Slike strani
PDF
ePub

'The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode' Collation. 12mo, pp. 188, consisting (previously printed as "Ode I." in Odes by half-title, pp. [1, 2], verso blank; fro Mr. Gray, Strawberry Hill, 1757; in Dodsley's piece; title as above, pp. [3, 4], verso bla Collection,' vol. vi., 1758; and in the Advertisement, pp. [5, 6], verso bla 'Designs,' 1765). Contents, pp. [7, 8], verso blank; text of poems, pp. [9]-187; p. [188] blank. register is A, four leaves; B-H, in twel

[ocr errors]

66

The following 'Advertisement' pre the poems :

"The Bard. A Pindaric Ode' (previously printed as Ode II." in 'Odes by Mr. Gray,' Strawberry Hill, 1757; in Dodsley's 'Collec-1, six leaves. tion,' vol. vi., 1758, and in the Designs,' 1765). The Fatal Sisters. An Ode' (first printed in the 'Poems' of 1768). 'The Descent of Odin. printed in the 'Poems' of 1768). "The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment' (first printed in the 'Poems' of 1768).

An Ode' (first

Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard' (previously printed as a quarto pamphlet for R. Dodsley, 16 Feb., 1751, and in ten other editions before 1753; in The Magazine of Magazines, 28 Feb., 1751; in The Scots Magazine, 31 March, 1751; in The Grand Magazine of Magazines, 30 April, 1751; in Bentley's Designs' 1753 and 1765; in Dodsley's Collection,' vol. iv., 1755; and in one or two other miscellanies).

The second issue of the Poems,' of which only 750 copies were printed, is rarer than the first, though of course not so valuable. The half-title, title, and contents are identical with those of the first issue, with one exception the words "A New Edition are printed on the title-page. The register is also the same, and it is reprinted page for page with the original. But it is not, like so many other books of the period, a collection of "remainder" sheets with a new title-page. The whole of the letterpress, from the first page to the last, has been reimposed; and the type employed is smaller and slightly less clear than in the first edition.

"At the desire of some Gentlemen, for Taste and Judgment the Editor hath the gr Respect, he has added to this Edition of Mr. Poems two Latin Translations of the celeb Elegy written in a Country Church-yard, v ,poetical Address to the Author; one by the Mr. Lloyd, the other by an anomimous [sic] P which Translations and Poem, it is hoped, wi be unacceptable to the classical Reader."

The contents of the volume, so f Gray's poems are concerned, are ide with those in the London edition, wit exception that 'A Long Story' is ins between the Eton College Ode' and Hymn to Adversity. As we know aversion that Gray had to the republi of this poem, we may be sure that Dublin edition was issued withou knowledge or approval. Mr. Gosse. edition of Gray's Works,' i. 81, an Bradshaw, 'Poetical Works,' p. 231, assert that A Long Story' was only p once in Gray's lifetime; but they evidently unaware of this Irish edition After The Triumphs of Owen' is Carmen Elegiacum, in Cemeterio Compositum, of which the first line is

[ocr errors]

·

Audistin! quam lenta sonans campana per The author of this translation was Lloyd, and the date and place of th publication are doubtful (see 1st S. This is followed by the Elegy,' wi Latin translation beginning,

Audin' ut occiduæ signum campana die

This had been printed anonymou Cambridge in quarto in 1762, but the was the Rev. W. Hildyard. Aft

The contents of the Foulis edition are the same as in the two London editions, and this renders more interesting a fourth edition, which was printed at Dublin in the same year, and which, if not unknown to Gray, was ignored by him. It is, I think, a very scarce edition, as I have not seen any notice of it by bibliographers. It is not included by Dr.Elegy' comes John Bradshaw in the Bibliography' of Gray, consisting of editions of his works in the British Museum and Bodleian, which is appended to his (Aldine) edition of Gray's "Poetical Works'; nor will it be found in the catalogues of the Dyce and Forster libraries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. The following is the title-page and collation of this book :

"Poems by Mr Gray. | [Vignette on | | copper.] Dublin: Printed by William Sleater in Castle-Street. | 1768."

an Ode on Ra

Addressed to the Ladies. Being a on Mr. Gray's celebrated Ode on a Prospect of Eton College.' Then com Evening Contemplation in a College a Parody on the Elegy in a Country yard.' The author of this skit was t John Duncombe, of Corpus Christi Cambridge, and it was first publish Dodsley in 1753. The volume conclud

It was also reprinted in the 1765 Bentley's 'Designs.'

