62
NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 a. IL JULY 22, ma.
The dedication is instructive :
To the Right Honourable,
The Nobility, and the Most Generous Gentry, that are pleased to Grace this Annual Festivity with their Presence. Right Honourable, and Most Generous,
Our due Resentment of your kinde presence at this our Annuall Convention, animated us to a Resolution for some Novel Divertisement, as our gratefull Testimony for such your Noble and Candid Favours ; It is an Embryo of a short Conception, and therefore cannot be expected capable of a perfect formation ; Nor was it ever designed to be duly modelled into the Dimensions of Acts and Scenes, as 'ought to become a Theatre, but only for a small Fascicle of Rustick-Drollery, intermixt with some Serious Reflections of the happinesse of your Rurall Life ; and to Invite your benign Thoughts for the Good of this County. As it is, it irnploreth your favourable Patronage, and was intended to have been now fully Performed, but finding too many Difficulties to occur, beyond our Expectation, and our tune but short, we could only procure the Representa- tion of part of it, and must therefore fly to your good nature for our Refuge ; as confident, that our good intention will finde your Serene Accepta- tion, which is all the Ambition of,
Your most humble Servant,
June 20, 1678. W. M.
With the clue " W. M." to help I again referred to the British Museum Catalogue, and was at once successful in finding two copies in our national library. The press-mark of one is 643 d. 31, and the other, a cropped copy, 162 i. 55. I find that Bohn's ' LoVndes' Bibliographer's Manual,' 1871, vol. ii. p. 1431, records the sale of a copy, "Roxburghe, 4176, 19s." He prints "Huntingdon" for Hunt ington. Thus four copies are known.
My friend MB. A. L. HUMPHREYS kindly sends me the following item : " June y 17th 1678.
" Entred for his copie under y e hand of Master Le Strange to which y hand of Master Vere was subscribed one booke or copy entituled Huntington divertisment or an enterlude for y e generall enter, tainment of y e county feast held at Merchant Taylors Hall, June W, 1678. vjd.'
[An extract from ' Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers,' vol. iii. p. 66, Roxburghe Club, 1914.]
This shows the book was only registered three days before the feast was held, and gives no particulars of the author.
Although I have searched the usual authorities and a good many unusual ones, I have not been able to find out who " W. M." was. It would be rather interesting to ascertain whether he was a Huntingdon- shire man.
Bound up with my volume of the ' Divertisement ' is another piece which
seems to be by the same author, so I give
he title :
The [ FEMALE Wits : I or, the | TRIUMVIRATE OP POETS | at Rehearsal. \ A | COMEDY. | as it was acted several Days successively with creat Applause | at the | THEATRE - ROYAL ^| In Drury-Lane, | By Her Majesty's Servants.
Written by Mr. W. M.
Ita Astutim sibi Arrogat Hominem Ingenia
Vt Homints credos. Cic.
LONDON, Printed for William Turner, at the Angel at Lincolns-Inn Back-Gate, William Davis, at the Black Bull in Cornhil, Bernard Lintott, at the Middle-Temple-Gate, and THO. BROWN, at the Blackamoors Head near the Savoy. 1704.
Price Is. Qd. The Preface is rather lengthy, so I give two extracts that relate specially to the author :
" In order to this, I take it for necessary to Premise, that the Author of it, a Man of more Modesty than the Generality of our present Writers, tho' not of less Merit than the best of 'em, was neither fond of his own Performances, nor desirous others should fall in love with them. What he writ was for his own Diversion ; and he could hardly be persuaded by the Quality to make it theirs, till his good Temper got the better of his Aversion to write himself among the Lists of the Poets ; and he was prevail'd upon to put it into the Hands of the Gentlemen belonging to the Theatre in Drury-Lane, who did him the same Justice as was done by him to Dramatick Poetry and the Stage. . . .What remains is, to justifie the Publication of it, and to acquaint the World, that the Author being deceas'd, I got a Copy of it ; and out of my desire to divert the Publick, I thought it might not be unacceptable if it saw the Light."
A MS. note on the fly-leaf says :
" The initials ' W. M.' subscribed to the dedica- tion of the first of these pieces, and inserted in the title-page of the second, seem to designate them as the works of the same author. The ' Female Wits ' appears from the ' Bipgraphia Dramatics * to have been first published in 1697. J. F."
' The Female Wits ' is written in the style of a rehearsal, and is intended as banter on Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Pix, and Mrs. C. Trotter.
Other pieces I have notes of by a " W. M." include 'The Queen's Closet Opened,' 1656, 1662, and 1671. The 1656 is the second edition, and not in British Museum, Bodleian, Trinity College, Dublin, the Faculty of Advocates, Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, or Royal College of Physicians, and, although of about the same period as our book, not, I think, by our author.
The Feast must have been rather an important function, as it was held in Mer- chant Taylors' Hall, the largest of those belonging to the London companies. Tho Hall was rebuilt after the Great Fire of London, being completed in 1671, and there- the Feast was held seven years later. u b ^
