Cole, John.-Bookselling Spiritualised, Books and See appendix to vol. i. for "what may be called a catalogue This is prefixed to many of the editions of the Bible Concordance. Cruden opened a bookseller's shop under the Royal Exchange in 1732, and it was there that he composed his great work. Dobson, Austin.-Eighteenth Century Vignettes (Fine - Paper Edition), Series I. contains, An Old London Bookseller' (Francis New 6 bery); Series II. At Tully's Head (Robert to see that nothing was printed contrary to regulations, and, accordingly, searchers were appointed to make weekly visits to printing houses, their instructions being to ascertain how many presses every printer possessed; every printer printed, the number of each impression, and for whom they were printed; how many workmen and apprentices every printer employed, and whether he had on his premises any unauthorized person." A young man, starting as a bookseller, if possessed of means might purchase a stock of saleable books, and at once open a shop in some busy thoroughfare, or take Dodsley, Robert, 1703-64.-See Mr. W. P. Court-up a point of vantage in one of the stalls ney's articles at 10 S. vi. 361, 402; vii. 3, or booths which crowded round the walls of 82, 284, 404, 442; viii. 124, 183, 384, 442; St. Paul's. ix. 3, 184, 323, 463; x. 103, 243, 305, 403; xi. 62, 143, 323; xii. 63. See also Northern Notes and Queries, vol. i. Nos. 7 and 8, pp. 200, 234. Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Mr. R. Straus is preparing for publication a work on Robert Dodsley (See 10 S. xi. 428). Duff (E. Gordon).-The Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535. The Sandars Lectures at Cambridge, 1899 and 1904. Crown 8vo, Cambridge, 1906. A Century of the English Book-Trade. Has an Index of London booksellers' signs before 1558. Wм. H. PEET. (To be concluded.) THE BOOK TRADE, 1557-1625.-The Syndics of the Cambridge Press have conferred a boon on those interested in the history of bookselling by reprinting for private circulation from Vol. IV. of Cambridge History of English Literature the chapter contributed by Mr. Aldis, the Secretary of the University Library, on 'The Book Trade, 1557-1625.' The The chapter opens with an account of the immense powers of the Stationers' Company. As a direct consequence of their charter, no one could print anything for sale within | "London Bridge did not attain its fame as a 1557 resort of booksellers until the second half of the but as early as seventeenth century; William Pickering, a bookseller, whose publications consisted chiefly of ballads and other trivial things, had a shop there." "If a bookseller could procure the copy of some book or pamphlet, or maybe even a ballad, which he could enter in the register as his property, and then get printed by some friendly printer, he would have made a modest beginning; and, if this first essay happened to promise a fair sale, he might, by exchanging copies of it with other publishers for their books, at once obtain a stockin-trade." In 1598 the Stationers' Company, with a view to prevent the excessive prices of books, made a general order "that no new copies without pictures should be Correctors for the press occupied a high Christopher Barker in 1582 mentions the as one of the payment of learned correctours expenses which printers had to bear; and about 1630 the King's printing house was employing four correctors, all of whom were Masters of Arts." JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS. 'N. & Q.' ON THE STAGE.-In Mr. Granville Barker's fine play The Voysey Inheritance,' first given at the Court Theatre on 7 Nov., 1905, Mrs. Voysey, the mother of the family, appears at the end of Act II. to be engrossed in a copy of N. & Q.' She remarks to no one in particular :— This is a very perplexing correspondence about the Cromwell family. One can't deny the man had good blood in him....his grandfather Sir Henry, his uncle Sir Oliver....and it's difficult to discover where the taint crept in.... Yes, but then how was it he came to disgrace himself so? I believe the family disappeared. Regicide is a root-and-branch curse. You must read this letter signed C. W. A.....it's quite interesting. There's a misprint in mine about the first umbrellamaker....now where was it?....(And so the dear lady will ramble on indefinitely.) " In the circumstances of the case her fragmentary remarks are admirable examples of both Philistine complacency and tragic irony. A. R. BAYLEY. MRS. SARAH BATTLE'S WISH ANTICIPATED "The celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle," immortalized by Charles Lamb"A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game "-had been anticipated in striking degree exactly a century to the very month before it was made imperishable in print. That was in The London Magazine for February, 1821, and in a letter which appeared in Read's Weekly Journal of 11 February, 1721, giving an account of an imaginary meeting of coffee-house proprietors, called to discuss the question whether the provision of newspapers therein repaid its cost, it was