The Bard, a Burlesque Ode, written by R. Lloyd and G. Colman.' It can easily be conceived that this collection of parodies must have been distasteful to the sensitive mind of Gray; and even if he knew of the volume, the absence of any allusion to it in his letters is thus explicable.

The Frontispiece' is a copper engraving of the Bard "plunging to endless night deep in the roaring tide." There are also head and tail pieces engraved on copper to the Elegy'; and a rough woodcut at the end of the volume, showing Pegasus unhorsing his reckless rider, illustrates the last stanza of the 'Burlesque Ode.' W. F. PRIDEAUX.

THE GUNNINGS OF CASTLE COOTE. ABOUT three miles from the town of Roscommon, and close to the village of Fuerty, stands the castle built by Sir Charles Coote in the early years of the seventeenth century (to check the excursions of the native rebels), which from the first has borne the name of Castle Coote. According to a time-honoured tradition, the beautiful Miss Gunnings spent a portion of their girlhood in a thatched house which stood near the walls of the ancient stronghold, on the same site as the present mansion. It is certain that their grandfather lived here, for in his will, dated 15 January, 1717, he is described as Bryan Gunning, of Castle Coote; but there seems to be no evidence, among the numerous deeds concerning the family preserved at the Dublin Record Office, to prove that it ever was the residence of their father, John Gunning, after he was married. From a deed of settlement dated 24 August, 1731, which through the kindness of Lady Russell, the gifted authoress, I have been able to examine, it appears that at this date the father of the beauties, then a bachelor, was living at Castle Strange, about three miles from Castle Coote. Several other residences belonging to the Gunnings are mentioned in the same document, such as Holy well, where Barnaby, the brother of John Gunning, was living, and "the Manor Town and Lands of Clooniburn," which, according to a will dated 12 April, 1731 (Dublin Probate Office), had been the seat of George, the eldest brother, and the heir to the estates of his father, old Bryan, of Castle Coote. Another property is described by the deed as "a house and garden called the New Inn at Abbeytown"; but although there is a detailed schedule of various lands, it is not declared that Castle Coote continued to form a portion of the estates. Yet it is evident

that George Gunning lived here after the death of his father (v. Indented Deed, vol. cxix. fol. 50, No. 81351, Dublin Record Office); and it is equally clear that he is described as the owner of Clooniburn when he signed his last will and testament in April, 1731. Since it appears from the deed of settlement of August in this same year that he had died recently, encumbered with debts, it seems probable that, being obliged to leave the home of his ancestors, he had taken up his residence on another estate. At all events, we do not hear of Castle Coote in connexion with the Gunning family after the year 1731.

Through the documents in the Dublin Record Office the vicissitudes of other properties belonging to the family can be traced with tolerable exactitude. Before his marriage, in October, 1731, to Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald, sixth Viscount Mayo, John Gunning had leased Castle Strange to a cousin Robert (". Deed of Lease and Release, 68, 6, 46817, Dublin Record Office); and on 16 June, 1742, the place was sold to William Ousley (id, 110, 367, 77969). Apparently, the home of the spendthrift George met a similar fate, for on 15 September, 1743, the lands of Clooniburn were assigned to John Kelly (112, 134, 77392). With regard to the house at Holy well, it has been suggested by the Rev. J. J. Kelly (v. Early Haunts of Goldsmith,' p. 75) as the home of the celebrated beauties, who are said to have acquired their incomparable complexions from the waters of St. Bridget's Pool hard by. Fortunately for romance, there is nothing incredible in the story that the ladies tested the qualities of the magic well; but unless the Gunnings owned two houses in the neighbourhood, it is improbable that they lived here. It has been shown that their uncle Barnaby resided at Holywell in August, 1731, as he continued to do after the marriage of his brother John (68, 6, 46817); and the various leases and releases granted by him, which may be found in the Dublin Record Office, prove that he did not change his abode.

