Notes and Queries, Number 53, November 2, 1850

V. Belgravia.

Dodsley's Poems (Vol. ii., pp. 264. 343).—THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT is informed that the first edition of Dodsley's Collection of Poems, by several Hands, was published in 1748, 3 vols. 12mo. A fourth volume was added in 1749, containing pieces by Collins, Garrick, Lyttelton, Pope, Tickell, Thomson, &c. Those by Garrick and Lyttelton are anonymous. The four volumes were reprinted uniformly in 1755. The fifth and sixth were added in 1758.

AMICUS CURIÆ.

Shunamitis Poema (Vol. ii., p. 326.).—The titlepage to the volume of poems inquired after by E.D. is as follows:

"Latin and English Poems, by a Gentleman of Trinity College, Oxford.

'Nec lusisse pudet sed non incidere ludum.' HOR.

London: printed for L. Bathurst over against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street, MDCCXLI."

I know not the author; but I suspect either that the title of an Oxford man was assumed by a Cantab, who might fairly wish not to be suspected as the author of several of the poems; or that the author, having been rusticated at Cambridge, vide at p. 84. the ode "Ad Thomam G." (whom I take to be Thomas Gilbert of Peterhouse), transferred himself and his somewhat licentious muse to Oxford.

COLL. ROYAL SOC.

Jeremy Taylor's Works (Vol. ii., p. 271.).—It seems desirable that an advance should occasionally be made in editing, beyond the mere verification of authorities, in seeing, that is, whether the passages cited are applicable to the point in hand, and properly apprehended. Bp. Taylor, in his Liberty of Prophecying, sect. vi., for instance, seems incorrect in stating that Leo I., bishop of Rome, rejected the Council of Chalcedon; whereas his reproofs are directed against Anatolias, bishop of Constantinople, an unwelcome aspirant to ecclesiastical supremacy. (See Concilia Studio Labbei, tom. iv., col. 844, &c.)

A passage frown Jerome's Epistle to Evangelus is often quoted in works on church government, as equalising, or nearly so, the office of bishop and presbyter; but the drift of the argument seems to be, to show that the site of a bishop's see, be it great or small, important or otherwise, does not affect the episcopal office. Some readers will perhaps offer an opinion on these two questions.

NOVUS.

Ductor Dubitantium.—The Judge alluded to by Jeremy Taylor in the passage quoted by A.T. (Vol. ii., p. 325.), was Chief-Justice Richardson; but the place where the outrage was committed was not Ludlow, as stated by the eloquent divine, but Salisbury, as appears from the following marginal note in Dyer's Reports, p. 1886—a curious specimen of the legal phraseology of the period:—

"Richardson, C.J. de C.B. at Assizes at Salisbury in Summer 1631 fuit assault per Prisoner la condemne pur Felony; que puis son condemnation ject un Brickbat a le dit Justice, que narrowly mist. Et pur ceo immediately fuit Indictment drawn pur Noy envers le Prisoner, et son dexter manus ampute et fixe al Gibbet, sur que luy mesme immediatement hange in presence de Court."

EDWARD FOSS.

Aërostation (Vol. ii., p. 317.).—The account published by Lunardi of his aërial voyage, alluded to by M., is, in the copy I have seen, entitled

"An Account of the First Aërial Voyage in Britain, in a series of letters to his guardian, the Chevalier Gherardo Compagni, written under the impressions of the various events that affected the undertaking, by Vicent Lunardi, Esq., Secretary to the Neapolitan Ambassador. 'A non esse nec fuisse non datur argumentum ad non posse.' Second edition, London: printed for the Author, and sold at the Panther; also by the Publisher J. Bell, at the British Library, Strand, and at Mr. Molini's, Woodstock Street, MDCCLXXXIV."

The book contains printed copies of the depositions of witnesses who beheld Lunardi's descent; and Mr. Baker, who, as a magistrate, took those depositions on oath, to establish what he thought so wonderful a fact, erected on the spot where the balloon descended, in a field near Colliers End, in the parish of Standon, Herts, on the left of the high road from London to Cambridge, a stone with the following inscription on a copper plate. It is still legible, though somewhat defaced. It is engraved in lines of unequal length, but to save your space I have not adhered to those divisions.

"Let posterity know, and knowing, be astonished, that on the fifteenth day of September, 1784, Vincent Lunardi of Lucca, in Tuscany, the first aërial traveller in Britain, mounting from the Artillery Ground in London, traversing the regions of the air for two hours and fifteen minutes, in this spot revisited the earth. On this rude monument for ages be recorded, that wondrous enterprise, successfully achieved by the powers of chemistry and the fortitude of man, that improvement in science, which the great Author of all knowledge, patronising by His providence the inventions of mankind, hath graciously permitted to their benefit and His own eternal glory."

COLL. ROYAL SOC.

