Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/208

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. VL AUG. 31, 1912.


e. The Works, &c. (Worded like d.)

Small octavo ; Memoirs occupy pp. 1-132. Leaf A2, pp. 3-4, contains a table of ' Con- tents.'

In d the words " Vol. III. Part II." are in red ink ; in e, in black ink.

I have copies of a, b, d, e ; I have not seen c, but for its text it follows a.

The purpose of this query is to ask if any of your readers skilled in Popiana can inform me whether or not I am correct in my suspicion that there was an edition earlier than the folio.

The data underlying my inference are these : Editions a, b, c, and e show decided confusion. They print sixteen chapters, numbering them i. xii. and xiv. xvii. In each a table of ' Contents ' calls for seventeen chapters, and gives the full title of each chapter, the titles reading the same for the four editions. The titles used in the body agree with those listed in ' Contents ' for chaps, i.-vii. and xiv.-xvii. But nothing in the body corresponds to chap. ix. of ' Contents ' ; chaps, ix.-xii. in the body bear the titles assigned by ' Contents ' to chaps, x.-xiii. ; and the body has no chap. xiii. at all.

Edition d has all seventeen chapters, but it has no table of contents ; throughout, the chapter titles of its body agree with the titles in the ' Contents ' of the other editions. Chap. ix. is about three pages long. The first half of it is a variation of the last paragraph of chap. viii. of the other edi- tions ; the last half of it and the beginning of chap. x. fall upon the cancel, leaf D8, which is pasted on a stub in one of my copies, though not so in another. The cancel reproduces the wording of the other editions, with the single exception that it gives the number x. to a chapter that is numbered ix. in the other editions ; it necessarily repeats much of what is on the leaf preceding it ; it does not " make sense " with the preceding leaf ; and it was evidently set up for the purpose of bringing this edition into conformity with the other editions. Edition d is the only one pos- sessed of an Errata list. One entry reads " Page 43. 1. 4. for Henley, r. Horneck : a Mistake for another scurrilous Scribler oi a Weekly Paper at that time call'd the High German Doctor." On p. 43 the wore Henley occurs, without any foot-note ; in the other editions it has been altered to Horneck, and there is a foot-note : " Hor- neck, a scurrilous Scribler who wrote a weeklv paper, called the High Germar Doctor,"


It seems probable to me that d is really the sheets of an edition antedating the

olio, with the cancel inserted to make it more nearly conform to the subsequently evised shape. The problem of the authorship of the

Memoirs ' is still unsettled. The opinions of Warburton and Spence are quoted in Elwin-Courthope (vol. x. p. 272). By mplication, if not by direct assertion, half a dozen writers besides Pope and Arbuthnot are said to have contributed. I do not Durpose here to discuss this or any of the other interesting problems. But the failure of the modern editors to record the existence of the folio and the quarto of 1741 may

ustify me in stating that editions d and e Drint on their half - titles the words, " Written by Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope " ; and in quoting the following sentences from

The Booksellers to the Reader,' a letter prefixed to editions a and 6 :

" We have obtained the ' Memoirs of Scrib- lerus,' being the beginning of a considerable Work undertaken so long ago as 1713 by several great Hands. As much of it as is here publish d, and all the tracts in the same Name, were written by our Author and Dr. Arbuthnot, except the

Essay on the Origine of Sciences,' in which Dr.. Parnelle had some hand, as Mr. Gay in the

Memoirs of 'a Parish Clerk.' The rest were Mr. Pope's."

This letter is quoted entire, as 'Preface to- the Quarto of 1741,' at pp. xlv-xlvi of vol. vi. of the Elwin-Courthope set, but its significance appears to have eluded the attention of the editors.

R. H. GRIFFITH. The University of Texas.

COL. CocKBtJRN, R.A. I should like much to find, for historical purposes, the repre- sentatives of Col. Cockburn, R.A., who was in Canada in the twenties and thirties of last century. He was not only a most valuable military and civil officer, but also a very accomplished man. I received a letter from his grandson, Major-General Charles Cockburn, of the same branch of the service, from 3, Launceston Place, Dover, a few years ago, telling me he was very unwell, and he died shortly after before I could pursue my quest.

DAVID Ross McCoRD, M.A., K.C.

Temple Grove, Montreal.

GERMAN PROVERB : SILKS IN THE KITCHEN. There is a German proverb which states that one cannot work in the kitchen in silks (I cannot recall the exact words). Is there any English proverb which corresponds to- this ? H. COOPER.