Let us now trace the movements of John, the father of the beautiful Miss Gunnings. Almost immediately after his marriage to Bridget Bourke on 23 October, 1731, as Lady Russell was the first to point out, he took up his residence at Hemingford Grey, two miles from St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, in the Manor or Red House, which belonged to his brother-in-law Wm. Mitchell, of Carshalton. Hitherto the date of his removal to Ireland has been the subject of conjecture. Obviously

it could not have occurred earlier than 11 January, 1736/7, for the parish registers show that his infant daughter Sophia, baptized at the end of November, was buried on that day at Hemingford. Since he had inherited the freehold estates on the decease of his brother George in 1731, the death of a relative, as is sometimes surmised, could not have called him over to succeed to the property. With the help of the documents preserved in the Dublin Record Office the time of his hegira may be fixed approximately. In a lease dated 1 February, 1741, he is described as John Gunning, of the Middle Temple (for it should be remembered that he was admitted a member on 3 November, 1725); while on 10 March of the same year he is particularized in another lease as John Gunning, of Abbeytown, co. Roscommon. There seems to have been a special reason why he should have gone to reside on or near his Connaught properties about this period. In the deed of settlement of August, 1731, necessitated by the demise of the spend thrift George, his brother Barnaby had agreed for certain considerations to discharge all the debts affecting the fee-simple estate within the space of ten years. Such a surmise may seem of no value in view of the character of the man, but certainly it is a coincidence that he should have returned to Roscommon during the very year that his property was freed from its encumbrances.

It is also a curious fact, bearing in mind the old-established belief that he came over to Ireland to live in the home of his fathers at Castle Coote, that he should be described as John Gunning, of Abbey town, a portion of the town of Roscommon situated near the old abbey. The two deeds quoted above are not isolated instances. In no fewer than three other legal documents during the years 1742-3 the same place is given as his residence. Every other lease and conveyance concerning the family is scrupulousy accurate in its descriptions, and the various properties particularized as the homes of the brothers at different periods-Castle Strange, Clooniburn, Holywell-were all included in the Gunning estates. Thus it would appear a reasonable conjecture that John Gunning took up his abode with his beautiful daughters in "the house and garden called the New Inn at Abbey town," which is named in the instructive deed of settlement. Never once is he identified with Castle Coote, although his different residences in Dublin, Westminster, and Somerset House can be traced in many documents; and as late as August, 1765 (vol. ccxli. fol. 214, No. 158,228), he is de

scribed, by reason of his home whe bachelor, as John Gunning, of Castle Stra In the absence of further evidence I ca believe that his beautiful daughters resided at Castle Coote. HORACE BLEACKL

Fox Oak.

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, SIR WAL

SCOTT'S PUBLISHER.

THE following facts concerning Arch Constable are all founded upon documen evidence, and I deem it expedient to r them in permanent form for ready refe by all interested in accurate literary his It is the more necessary to do so in sequence of incorrect statements in an a in a weekly publication issued in Lond20 January last.

Reference was there made to "the ing business of T. & A. Constable Edinburgh University Press, founded b [Archibald Constable's] son Thoma grandson, Archibald Constable, is a pa in this firm."

My dearly beloved uncle Thomas stable-my second father, in truth-d found the business in question. It i continuation of the business founded and carried on at that classical pri press in Craig's Close, Edinburgh, b paternal great-grandfather, David Wi Thomas Constable served his apprentic in Mr. Richards's press, 100, St. Ma Lane, London, and, by the advice of the Thomas Thompson, James Gibson and another, took over, in the late th what then remained of the connexion, plant, and so forth of the Craig's concern, from "the heirs of David Wil who then were my great-aunt Jean W and my uncle David Constable, an burgh advocate, to both of whom T Constable regularly paid annuities amounts of which had been settle Messrs. Thompson and James Gibson C

David Willison was the first printer a great deal more than that, as record Sydney Smith, Jeffrey, Cockburn, and

of The Edinburgh Review, that great which owed so much to my grandfat every detail of its conception and bi have some curious documents relat David Willison, whose only son-also David - was given a commission i Honourable East India Company's m service, Madras establishment, by "universal provider" for his political f Lord Dundas, and was massacred at V Capts. David Willison and George Con

(another kinsman), also in the Company's the House of Commons, says that "in neighservice in the Bengal artillery, together bouring parishes drums beating up for a served Scott as his model for Capt. Hector morris or a maypole on the Lords day" were McIntyre in The Antiquary. Perhaps often heard (p. 19). some day, at a time of less storm and stress, my documents and notes relating to the two David Willisons may find a fitting setting, as they are of considerable historical importance. My cousin's name is Archibald David, although it is true that some years ago, for business purposes, he elected to drop the David-an action, which has proved at times inconvenient to myself.