Gwyn's London and Westminster (Vol. ii., p. 297.).—A reference to Mr. Croker's Boswell (last edit. 1847, p. 181.) may best satisfy § N. "Gwyn," says Mr. Croker, "proposed the principle, and in many instances the details, of the most important improvements which have been made in the metropolis in our day." Was this copied into the Literary Gazette?

Mr. Sydney Smirke speaks favourably of Gwyn's favourite project, "the formation of a permanent Board or Commission for superintending and controlling the architectural embellishments of London." (Suggestions, &c., 8vo. 1834, p. 23.)

J.H.M.

Bath.

Gwyn's London and Westminster (Vol. ii., p. 297.).—Under this head § N. inquires, "Will you permit me, through your useful publication, to solicit information of the number and date of the Literary Gazette which recalled public attention to this very remarkable fact:" namely, that stated by Mr. Thomas Hunt, in his Exemplars of Tudor Architecture (Longmans, 1830), to the effect that the Literary Gazette had referred to the work entitled London and Westminster Improved, by John Gwynn. London, 1766, 4to., as having "pointed out almost all the designs for the improvement of London which have been devised by the civil and military architects of the present day."

In answer to the above, your correspondent will find two articles in the Literary Gazette on this interesting subject; the first in No. 473., Feb. 11. 1826, in which it is mentioned that Mr. Gwynn, founding himself in some degree upon the plan of Sir C. Wren, proposed

"To carry a street from Piccadilly through Coventry Street, Sydney's Alley, Leicester Fields, Cranbourn Alley, and so to Long Acre, Queen Street, and Lincolns Inn Fields, and thus afford an easy access to Holborn; he also recommends the widening the Strand in its narrow parts," &c.

I need hardly notice that by the removal of Exeter Change, the alterations near Charing Cross, and the more recent openings from Coventry Street, along the line suggested by Mr. Gwynn, his designs have been so far carried out.

The second paper in the Literary Gazette was rather a long one, No. 532., March 31. 1827. In it Mr. Gwynn's publication is analysed, and all the leading particulars bearing on the "old novelties of our modern improvements" are brought to light.

The whole is worth your reprinting, and at your service, if you will send a copyist to the Literary Gazette office to inspect the volume for 1827.

W.J., ED.

"Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis" (Vol. ii., p. 267.).—This hexameter verse, which occurs in collections of Latin apophthegms, is not to be found in this form, in any classical author. It has been converted into a single proverbial verse, from the following passage of Claudian:

 
"Componitur orbis
Regis ad exemplum: nec sic inflictere sensus
Humanos edicta valent, ut vita regentis."
De IV. Consul. Honor., 299.
 

L.

St. Uncumber (Vol. ii., pp. 286. 342.).—Sir Thomas More details in his Dialoge, with his usual quaintness, the attributes and merits of many saints, male and female, highly esteemed in his day, and, amongst others, makes special mention of St. Uncumber, whose proper name, it appears, was Wylgeforte. Of these saints he says—

"Some serve for the eye onely, and some for a sore breast. St. Germayne onely for children, and yet will he not ones loke at them, but if the mother bring with them a white lofe and a pot of good ale: and yet is he wiser than St. Wylgeforte, for she, good soule, is, as they say, served and contented with otys. Whereof I cannot perceive the reason, but if it be bycause she sholde provyde an horse for an evil housebonde to ride to the Devyll upon; for that is the thing that she is so sought for, as they say. In so much that women hath therefore chaunged her name, and in stede of St. Wylgeforte call her St. Uncumber, bycause they reken that for a pecke of otys she will not fayle to uncumber theym of theyr housbondys."—(Quoted in Southey's Colloquies, vol. i. p. 414.)

 

St. Wylgeforte is the female saint whom the Jesuit Sautel has celebrated (in his Annus Sacer Poeticus) for her beard—a mark of Divine favour bestowed upon her in answer to her prayers. She was a beautiful girl, who wished to lead a single life, and that she might be suffered to do so free from importunity, she prayed earnestly to be rendered disagreeable to look upon, either by wrinkles, a hump on the back, or in any other efficacious way. Accordingly the beard was given her; and it is satisfactory to know that it had the desired effect to the fullest extent of her wishes. (Vid. Southey's Omniana, vol. ii. p. 54., where Sautel's lines are quoted.)

J.M.B.

West (James), President of Royal Society (Vol. ii., p. 289.).—T.S.D. states there "has certainly never been a president or even a secretary of the Royal Society, of the name of James West." Your readers will remember that West is mentioned by Mr. Cunningham in his London, as having filled the former distinguished office: his statement, which T.S.D. thus contradicts, is perfectly correct.

Mr. West's election took place 30th of November, 1768, and he filled the chair until his death in July, 1772.

J.H.M.

[Mr. Cooper, of Cambridge, J.G.N., and other correspondents, have called our attention to this oversight.]