(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—With regard to your query in No. 1, as to who was the author of Specimens of Macaronic Poetry, I think I can supply the answer. After reading your paragraph on the subject I took down the book from its shelf and found that my father, the late Dr. Henry B. Wheatley, had pencilled on the title-page the name of Sandys. I then turned to Lowndes and found the book under the name of William Sandys. The Dictionary of National Biography states that the author was born in 1792 and died in 1874, and that he is best remembered for his share in Sandys' and Forster's History of the Violin, 1864. The Specimens, published in 1831, was his second venture in authorship. My father evidently bought the book when he was engaged in writing his own first book Of Anagrams, containing in the introduction (I quote from the title-page) "numerous specimens of Macaronic poetry, Punning Mottoes, Rhopalic, Shaped, Equivocal, Lyon, and Echo Verses, Alliteration, Acrostics, Lipograms, Chronograms, Logograms, Palindromes, and Bouls' Rimes." To any one interested in queer forms of verse this book is full of entertainment. It was published in 1872, and is now out of print.
In the first of your Bibliographical Notes, in which you notice Mr. Percy Simpson's edition of Every Man in His Humour, you say, "A new edition of Ben Jonson's work is certainly needed: Gifford's, re-edited by Cunningham, is sadly inadequate." I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Mr. Simpson's book, but I would point out that Gifford's edition was not the only predecessor. An edition of Ben Jonson's play was edited, with an introduction and critical apparatus, by my father in 1877, for the "London Series of English Classics," edited by J. W. Hales, M.A., and J. S. Jerram, M.A., and published by Longmans, Green & Co. The excellent introduction contains, besides the facts of Jonson's life, a lucid explanation and examination of the Comedy of Humours, together with a critical comparison of the various editions. The notes are adequate, and placed at the end of the book. It was a labour of love, and, although doubtless scholarship has advanced since it was published, my filial partiality compels me to think that it still ranks as a worthy edition of this classic of our literature.—Yours, etc.,
Geo. H. Wheatley.
83 Salisbury Road, Harrow.
VOLTAIRE'S CANDIDE
(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—A Bibliographical Note in your first number makes reference to "a charming little first edition of Candide (1759)", and the writer of the paragraph, commenting on the absence of the author's name and of any particulars concerning the publisher and place of publication, states that "it was often Voltaire's custom not to acknowledge his publications till they were a success."