written : "Mr. Cocoa of Pall Mall says that a clean Room, a good Fire, and a sufficient Number of Looking Glasses well-fix'd, and a handy Waiter, wou'd draw Company before the News." But just ten years previously a different opinion would seem to have been entertained by some coffee-house keepers, for it was advertised in The Daily Courant of 10 January, 1711, as an obvious inducement to customers, that stow Revel" I find advertised for 9 August last in the Launceston newspapers. This took the shape in the present year of “a grand fête " at the Rectory, the proceeds being given towards buying an organ for Jacobstow Church. It was not quite like that eighty years ago, when I was a boy, for I remember well the annual Revel at Week St. Mary, a parish so close to Jacobstow as to be included among the five to which the entries for a cob and pony show at the recent Jacobstow Revel were confined. This used to take place on a Sunday in September, and people came from far and near to see their " Mary Week" friends A MODEST AUTHOR.-In 1776 William Le Tans'ur of Cambridge published a tract of 16 pp. in four-line stanzas, entitled The Christian Warrior Properly Armed; or, The Deist Unmasked.' At the foot of the title-page, before the date, is this couplet : This Book, tho' but for Sixpence sold, "Bickerstaff's Coffee-house over against Tom's It may be a rare book, but I doubt its being Coffee-house in Great Russel- street in Covent Garden, will be open'd on Friday next being 12th Instant, where will be all Publick News and Weekly Papers." ALFRED F. ROBBINS. "REVELS ?? PARISH FESTIVALS OR FEASTS: REVEL SUNDAY.-There are not so many revels,?? in the sense of parish feasts, as there were in my young days, and such as remain are nothing like so noisy. Some continue to exist, in my native district of North-East Cornwall, and Jacob a valuable one. A. RHODES. AMERICAN MISER'S WILL.-The following may prove interesting to your readers who delve in queer wills; I found it in an old paper the other day : "Barksville, Ky., May 10.-The will of Dr. Everett Wagner, of this county, has been probated lated considerable property. After declaring himhere. Dr. Wagner was a miser and had accumuself of sound mind, he says: "I am about to die, and my relatives, who have heretofore shunned me, cannot now do too much for me. Almost every one of them has visited me since I have been sick, and given me a gentle hint that they would like to have a small trinket of some kind by which to remember their beloved relative. On account of their former treatment and their quiet hints, I now take this method of satisfying their desire.' He then makes the following bequests, each formally set out in a separate section: To my beloved brother Napoleon Bonaparte Wagner my left hand and arm'; to George Washington Wagner, another brother, his right hand and arm; to his brother Patrick Henry Wagner his right leg and foot; to his brother Charles Gardner Wagner his left leg and foot; to his nephew C. H. Hatfield his nose; to his niece Hettie Hatfield his left ear, and to his niece Clara Hatfield his right ear; to his cousin Henry Edmonds his teeth; to his cousin John Edmonds his gums. The will then continues: "It grieves me to have to part with myself in this manner, but then, what is a gift without a sacrifice? I am dying with consumption, and the end will soon be here. I will at once remove myself to Nashville, where I will die in the hospital.' "For the purpose of dissecting his body Dr. Everett leaves 1,000 dollars. The residue of the He was worth estate goes to public charities. 12.000 dollars, and the will is dated March 1, 1888. A codicil dated March 3 gives 'to my beloved sister-in-law Mrs. C. G. Wagner my liver."" SCANNELL O'NEILL. South Omaha, Nebraska. Queries. We must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct. CHINA AND JAPAN: THEIR DIPLOMATIC INTERCOURSE.—In what language or languages are treaties couched and diplomatic correspondence conducted between China and Japan? Or does it happen that, owing to the primarily ideographic character of the alphabet, the same text may be read indifferently in Chinese and in Japanese, in the same way as with us 45-27 may be understood and read aloud in any our European of H. GAIDOZ. languages? 22, Rue Servandoni, Paris (VI). DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD IN ONCE A WEEK.'-Six contributions under this title appeared in Once a Week during October, November, and December, 1868 :-I. Between Lords Palmerston and Brougham; and II. D'Orsay, Jerrold, a Stranger; III. Shakespeare, Thackeray, and a Critic; IV. Johnson, Macaulay, Boswell, Goldsmith, V. Goethe, Thackeray, Richardson, Fielding, Bacon; Voltaire, Addison, Sterne, Artists, Ancient and Modern; VI. Amongst anxious to learn the Musicians. I am whether the authorship is known and whether they have been reprinted. I should also like to know whether the six dialogues complete the series. I have no volume of Once a Week later than 1868, and cannot find one here. MAURICE BUXTON FORMAN. G.P.O., Cape Town. It seems I am unable to find the place-name Havisham in Kent or elsewhere. possible that the transcriber was at fault, and that it is a misreading of some similar name, such as Adisham, Faversham, Harrietsham, or Lewisham. For any help toor Swift's wards identifying Havisham host I should be greatly obliged. F. ELRINGTON BALL. 6, Wilton Place, Dublin. MONTPELLIER AS STREET-NAME.