My grandfather's partner Robert Cadell is styled "the pivot-financial and otherwise -on which the business revolved." This is rather extravagant praise of one who, by all accounts, other than those contained in the very biassed pages of Lockhart's Life,' was an exceedingly commonplace man. Mr. Cadell certainly profited, and that very largely, by the enterprise and initiative of my grandfather, who was also his father-inlaw, the fact of Robert Cadell's marriage to my aunt Eliza Constable being omitted in the article to which I refer.

Finally, I must deal with the statement that "Archibald Constable was a broken man after 1826," which is absolutely untrue. My grandfather never for a moment lost heart after the Scott-Ballantyne Constable catastrophe of January, 1826, as I can prove from existing unpublished material, as well as from a large number of letters printed in the third of those very volumes from which the writer of the article professes to have drawn

his facts. Hanover.

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE.

MAY DAY: MAYPOLE.There are well known passages in praise of May in Sir Thomas Malory's 'Prince Arthur,' 1816, i. 76, iii. 265.

The word "May" and its compounds in the New English Dictionary' may be studied with advantage.

George Buchanan (1506-82) celebrates Maygames in his 'Elegiarum Liber,' Maja Calenda, pp. 315-18; in his 'Epigrammatum Lib. I,' 'In pinum pro foribus scholarum Calend. Maji erectam,' p. 365; and in his Miscellaneorum Liber, Calenda Maje,' p. 414 (ed. Amstel., 1641).

Theophilus Higgons, the Puritan censor of Christ Church, Oxford, sawed down a maypole which had been erected there; he said he did it because the pole had been taken by stealth out of the college grounds; see his Apology,' 1609; 'D.N.B.,' xxvi. 374. In 1644 J. Greene, in his sermon before

[ocr errors]

On 30 April, 1666, at 11 P.M., fourteen young men from Birdsall went into a wood belonging to Eddlethorpe Grange in order to get a young ash tree for a May poll to carry to the town of Birdsall"; but they met with opposition, and one of the fourteen was shot, and fell down dead ('Depositions from York Castle,' Surt. Soc., p. 141).

In 'Gotthold's Emblems,' by Christian Scriver, 1671, translated by Robert Menzies, Edinb., 1857, section exliv. pp. 233-6, is headed "May Boughs, May 23," and states that it is an old custom to decorate houses and churches with green boughs at Whitsuntide.

See also 'The Mayers and their Song, or some Account of the First of May and its Observance in Hertfordshire,' by W. B. Gerish, 8vo, 10 leaves and cover, Hertford (1906). W. C. B.

THINGS INDIAN.'- While thanking you for the kindly notice of my book, ante, P. 299, may I be allowed to point out that feature in the volume is that a large number when your critic writes: "One singular of words have an asterisk against them, no explanation of which is afforded," he has forgotten that this is explained in the Preface? The book was intended partly as a supplement to the Anglo-Indian Glossary, and accordingly subjects discussed and words explained in that book were marked with an asterisk, so as to avoid repetition. I may also add that the alphabetical from Hobson - Jobson,' but was adopted arrangement of subjects was not derived simply because the earlier volumes of the series - Chamberlain's Things Japanese? in this way. and Ball's Things Chinese'--were arranged WILLIAM CROOKE.

