It is difficult to believe that the third part of Christabel, published in Blackwood for June, 1819, vol. v. p. 286., could have either "perplexed the public," or "pleased Coleridge." In the first place, it was avowedly written by "Morgan Odoherty;" and in the next, it is too palpable a parody to have pleased the original author, who could hardly have been satisfied with the raving rhapsodies put into his mouth, or with the treatment of his innocent and virtuous heroine. This will readily be supposed when it is known that the Lady Geraldine is made out to have been a man in woman's attire, and that "the mark of Christabel's shame, the seal of her sorrow," is neither more nor less than the natural consequence of her having shared her chamber with such a visitor.
Is your correspondent A. B. R. correct in stating this parody to have been the composition of Dr. Maginn? In the biography of this brilliant writer in the twenty-third volume of the Dublin University Magazine, Dr. Moir, who had undoubtedly good opportunities of knowing, mentions that his first contribution to Blackwood was the Latin translation of "Chevy Chase," in the number for November 1819; if this be correct, many of the cleverest papers that appeared under the name of Odoherty, and which are all popularly attributed
to Maginn, must have been the work of other authors, a circumstance which I had been already led to suspect from the frequent local allusions to Scotland in general, and to Edinburgh in particular, which could have scarcely proceeded from the pen of a native of Cork, who had then never visited Scotland. Since Dr. Moir's own death, it appears that the Eve of St. Jerry, and the Rhyme of the Auncient Waggonere, have been claimed for him, as well as some other similar pieces; and I believe that the series of Boxiana, which also appeared under the name of the renowned ensign and adjutant, was written by Professor Wilson. Maginn's contributions were at first under various signatures, and some time elapsed before he made use of the nom de guerre of Morgan Odoherty, which eventually became so identified with him.
J. S. Warden.
Paternoster Row.
ITS.
(Vol. vii., p. 578.)
I am sorry to intrude upon your valuable space again in reference to this little word, but the inquiry of Mr. Rye (p. 578.), and other reasons, render it desirable. The truth is that Mr. Keightley, Mr. Rye and myself, are more or less mistaken. 1. Mr. Keightley, in his quotation from Fairfax's Tasso (Mr. Singer's accurate reprint, 1817), has his in both lines. 2. Mr. Rye, in understanding me to refer to any translation proper; unless Sternhold and Hopkins are to be considered as having produced one. 3. Myself, in supposing the old metrical version in the Book of Common Prayer originally had the word its. I copied from the Oxford edition in fol. of 1770; but a 4to. edition, "printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate, anno 1574," does not exhibit the word in the places specified; we have instead her in both places.
Hitherto, then, the oldest examples of the use of this word have been adduced from Shakspeare. These are to be found in the first folio, but are in each case printed with the apostrophe after the t,—it's. This method of writing the word, however, soon disappeared, for in a treatise of Pemble's, printed 1635 (the author died in 1623), it appears as we write it now: