From The Memoirs of William Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 403., it would appear that there is a "very interesting literary essay on the laureates of England by Mr. Quillinan."
In the year 1803, it would appear that Lord Hardwicke, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, "offered to create a laureateship in Ireland, with the same emoluments as the English one," if Mr. Moore would accept it. (Memoirs of Tom Moore, vol. i. p. 228.)
From Mr. Moore's Letter to his Mother, dated May 20, 1803, we learn that—
"The manner in which Mr. Wickham communicated the circumstance to me would disgust any man with the least spirit of independence about him. I accordingly, yesterday, after the receipt of my father's letter, enclosed the ode on the birth-day, at the same time resigning the situation."—Memoirs of Tom Moore, vol. i. pp. 126—128.
Leonard L. Hartley.
York.
Brissot de Warville (Vol. ix., p. 209.).—Since my last communication on the above subject, I have obtained The Life of J. P. Brissot, &c., written by himself, an 8vo. volume of pp. 92, published by Debrett, London, 1794. It is a translation, the original of which I have never seen. And if you do not think the subject exhausted, perhaps you will spare a few lines for his own account of his name.
"The office of an attorney was my gymnasium; I laboured in it for the space of five years, as well in the country as in Paris.... To relieve my weariness and disgust, I applied myself to literature and to the sciences. The study of the languages was, above all others, my favourite pursuit. Chance threw in my way two Englishmen, on a visit to my own country: I learned their language, and this circumstance decided my fate. It was at the commencement of my passion for that language that I made the metamorphosis of a diphthong in my name, which has been imputed to me as so great a crime; and, since I must render an account of every particular point, lest even the slightest hold against me should be afforded to malignity, I will declare the cause of the change in question. Born the thirteenth child of my family, and the second of my brothers in it, I bore, for the purpose of being distinguished from them, according to the custom of Beance, the name of a village in which my father possessed some landed property. This village was called Ouarville, and Ouarville became the name by which I was known in my own country. A fancy struck me that I would cast an English air over my name, and therefore I substituted, in the place of the French diphthong ou, the w of the English, which has the same sound. Since this nominal alteration, having put it as a signature to my published works and to different deeds, I judged it right to preserve it. If this be a crime, I participate in the guilt of the French literati, who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, made no scruple whatsoever of grecising or (if we may use the expressions) latinising their appellations. Arouet, to escape from a reproachful pun upon his name, changed it into that of Voltaire. The Anglomania (if such it may be called) has occasioned me to alter mine; not, as it has been pretended, to draw in dupes, or to avoid passing for the son of my father, since I have perpetually borne, signed, and printed the name of my father after that second name which was given to me according to the custom of my country."
There are many other interesting particulars, but the above is all that bears upon his adoption of the name Warville, and will, perhaps, be considered pretty conclusive.
N. J. A.