Minor Queries with Answers.
Lewis's "Memoirs of the Duke of Gloucester."—Can you inform me who was the editor of
"Memoirs of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, from his birth, July the 24th, 1689, to October 1697: from an original Tract written by Jenkin Lewis. Printed for the Editor, and sold by Messrs. Payne, &c., London: and Messrs. Prince & Cooke, and J. Fletcher, Oxford, 1789."
In a rare copy of this volume now before me, it is attributed by a pencil-note to the editorship of Dr. Philip Hayes, who was organist of Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford, from 1777 to 1797. I should be glad to learn on what authority this could be stated. I am anxious also to know the names of any authors who have published books respecting the life, reign, or times of King William III.?
J. R. B.
Oxford.
[Some of our readers will probably be able to authenticate the editorship of Jenkin Lewis' Memoirs of the Duke of Gloucester. The following works on the reign of William III. may be consulted among others: Walter Harris's History of the Reign of William III., fol., 1749; The History of the Prince of Orange and the Ancient History of Nassau, 8vo., 1688; An Historical Account of the Memorable Actions of the Prince of Orange, 12mo., 1689; History of William III., 3 vols. 8vo., 1702; Life of William III., 18mo., 1702; another, 8vo., 1703; The History of the Life and Reign of William III., Dublin, 4 vols. 12mo., 1747; Vernon's Letters of the Reign of William III., edited by G. P. R. James, 3 vols. 8vo., 1841; Paul Grimbolt's Letters of William III. and Louis XIV. Consult also Watt and Lowndes' Bibliographical Dictionaries, art. William III.; and Catalogue of the London Institution, vol. i. p. 292.]
Apocryphal Works.—Can you inform me where I can procure an English version of the Book of Enoch, so often quoted by Mackay in his admirable work The Progress of the Human Intellect? Also the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Spurious Gospels?
W. S.
Cleveland Bridge, Bath.
[The Book of Enoch, edited by Archbishop Laurence, and printed at Oxford, has passed through several editions.—The Catholic Epistle of St. Barnabas is included among Archbishop Wake's Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers.—"The Spurious Gospels" will probably be found in The Apocryphal New Testament; being all the Gospels, Epistles, and other Pieces now extant, attributed in the first four Centuries to Jesus Christ, his Apostles, and their Companions, and not included in the New Testament by its compilers: London, 8vo., 1820; 2nd edition, 1821. Anonymous, but edited by William Hone.]
Mirabeau, Talleyrand, and Fouché.—Can any of your correspondents tell me which are the best Lives of three of the most remarkable men who figured in the age of the French Revolution, viz. Mirabeau, Talleyrand, and Fouché? If there are English translations of these works? and also if there is any collection of the fierce philippics of Mirabeau?
Kennedy McNab.
[Mirabeau left a natural son, Lucas Montigny, who published Memoirs of Mirabeau, Biographical, Literary, and Political, by Himself, his Uncle, and his adopted Child, 4 vols. 8vo., Lond., 1835.—Memoirs of C. M. Talleyrand, 2 vols. 12mo., Lond., 1805. Also his Life, 4 vols. 8vo., Lond., 1834.—Memoirs of Joseph Fouché, translated from the French, 2 vols. 8vo., Lond., 1825.]
"The Turks in Europe," and "Austria as It Is."—I possess an 8vo. volume consisting of two anonymous publications, which appeared in London in 1828, one entitled The Establishment of the Turks in Europe, an Historical Discourse, and the other Austria as It Is, or Sketches of Continental Courts, by an Eye-witness. Can you give me the names of the authors?
Abhba.
[The Turks in Europe is by Lord John Russell: but the author of Austria as It Is, we cannot discover; he was a native of the Austrian Empire.]
"Forgive, blest Shade."—Where were the lines, commencing "Forgive, blest shade," first
published? I believe it was upon a mural tablet on the chancel wall of a small village church in Dorsetshire (Wyke Regis); but I have seen it quoted as from a monument in some church in the Isle of Wight.
The tablet at Wyke, in Dorset, was erected anonymously, in the night-time, upon the east end of the chancel outer wall; but whether they were original, or copied from some prior monumental inscription, I do not know, and should feel much obliged could any of your readers inform me.
S. S. M.
[Snow, in his Sepulchral Gleanings, p. 44., notices these lines on the tomb of Robert Scott, who died in March, 1806, in Bethnal Green Churchyard. Prefixed to them is the following line: "The grief of a fond mother, and the disappointed hope of an indulgent father." Our correspondent should have given the date of the Wyke tablet.]
"Off with his head," &c.—Who was the author of the often-quoted line—
"Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!"
which is not in Shakspeare's Richard III.?
Uneda.
Philadelphia.
[Colley Cibber is the author of this line. It occurs in The Tragical History of Richard III., altered from Shakspeare, Act IV., near the end.]
"Peter Wilkins."—Who wrote this book? and when was it published?
Uneda.
Philadelphia.
[This work first appeared in 1750, and in its brief title is comprised all that is known—all that the curiosity of an inquisitive age can discover—of the history of the work, and name and lineage of the author. It is entitled The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man. Taken from his own Mouth, in his Passage to England, from off Cape Horn in America, in the ship Hector. By R. S., a passenger in the Hector; Lond. 1750, 2 vols. The dedication is signed R. P. "To suppose the unknown author," remarks a writer in the Retrospective Review, vol. vii. p. 121., "to have been insensible to, or careless about, the fair fame to which a work, original in its conception, and almost unique in purity, did justly entitle him, is to suppose him to have been exempt from the influence of that universal feeling, which is ever deepest in the noblest bosoms; the ardent desire of being long remembered after death—of shining bright in the eyes of their cotemporaries, and, when their sun is set, of leaving behind a train of glory in the heavens, for posterity to contemplate with love and veneration.">[
The Barmecides' Feast.—Can you tell me where the story of the Barmecides and their famed banquets is to be found?
J. D.
[In The Thousand and One Nights, commonly called The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Lane's edition, chap. v. vol. i. p. 410. Consult also The Barmecides, 1778, by John Francis de la Harpe; and Moreri, Dictionnaire Historique, art. Barmécides.]
Captain.—I shall feel greatly obliged by your informing me the proper and customary manner of rendering in a Latin epitaph the words "Captain of the 29th Regiment." Ainsworth does not give any word which appears to answer to "Captain." Ordinum ductor is cumbrous and inelegant.
Clericus.
[The words, "Captain of the 29th Regiment," may be thus rendered into Latin: "Centurio sive Capitanus vicesimæ nonæ cohortis." The word capitanus, though not Ciceronian, was in general use for a military captain during the Middle Ages, as appears from Du Cange's Glossary: "Item vos armati et congregati quendam de vobis in capitaneum elegistis.">[