HERMES.
Dutch Version of Dr. Faustus.—Can any of your correspondents give me information as to the author of a Dutch History of Dr. Faustus, without either author's name or date, and illustrated by very rude engravings? There is no mention of where it was printed, but at the bottom of the title-page is the following notice:—
"Compared with the high Dutch copy, and corrected in many places, and ornamented with beautiful copper plates."[3]
There is also a promise of a Latin copy soon to follow.
HERMES.
[The first German chap-book upon Faust appeared in 1587. A translation of it into Dutch was published as early as 1592, at Emmerich. It was again printed at Delft in 1607; and there have been several editions since that date. The curious history of this romance has been well investigated by H. Düntzer, Die Sage von Doctor Johannes Faust, in the 5th volume of Das Kloster; and even more fully by the Freiherr v. Reichlien Meldegg, in the 11th volume of the same work.]
To Fettle.—Your correspondent L.C.R. (p. 142) is referred to the late Mr. Roger Wilbraham's Cheshire Glossary, or (as he modestly termed it) An Attempt, &c. This work, privately printed in 1820, is the republication, but with very considerable additions, of a paper in the Archaeologia, vol. xix.
The explanation of the present word is an instance of this expansion.
Your correspondent and Mr. W. agree as to the meaning of this verb, viz. "to mend, to put in order any thing which is broken or defective." Being used in this sense, Mr. W. differs from Johnson and Todd, and he is inclined to derive Fettle from some deflection of the word Faire, which comes from Latine Facere. I must not crowd your columns further, but refer to the Glossary.
May I point out rather a ludicrous misprint (doubtless owing to an illegible MS.) at p. 120. For Mr. Pickering's Lives, read Series of Aldine Poets.