Further, Bruce himself understood that he was the party meant by "Munchausen," and he complained of this and many other attacks to a distant relative of mine, who died a few years since, and who mentioned the circumstances to me; adding, that Bruce uniformly declared that the publication of his work would, he had no doubt, afford a triumphant answer to his calumniators.
Whilst on the subject of Munchausen, I may observe, that the story of the frozen words is to be found in Nugæ venales, or a Complaisant Companion, by Head, the author or compiler of the English Rogue. It occurs among the lies, p. 133.:
"A soldier swore desperately that being in the wars between the Russians and Polemen, there chanced to be a parley between the two generals where a river parted them. At that time it froze so excessive that the words were no sooner out of their mouths but they were frozen, and could not be heard till eleven days after, that a thaw came, when the dissolved words themselves made them audible to all."
As my copy has a MS. title, I should be obliged if any of your readers could furnish me with a correct one.
2. There were not "two James Grahame" cotemporaries. The author of Wallace was the author of The Sabbath, as well as of Poems and Tales, Scotch and English, thin 8vo., Paisley, 1794: a copy of which, as well as of Mary Stewart and Wallace, is in my tolerably extensive dramatic library. The latter is defective, ending at p. 88.; and was saved some years ago from a lot of the drama about to be consigned to the snuff-shop. Probably the same reasons which caused the suppression of a political romance from the same pen, and of which I have reason to believe the only existing copy is in my library, may have induced the non-completion of Wallace. Grahame, like many other young men just emerging at that particular time from the Scotch Universities, had imbibed opinions which in after years his good sense repudiated. He concealed his authorship of the Paisley poems (now very scarce), and the secret only transpired after his death. From the intimacy that subsisted between myself and his amiable nephew and namesake, whose untimely death, in 1817, at the age of twenty, I have never ceased to lament, I had the best means of learning many facts relative to the poet, who was, according to all accounts, one of the most estimable and truly pious men that ever lived. As to the crude opinions of early youth, can we forget that the truly admirable Southey was the author of Wat Tyler?
Whether there were only six copies of Wallace completed, I cannot say; but this much I can assert, that there were a great many printed, and that, as before mentioned, the greater part went to the snuff-shop; probably, because people were not fond of purchasing a drama wanting the title and end.
In concluding, I may mention, that the "Mary Stewart" in the 12mo. edition of the Poems of Grahame, is quite altered from the one printed in 8vo. in 1801.
J. M.
THE PENN FAMILY.
(Vol. iii., p. 409.)
In reply to your correspondent A. N. C., William Penn, eldest son of the famous Quaker, married Mary Jones, by whom he had three children, Gulielma Maria, Springett, and William. The latter had a daughter by his first wife, Miss Fowler, who married a Gaskill, from which marriage the present Penn Gaskills of Rolfe's Hould, Buckinghamshire, are descended. While writing on this subject, allow me to send you two other "notes."