LAVA. In recording the recent terrible eruption of the "unextinguished" Mount Vesuvius, and its destructive "lava”. (a "fire-stream"), it may be worth observing that the metaphoric sense in which the term lava is applied to a stream or torrent of fluid matter or molten rock issuing from a volcano, now commonly adopted from the Italian lava by most European languages appears to have originated, not from the Neapolitan dialect, as supposed by the N.E. Dict., but from that of Sicily; for both the Vocabolario Napoletano degli Accademici Filopatridi' of 1789 and Puoti's 'Vocabolario Napoletano e Toscano' of 1841 know the word lava merely

in its literal sense, viz., "Corso d'acqua impetuoso che corre per le strade, cagionato da piogge di rotte." But Mortillaro's 'Dizionario Siciliano-Italiano' (Palermo, 1838) describes our term lava only in its figurative sense, viz., "Materia strutta simile al vetro opaco, la quale nel tempo dell' eruzione d'un vulcano, ne esce, e scorre a guisa di torrente infuocato, ed indi s' indura come pietra."

X.

quisitely carved figure was unearthed correspondent of The Glasgow Hera announced the find describes the fi that of a "recumbent naval warrior, do so, doubtless, because there is rigged ship of Roman build, having t of a dragon for a figure-head," over t thigh. The vessel has "also a cros mainmast, and flies a pennant, whils left thigh there is what might repr strip of tartan. It is in the form of raised squares in three rows, suspend a hand."

The correspondent in question is ev no herald. Had he been one, he w once from these symbols have identi

improbably the "Black Knight" him widow of James I. of Scotland. second husband of Queen Joan B described as a ship of Roman buil galley of Lorne; the "strip of tar twelve raised squares, the well-know chequé of the Stewarts, their patern Lorne bore quarterly, first and fou The said galley and fesse the Ste second and third respectively. Th Knight of Lorne had estates close to the branch known as the Stewarts of (the new naval base), a place a fe distant from Culross.

and his father's brother was the fou

HORNBY AND FEILDEN M.P.S.-Now that the political complexion of the new Parliament has been analyzed thoroughly, one of its personal aspects invites attention. Reference has been made in more than one quarter to the breach of historic continuity by the loss of the seat for South Monmouth-effigy as representing a Stewart of Lo shire by Col. Morgan, one of a family which seemed almost to have established a prescriptive right to represent that county; but note has not been taken of the fact that, by the retention of the seat at Blackburn, Sir William Henry Hornby has preserved an historic continuity which, as far as the past three-quarters of a century are conconcerned, is even more remarkable and complete. A John Hornby, an E. K. Hornby, and another William Henry Hornby, had been chosen for this Lancashire borough before there was first returned the present Conservative member, who is the son of the last named and brother of the second. So clannish has Blackburn proved, indeed, that a Hornby or a Feilden, and sometimes one of each, has represented it in every Parliament from 1832 to 1880; and when in 1868 William Henry Hornby the elder and Joseph Feilden were re-elected, even in that time of Liberal victory elsewhere throughout the country, but were unseated on petition, the local Tories ran a son of each-E. K. Hornby and H. M. Feilden-and triumphantly returned them both, defeating Mr. John Morley, himself a Blackburnian by birth, in his first fight for Parliament. Mr. E. K. Hornby sat in only that House of Commons, but Mr. H. M. Feilden was re-elected in 1874; and, in the Parliaments of 1874, 1880, and 1885, though there was no Hornby for Blackburn the present member was sent to Westminster in 1886; and when ten years later he stated his determination to withdraw from parliamentary life, the local pressure put upon him to stay proved too strong for his resolution,

and at Westminster he still remains.

A. F. R. STEWART OF LORNE EFFIGY. - Culross Abbey, on the Forth, is undergoing restoration at present, and on 19 March an ex

That the effigy represents one of t Stewarts does not admit of doubt, a the first to express that opinion in The truth was obvious as I read. It the workmanship is almost as pe when it left the sculptor's hands. thing about this knight clad in armour is richly adorned, and they presents a person who was a man of his day-a Stewart of Lorne, I firml

W. M. GRAHAM E

[ocr errors]

"HOMINY": ITS ETYMOLOGY.-Th way of being a household word, but has never been satisfactorily sett] which it is composed may be the A suggestion made in the N.E.D. amounts to this, that one of the ele min, which means grain. Dr. Murr no mention at all of rockahomon occurs in several of our older autho to the riddle. Mr. Craigie will pr same sense, and to my mind supplie deal with it under R, so I venture attention to it here, as being in a bility the full form, of which hominy an abbreviation. I need hardly say t American terms in English have

« PrejšnjaNaprej »