Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/464

This page needs to be proofread.

456


NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. JUNE 7, 1913.


has been the endeavour of the Editor (by intro- ducing many entertaining anecdotes, in most of which he has been personally concerned) to render this performance both interesting and useful.

" If some few of the lives given in the course of this work, may not be thought perfectly co- incident with the plan, we beg leave to observe, that it is very difficult to draw the line between moderate eccentricity, and what may be deemed only an extension of the too arbitrary bounds prescribed by rigid regularity and decorum."

It does not appear who was the editor or author. J. DE L. S.

" STAR-YPOINTING " : THPJ SECOND FOLIO OF THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS (US. vii. 227). The Second Folio of the Shakespeare plays was brought out in 1632. So far as I can learn, although all are dated 1632, there were five different imprints, viz. :

1. Printed by Tho. Cotes for John Smeth- wick.

2. Printed by Tho. Cotes for William Aspley.

3. Printed by Tho. Cotes for Richard Hawkins.

4. Printed by Tho. Cotes for Richard Meighen.

5. Printed by Tho. Cotes for Robert Allot.

The last is the one most generally known. Three copies of it are in the British Museum, and Methuen & Co. in 1909 brought out a photographic facsimile of it.

My own copy is No. 2 in the above list, and in this, in the epitaph known as Milton's, we find " starre-ypointed Pyramid " cor- rectly printed. In No. 5 of which I had a copy that I placed in the Lambeth Free Library we find the utterly absurd and hopelessly ungrammatical word " starre- ypointing," which has been the despair of the literary world for centuries.

In Macmillan's c Elementary Lessons in Historical English Grammar,' 1891, p. 166, we read :

" The passive participle in the oldest period had a prefix ge, which after the Norman Conquest was reduced to (i, y, e). Milton has yclept = called. He wrongly adds it to a present participle in star y pointing."

I myself have seen only Nos. 2 and 5, and it would be of much value if some of your correspondents could say where Nos.l , 3, and 4 can be seen, and whether in any of these copies the correct form " starre-ypointed Pyramid " is to be found.

It would also be of great interest if we could learn how many copies of each of these are known to be in existence. I remember that a copy of No. 2 was sold about fifteen


years ago. I do not know when a copy of No. 2 was sold. A copy of No. 1 was sold in 1902 for 690Z. ; a copy of No. 3 in 1903 for 850/. ; and a copy of No. 5 in 1895 for 540?. EDWIN BURNING - LAWRENCE.

13, Carlton House Terrace.

PAOET AND CHESTER (11 S. vii. 388). " Paget's lance " refers. I should con- jecture, to the first Marquis of Anglesey, distinguished as a cavalry leader in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, while " Chester's learning " points to some learned bishop who was a typical pillar of the English Church. C. J. Btomfield.* one of the most famous of " Greek-play " bishops, held the see of Chester from 1824 to 1828, succeeding- G. H. Law (1812-24), and being followed by J. B. Sumner (1828-48).

Perhaps some one versed in the political and theological squabbles of those days can point to a controversial work of Blomfield or another bishop that Praed may have had in mind.

Praed's meaning appears to be that, thanks to the success of British arm& abroad, and episcopal stalwartness at home T the country has been saved from Popery.

In the days when " Catholic emancipa- tion " was still strange and startling, the fear that fires would again be lit in Smith- field found expression in political squibs and- in more serious productions.

In the preceding stanza of Praed's poem we have

I think that friars and their hoods. Their doctrines and their maggots,

Have lighted up too many feuds, And far too many faggots.

Macaulay in his well - known election ballad in 1827 wrote :

Lollards' tower, good authorities say,

Is again fitting up as a prison ; And a wood-merchant told me to-day

'Tis a wonder how faggots have risen. Praed again, in his ' Waterloo,' in de- scribing the imaginary French version of the result of the battle, says :

They brought the Pope himself to town And lodged him in St. Paul's.

EDWARD BENSLY,

" Paget " is the first Marquess of Anglesey,. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1826, the date of the appearance of Praed's ' Chaunts of the Brazen Head'; and "Chester" is a reference to Blomfield, Bishop of Chester,


  • If Blomfield is meant, Praed would be paying

a natural compliment to a distinguished classical scholar and member of his own College, Trinity.