12 S.I. FEB. 12, 1916.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
125-
Payments to Eighteenth-Century Authors for Corrections and Improvemnts.—A volume of broadsides and pamphlets 'on the eighteenth-century copyright agitation and the publishers' petitions, which lies before me, has belonged successively to Thomas Longman, William Lort, and Bindley. It contains a 4-page 4to circular, 'An Account of the Expense of correcting and improving Sundry Books,' which recites that
"the Booksellers now petitioning the Legislature for Relief, most humbly beg leave to observe that there is scarce an instance of a new Edition of any living Author's Work printed without submitting it to his correction and improvement,"
so the
"authors sometimes receive, in Process of Time, us much money for corrections and improvements as was first paid for the Copy."
The examples quoted are principally dictionaries (Ainsworth's, Baretti's, and Bayle's), but the following are of more than ordinary interest:—
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' Johnson's English Dictionary,' s. d-
2 vols., folio, to the Author for
Improvements in the Third
Edition 300
The Editors of Shakespeare
Mr. Bowe . .
Mr. Hughes
Mr. Pope . .
Mr. Fenton
Mr. Gay
Mr. Whatley
Mr. Theobald
Mr. Warburton
Mr. Capel . .
Mr. Johnson, copies to the amount of
Ditto, a new Edition in 1774 ' Universal History, Ancient and
Modern,' for revising, correcting
and digesting it, for a new Edition 1,575 The last item in this list of examples is : Paid to Authors and Editors, over s. d.
and above the original Sum given
for the Copy of the above-men- tioned Books 11,952 15
ALECK ABRAHAMS.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY OF THE UNITED STATES. This phrase seems to have been well understood in the days prior to the American Civil War. The following extract is from ' American States, Churches, a nd Slavery,' by the Rev. J. B. Balme, London, Hamilton, 1863 :
" There are a few instances on record of slaves who have been delivered from the grasp of their pursuers, and consigned to the care of a merciful Providence by the Underground Railway to Canada.
CITIZEN.
36
28 217 30 35 12 652 500 300 nt 375 100
10
7
12
12
19
10
6
FERRERS ALLEYNE : A POSSIBLE CON- NEXION. (See ante, p. 84.) Burke's ' Baronetage,' &c. (see 1915 ed., p. 91), begins the Alleyne pedigree with " George Alleyne of Chartley, Stafford and Grantham, co. Lincoln," and makes no reference to Dethick's note ; from which it may be inferred that either a copy of the Visitation pedigree lacking the note was consulted, or that the transcriber failed to appreciate its significance.
The family tradition appears in later days, to have been ignored or forgotten. Prob- ably, prosperity and importance gained beyond the seas had something to do with this. Not only has Burke evidently no- suggestion to work on, but Wotton (1771) " cannot give their particular descent," and begins with a prominent member of the family in Barbados (iii. 249), not even the first there.
The Alleyne arms are : " Per chevron gu.. and erm., in chief 2 lions' heads erased or."
This coat was granted (or recorded) at Heralds' College in 1769 (Fox-Davies,. ' Armorial Families,' sixth ed., p. 25).. apparently when the baronetcy was conferred (April 6 of that year). It is not much like " vairy or and gu." !
How did this coat come to be chosen ? It is remarkably like that of Jacomb, " per chevron az. and erm., 2 lions' heads era. arg." " Christian," the wife of Richard Alleyne,. D.D., whose son Reynold was the first of the family to settle in Barbados, may have- been a member of this family the merest conjecture this ! It would be interesting to- have the point cleared up.
E. B. DE COLEPEPER.
LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRIS- TIANITY AMONG THE JEWS. I think it is worthy of a note in your valued paper that the title of this society is now Church Missions to Jews ; the former title it had borne for 107 years. The Patron, Vice-Patron, Pre- sident, Vice-President , and present officers are all members of the Church of England or of Churches in communion with her.
M.A.OxoN.
THE EMERALD AND CHASTITY. In Richard Tomlinson's English translation of the "Medicinal Dispensatory. .. .by the Illustrious Renodseus " (London, 1657), there is a curious passage about the emerald's alleged love of chastity, quoting the case of an unnamed Hungarian queen, the stone in whose ring broke into three parts on a certain occasion. Mr. George Fred. Kunz*
