Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/204

This page needs to be proofread.

164


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. AUG. 28, im

Mr. O'Brien seems unaware that more than a century ago two leading littérateurs made it their business to identify the writer of this book. The authorship then was claimed, apparently on good authority, for Sir Grey Brydges, 6th Lord Chandos—by Thomas Park in his enlarged edition of Walpole's 'Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors' (5 vols., 1806, ii. 184), and by 'Sir S. Egerton Brydges in his 'Censura Literaria' (10 vols., 1805, vi. 192). This attribution has been accepted by the writer of the article on Sir Grey Brydges in the 'D.N.B.' Lowndes and Watt (who misprint the date as 1626 and 1720 respectively) enter it under Blount the publisher. Edward Blount, or Blunt, was rather fond of writing addresses "To the Reader" in books put forth anonymously, as witness Bishop Earle's 'Micro-cosmographie: Essayes and Characters,' 1286.

The seventeenth century saw two volumes bearing the title 'Horæ Subsecivæ,' the second being by D. W. (William Denton, M.D.), London, 1664.

It is well known that the earlier work suggested to Dr. John Brown, the author of 'Rab and his Friends,' the title for his collected writings. I once owned his copy, and have a note that on the title-page was written in an old hand "By yᵉ Lord Candish [i.e. Cavendish], after Earle of Devonshire." This was William Gilbert, eldest son of the first Earl. Anthony à Wood also says, "This Book was written by Gilbert Lord Cavendish, who died before his Father, William Earl of Devonshire." Whether Thomas Park and Sir S. Egerton Brydges considered the Cavendish claim I do not know, but it seems reasonable to assume that one or other of those noblemen wrote the book.

Mr. O'Brien also ignores the fact that Sir William Cornwallis the younger adopted for his notable volume of 1600 the title 'Essays'—only three years after the editio princeps of Bacon's Essays, and twenty years before the 'Horæ Subsecivæ' of 1620 appeared; and in the Second Part, published tho year following (1601), he says in his forty-sixth essay, entitled 'Of Esaayes and Bookes':—

"I hould neither Plutarches, nor none of these auncient short manner of writings, nor Montaignes, nor such of this latter time to be rightly termed Essayes, for though they be short, yet they are strong, and able to endure the sharpest triall: but mine are Essayes who am but newly bound Prentice to the inquisition of knowledge, and use these papers as a Painters boy a board, that is trying to bring his hand and his fancie acquainted."

Before the middle of the seventeenth century the word "Essays" to designate those books of short dissertations in which a writer gives the cream of a variety of subjects, without exacting any very severe attention from the reader, had become popular, and in order to give some slight evidence of this I will merely select two titles from my own books in this department: 'Horæ Vacivæ, or Essayes,' by John Hall, London, 1646; and "Essayes and Observations, Theological and Moral, by a Student in Theologie," London, 1653.

C. Elkin Mathews.
Vigo Street, W.


[We insert Mr. O'Brien's article, though we must not be taken as endorsing its conclusions. There are many instances in which well-known styles have been copied by admirers.]



ST. NEOTS, HUNTINGDONSHIRE, BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS.

In continuation of my notes on the booksellers and printers of Huntingdonshire I now give those for the parish of St. Neots. The names and dates are gathered from the same sources as in my previous article (10 S. viii. 201).

Tans'ur (William), bookseller, 1743-83.—The 'D.N.B.,' lv. 363, says: "The last forty years of his life were spent chiefly at St. Neots, where he was a stationer, bookseller, and teacher of music. He died there on 2 (or 7) Oct. 1783." The inscription on his tombstone (almost illegible, and probably now printed for the first time) is as follows:—

In Memory of
Willᵐ Le Tansur Senʳ
Musico Theorico
who Departed this Life Oct. 7
1783
aged 83
Born at Dunchurch, Warwickshire.

The entry in the parish register of St. Neots is: "Buried 1783. 9th October. William Le Tansur. Bookbinder and singing master."

Claridge (T.), bookseller and printer, 1768-80.—Whether Claridge actually printed the books bearing his imprints, or had them printed elsewhere, is not known, but he is certainly the first St. Neots man who styled himself a printer.
Sharp (James Carter), 1792.—'The Apostles' Creed Paraphrased,' a single folio sheet, has the imprint: "Printed and Sold by J. C. Sharp, of whom may be had all kinds of stationery goods, genuine advertised medicines," &c. He also "printed and sold" "A Selection of Hymns for the Use of the Parish Church of St. Neots," 1792. Claridge and Sharp are the only two persons who professed to do printing at St. Neots in the eighteenth century.
Emery (Richard), bookseller and stationer, 1791-1801.—D. 1801, aged 59.
Emery (Richard) & Son. Sept., 1801.
Emery (William), publisher, 1801-42.—Son of Richard. Born 1778, d. 1851.
Emery (W.) & Son, publishers, 1842-51.