12 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. N« 66.^AK, 24. '67. 



gave a very ingenious history of this celebrated jewel, 

 lias this notice been printed? His poetic recommenda- 

 tion of this gem is thus repoi'ted in the Annual Register 

 of 1802, p. 401. : ''Its owners were unfortunate in its 

 being brought to a market where its worth might not be 

 sufficiently' valued, where the charms of the fair needed 

 not such ornaments, and whose sparkling eyes outshone 

 all the diamonds of Golconda, In any other country, the 

 Pigot diamond would be sought as a distinction, where 

 superior beauty Avas more rarely to be found." The last 

 notice of this diamond that occurs to us is the statement 

 in the Gent. Mag. for Nov. 1804, p. 1061, where it is said 

 "that the Pigot diamond has been purchased to form a 

 part of Madame Bonaparte's necklace." Mawe, however, 

 in his Treatise on Diamonds, edit. 1823, p. 43., has given 

 the following particulars of this diamond : " The Pigot 

 diamond is a brilliant of great surface both in table and 

 girdle, but is considered not of sufficient depth. Its 

 weight is 49 carats. This gem is valued at 40,000Z. ; and 

 was, about twenty years ago, made the subject of a public 

 lotter3\ It became the property of a young man, who 

 sold it at a low price. It was again disposed of, and 

 afterwards passed into the possession of a jeweller in the 

 city [London?], and is said to have been lately sold to 

 the Pacha of Egypt for 30,000?. It may justly be called 

 E diamond of the first water, and rank among the finest 

 in Europe,"] 



aaepUciS. 



SWIFT, PORTRAIT OF, AND EDITION OF 1734. 



(2""* S.ii. 21. 96. 158. 199. 254. 509.) 



I, as well as P. O. S., have been allowed to see 

 G. N.'s volume, and I find that it possesses a kind 

 of interest which G. N.'s imperfect description of 

 it did not lead me to expect. It is certainly not, 

 as he stated, " a volume of an edition of 1734," 

 and I doubt whether it be a volume of any edi- 

 tion whatever. G. N. also omitted to state that 

 it is a duodecimo, a fact which would have, at 

 once, distinguished it from Faulkner's editions of 

 that period. P. O. S. has described the volume 

 accurately ; but he too has assumed that it is " a 

 volun)e of an edition," and in this, I think, he is 

 mistaken : for, though it was evidently intended 

 to be so, I suspect that it became, in fact, no more 

 than a separate republication, in a cheaper form, of 

 the 4th volume of Faulkner's edition of 1735 ; 

 and that the mystery that hangs about the volume 

 arises from the rivalry of hostile booksellers. The 

 case, I am pretty certain, was this : — Of Faulk- 

 ner's four-volumed octavo edition, the first three 

 consisted chiefly of Swift's pieces, originally pub- 

 lished in England : the fourth was of his Irish 

 tracts. English copyright was not then protected 

 in Ireland, nor vice versa; and we find, in Swift's 

 Correspondence, a very remarkable letter from 

 Motte, the Dean's London publisher, dated " 31 

 July, 1735," complaining of Faulkner's proceed- 

 ings ; and he goes on to say : 



" I am advised that it is in my power to have given 

 him and his agents sufficient vexation, by applying to 

 the law ; but that I could not do without bringing your 



name into a court of justice, which absolutely determined 

 me to be passive. I am told he is now about printing 

 them in, an edition in twelves ; in which case I humbly 

 hope you will lay your commands on him (which, if he 

 has any sense of gratitude, must have the same power as 

 an injunction in Chancery,) to forbear sending them over 

 here." " 



This, I think, explains the whole afl'air. Swift, 

 urged by his own publishers, and, no doubt, by 

 Pope (a very close calculator of profits), inter- 

 fered to arrest Faulkner's edition in twelves — at 

 least, as to the first three volumes ; but of the 

 4th volume, containing the Dean's Irish pieces, 

 there was no English copyright, and Faulkner, 

 whatever the case might be as to the first three 

 volumes, had an undoubted right'to reprint them, 

 and, as we. see, did so. As no trace has been 

 found of any other volume of the proposed duo- 

 decimo edition, it may be, I think, concluded, that 

 Swift's interference, and the menace of the Court . 

 of Chancery, were successful, and that no more 

 than the Irish volume was finally published. I 

 would not, however, discourage our Irish friends 

 from looking out for other volumes ; because, if 

 they were actually printed (as we see the 4th 

 volume was), Faulkner would no doubt have been 

 reluctant to lie under so heavy a loss, and might 

 have subsequently issued them. C. 



I have had an opportunity of collating with each 

 other the 8vo. and 12mo.'- editions of 1735, both of 

 which are in the library of Trinity College, Dub- 

 lin. There can be no doubt that the Svo. pre- 

 ceded the 12mo. edition, not only for the reasons 

 stated by P. O. S., but also because the former was _ 

 published by subscription ; and the preface con- 

 tains an apology for the work being delayed some 

 months longer than was promised, in consequence 

 of the difficulty experienced by the publisher in 

 procuring some of the original pieces of the author, 

 all which pieces are printed in the 12mo. edition. 

 Again, at the end of the preface of the Svo. edition, 

 an announcement is made that, " before each of 

 the three ensuing volumes, there may perhaps be 

 a short advertisement." In the preface to the 

 rimo. edition the announcement stands in this 

 form : 



" Before each of the ensuing volumes are short adver- 

 tisements. In the advertisement to vol. iii. of the 8vo. 

 edition, consisting of Gulliver's Travel, the erroneous line 

 ' Mr. Sympson's Letter to Captain Gulliver,' is corrected 

 into ' Captain Gulliver's Letter to Mr. Sympson.' " 



The order of the poems in vol. ii. varies much 

 in the two editions. Prometheus is inserted at 

 p. 181. of this volume of the 12mo. edition, which 

 fact alone is decisive of the question of priority, 

 and there is another poem entitled " A Descrip- 

 tion of an Irish Feast," inserted at p. 114. of the 

 12mo., which I have not found at all in the Svo. 

 edition. 



