr. Atterbury";

Nichols pointed out that Atterbury became Bishop of Rochester in 1713, at which time Yalden succeeded him as preacher at Bridewell (III. 141). Of a partial quotation from one of Richard Savage's letters he remarked, "See this continued, Gent. Mag. vol. LVII, 1140 [read 1040]," a contribution to the Gentleman's Magazine which has a number of footnotes by "N," Nichols himself, of course (III. 319). Twice more he invoked the Gentleman's Magazine, of which he was editor, once for an attempt to ascertain the identity of Pope's "Unfortunate lady," by "J.N." (IV. 2), once to fix the date of the death of Major Bernardi, mentioned in the life of Pope. This second contribution, in the periodical for March, 1780, p. 125, was by "Crito," i.e. the Reverend Mr. John Duncombe, a regular contributor and one of Nichols's friends.

Nichols, with Bishop Percy and Dr. John Calder, was involved in the six-volume edition of The Tatler, published in 1786, and he went to it for two notes, giving precise references both times. In his account of Addison and The Spectator Johnson had stated that "when Dr. Fleetwood prefixed to some sermons a preface overflowing with whiggish opinions, that it might be read by the Queen, it was reprinted in The Spectator." Nichols wrote, "This particular number of the Spectator, it is said, was not published until twelve o'clock, that it might come out precisely at the hour of her Majesty's breakfast, and that no time might be left for deliberating about serving it up with that meal, as usual. See edit. of the Tatler with notes, vol. VI. N 271, note, p. 452, etc." (II. 327). The Tatler, "ed. 1786, vol. VI. p. 452," was also invoked for the daily number of essays sold (II. 335). Matthew Prior's uncle was "a vintner near Charing-cross," wrote Dr. Johnson, to which Nichols added, "Samuel Prior kept the Rummer Tavern near Charing-cross in 1685. The annual feast of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, was held at his house, Oct. 14, that year."[9]

Nichols produced an immense quantity of scholarly work, and the canon of his work will not be much increased by the thirty-five notes he contributed to the works of other scholars, but they deserve to be known, and they are further evidence of the close intimacy between him and Isaac Reed.

Notes