-Can you tell me the origin of so many streets and squares being named Montpellier (spelt in different ways)? These names appear constantly in towns such as Cheltenham, Brighton, and London, the houses having been built at the beginning of last century. H. L. HANSARD. Stanbridge, Romsey, Hants. SHORT STORY c. 1892.-I should feel grateful to any of your readers who could assist me in my search for a short story which appeared in one of the magazines circa 1892. It was a humorous description of furnishing either a houseboat or a holiday bungalow. I read it either in January or February, 1893. The title unfortunately Please reply direct. escapes me. 62, Fentiman Road, S.W. LOUIS WEIGHTON. POTHINUS AND BLANDINA.--In reading that carefully written and very charming book of Mr. J. W. Taylor's, The Coming of the Saints' (p. 258), I am startled to find him speaking of the prison of Pothinus and Blandina as having been in a crypt, still preserved, under the Hospice de l'Anquitaille at Lyons. There is no mention of this hallowed spot in Murray, or in Hare, who draw the attention of confiding travellers to the Church of St. Martin d'Ainay, where the dungeons of the two saints are shown. Of course they may have been in prisons oft and various, and I should like to know what is the likelihood of their having been incarcerated on the hill of Fourvière. Mr. Taylor does not vouch for the trustworthiness of some of his matter concerning the Hospice and its crypt; but I do not gather that he hesitates as to the site of the prison of Pothinus and Blandina. ST. SWITHIN. CANNON BALL HOUSE, EDINBURGH : SEBASTIEN DAVILONERT. Lovers of Old Edinburgh are face to face with the problem that the preservation of its remains can be attained only through two channels: (1) an intimate knowledge of what is worth preserving; (2) a means of providing the needful cash and power to purchase, on the part of some responsible body, at a fair price immediately the property is in the market. Recently paragraphs have appeared in the local papers advertising the fact that the Cannon Ball House, Castlehill, was to be put up for sale at an upset price of 2,500. With a view to working up public interest, the history of the house was mysteriously garbled. It has no authenticated history. The initials A M and M N, with date 1630, I am seeking now for another property in that neighbourhood which I wish to provide with a history. I also wish to know who this historic personage really was. My facts are taken from a manuscript volume in the possession of George Heriot's Trust, as follows:-writ, date unascertained, regarding a tenement situated "under the Castle Wall, on the south side of the King's Highway, bounded on the one side and the other by lands which sometime belonged to Cloud Davilonert, second lawfull son to Janet Adamson, procreat betwixt her and Sebastien Davilonert, secretary for the time to Mary, Queen of Scotts." Is it possible that this surname is that of the Sebastien who married Christilly Hogg on the eve of Darnley's murder, and that we have used his official title " Paiges hitherto to surname him? WILLIAM J. HAY. John Knox's House, Edinburgh. 6 22 MÉRIMÉE'S "INCONNUE."-Can any of your readers inform me if the letters published under the title of An Author's Love,' and purporting to be the hitherto unpub. lished letters of Prosper Mérimée's connue, are genuine ? If not, by whom C. L. H. were they invented? In STAVE PORTERS.-What were stave porters that they should furnish a tavern in Jacob Street, Dockhead, with its sign of "The Stave Porter"? Presumably their burden consisted of bundles of staves; but of what kind ? The sign, I think, still exists. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. [Did they carry their loads on staves?] CALTHROPS IN EARLY WARFARE.-Would some correspondent of N. & Q.' oblige by mentioning the earliest reference in Scottish history to calthrops as employed in warfare ? They are said to have been in use at the battle of Bannockburn. I know of the authorities cited in the 'N.E.D.' Stirling. WALTER SCOTT. ST. GRATIAN'S NUT.-The Book of the Great Caan, set forth by the Archbishop of Saltania, circa 1330,' in Yule's Cathay and the Way Thither,' Hakluyt Society, 1866, vol. i. p. 244, says :— "And other trees there be [in the empire of Boussaye, a name which is supposed to point to the Ilkhan of Persia, Abusaid Bahadur, 1317-35] which bear a manner of Filberts, or nuts of St. Gratian; and when this fruit is ripe the folk of the country gather it and open it, and find inside grains like wheat, of which they make bread and macaroni and other food which they are very glad to eat." What is this nut of St. Gratian? KUMAGUSU MINAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan. |