2nd s. NO 70., May 2. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



351 



gallantry, and love-making, she lent too will- 

 ing an ear to the rascally cousin who too suc- 

 cessfully wooed her. The wooer married her 

 privately, brought her up to London ; and when 

 the poor, romantic, country-girl found herself on 

 the point of becoming a mother, and begged to be 

 allowed to have her desolate life solaced by the 

 society of her sister and her friends, the heartless 

 fellow told her that she was no wife of his, for 

 that he was already married ; and he ultimately 

 abandoned her and her child to the misery which 

 he had brought down on both. From this time, 

 he disappears from history ; but that of his victim 

 is full of interest. That she fell into the company 

 of noble profligates, accepted the protection of the 

 Duchess of Cleveland, who had been mistress to 

 Charles II., and led a life that seemed less wicked 

 to her contemporaries than it does to us, — for all 

 this, and for the criminality of such a life, that 

 villanous pseudo-husband of hers has been ren- 

 dered accountable, I trust, by Heaven. Of what 

 sterling stuff this woman was made, is not to be 

 seen in such roystering and ardent tragedies as 

 her Royal Mischief, nor in such dull pieces as 

 lier Lucius, nor in such rapid comedies as her 

 Lost Lover. She is not even to be judged by her 

 New Atalantis, which made the Whigs sore, and 

 very proper people at once smile and blush. 

 What Mrs. Manley was, may be seen in the bold 

 avowal of her authorship, and (although General 

 Tidcomb offered her money to enable her to go 

 to France), in her voluntarily going to prison, 

 and risking all consequences of her act, rather 

 than that her printer and publisher should suffer, 

 while she withheld her name — an act which she 

 scorned to do to the damage of others. This 

 shows that in heart, however she may have erred, 

 she was a brave and true woman. What she was 

 in head, may be seen in her answer to Sunder- 

 land, who affected, with good reason, to identify 

 the personages in her unwomanly book. She 

 said, that if her fictitious characters uninten- 

 tionally represented real personages," she must 

 have written her book by inspiration. Mrs. Man- 

 ley ultimately got off; but she never recovered 

 the downfall which she owed to that heartless 

 ruffian her cousin. Men were afraid of her wit, 

 and ladies talked of, at, and against her, behind 

 their fans, as a dreadfully intriguing hussey, who 

 ruined the men out of revenge for the outrage by 

 which one man had embittered her whole life. 



All the miseries and vices of that life (which 

 terminated in 1734, at the house- of Alderman 

 Barber, when she was about threescore and a few 

 odd years,) were owing to her wretched betrayer. 

 She was betrayed, not seduced ; and she, who had 

 qualities which, properly developed, might have 

 rendered her name an honoured name on the roll 

 of virtuous and accomplished women, is remem- 

 bered with a sort of scorn, because our memories 



more easily hold on to her faults than to the 

 wrongs by which she was led into error. I once 

 met, in an old paper, with the name of Manley 

 among some convicts sent to execution : I hope, 

 with all my heart, that Ct. Hoppek, in his 

 farther inquiries, may discover that the atro- 

 cious miscreant who ruined Miss Manley, body 

 and soul, who abandoned her to misery, drove her 

 into vice, and made of her name a by-word of scorn, 

 was, as he deserved to be, hanged like a dog. 



J. DOEAN. 



AUTOGRAPHS. 



(2"'* S. iii. 269.) 



The following extract from a communication to 

 the Court Gazette, by Catherine Hutton, will ex- 

 actly meet the wishes of your correspondent : 



" Sir Richard Phillips claims to be the Jirst collector of 

 autographs, and it is certain that he was in possession of 

 reams of these precious relics, each arranged by the al- 

 phabetical name of the writer. He was so well aware of 

 their value, at a time when they were little thought of 

 by others, that he has been heard to say he would as soon 

 part with a tooth as a letter of GoUey Gibber's ; and that 

 he expected a grant of land in America for a manuscript 

 of Washington's. 



" William Upcott has been styled the emperor of au- 

 tographs, and his labours have been executed in a truly 

 imperial style. He has had printed, for distribution 

 among his friends, and for public bodies, a magnificent 

 catalogue on royal 4to., containing thirty-two thousand 

 items of autographs. The greater number of these are 

 bound in volumes, and he has spared no expense in the 

 binding, or in the portraits by which they are illustrated. 

 This collection is wholly autograph ; but, at the same 

 time, it contains much that is curious and original in an- 

 tiquity, historj^ topography, and state affairs. 



" Thomas Thorpe, bookseller, of Piccadilly, has been 

 the merchant of autographs, the purchaser of ancient and 

 valuable manuscripts for sale. From time to time he 

 sends out catalogues, in which each article has its marked 

 price and date ; and history and biography have been ran- 

 sacked for a short elucidation of each. From 1833 to 1836 

 (both inclusive) he sent me fifteen catalogues of auto- 

 graphs, four of old and scarce books, and one of drawings 

 and prints. The autographs collectively amounted to 

 25,222 ; the books to 7402 ; and the drawings and prints 

 to 2157; the prices annexed to the articles in one cata- 

 logue only of the manuscripts amounted to 8929Z. 12s. 

 The mania for autographs has reached France — but can 

 France equal this ? " 



J. W. DiBOLL. 



Great Yarmouth. 



Collections of autographs had their origin in 

 Germany about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, where travellers carried with them white- 

 paper books, to obtain the signatures of eminent 

 persons, or of new acquaintance. Such a book 

 was called an Album, Hortus Amicorum, or The- 

 saurus Amicorum. The oldest in the British Mu- 

 seum is dated 1578 (MS. Sloan. 851.), and appears 

 to have belonged to a lady. The first English 



