2"'J S. VIII. Aug. 27. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



175 



to be buried in endless oblivion. May the graves of such 

 booksellers be for ever danced upon bj- printers' devils ! 

 and may the rage of ten thousand hungry' authors de- 

 scend upon their heads! May their kitchens be eternally 

 pestered with Scotch translators, and fifty female authors 

 pour their novels in their ears ! " 



May the worthy Aldine publishers escape this 

 terrible visitation ! 



The history of Bell's edition is soon told. lu 

 1773, Isaac Reed having several pieces by Gay not 

 found in his collected Works, and wishing to help 

 a necessitous relative named John Bailey, de- 

 sired hina to offer them to Mr. Bell, and turn 

 them to the best account he could. Bell pur- 

 chased them, and handed them over to the editor 

 of his edition, who, not content with the additional 

 pieces furnished by Isaac Reed, appears to have 

 ransacked the Miscellanies and various Collections 

 for others supposed to have been written by Gay. 

 Among the doubtful pieces inserted in this edition 

 may be mentioned the following: 1. An Elegiac 

 Epistle to a Friend. 2. A Ballad on Ale. 3. 

 Gondibert. 4. The Story of Cephisa. 5. The 

 Man-Mountain's Answer to the Lilliputian Verses. 

 It is not proved to certainty that the poem en- 

 titled Wine is by Gay, although it is attributed to 

 him by Aaron Hill (Works, edit. 1754, i. 325.), 

 who says that it was printed in 1710. It ap- 

 peared, as stated by G. T. Q. (ante, p. 145.), 

 two years earlier: "London: Printed for William 

 Keble, at the Black-Spread Eagle in Westminster 

 Hall, MDCCviii." [22 May] fol. 8 leaves, and is ad- 

 vertised in The Daily Courant of that date. All 

 these doubtful pieces, as well as Molly Mog, are 

 omitted in the trade edition of Gay's Poems, 2 

 vols. 12 mo. 1775 ; but Bell's edition appears to 

 have been made the text for all the subsequent 

 editions of the poet's v/orks. J. Yeowell. 



Your correspondent M. M. (2.) asks, who was 

 the writer of " Molly Mog" ? when was it first 

 published ? and observes that it was not pub- 

 lished in Faulkner's edition of Swift's Works, 

 " which the Dean, it is believed, superintended." 

 Neither M. M. (2.), or the other correspondents 

 who have discussed the subject in your pages, 

 appear to be aware that there is the best possible 

 evidence that the ballad was not written by Swift, 

 and that the editors who afterwards attributed it to 

 Gay were right. Swift, In hxsjeu cC esprit on Dr. 

 Sheridan, called the History of the Second Solomon, 

 says : — 



" Solomon had published a humorous ballad called 

 ' Balyspellin,' " &c. " The ballad was in ' the manner of 

 Mr. Gay's on Molly Mog,' " 



This was written in 1729, three years after 

 " Molly Mog" was first published. The ballad 

 attracted more attention perhaps than any other 

 piece in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, 1727, 

 — indeed, before its appearance there, it had be- 



come a fashionable amusement to write imitations 

 of its peculiar bouts rimes. Arbuthnot writes to 

 Swift, 8th Nov. 1726, that Lady Harvey was " in 

 a little sort of a miff about a ballad that was wrote 

 on her to the tune of ' Molly Mog.' " It is im- 

 possible with all this to suppose that Swift could 

 be mistaken as to its authorship. 



Some of your correspondents seem to think 

 that the poem must have been written before 

 1715, when Pope left Binfield; but Molly must 

 have been very young then. Pope certainly kept 

 up relations with the Doncastles at Binfield long 

 after he left there, and would probably visit them 

 on some of his frequent journeys into the West of 

 England, which he generally made in company 

 with friends. It might have been on one of these 

 journeys that he stayed at the "Rose" in Oak- 

 ingham with Gay, and hence the ballad. At all 

 events, we have no evidence of its existence till 

 1726, when it suddenly appeared, and had what 

 we should now call " a great run." Gay collected 

 and published his poems in two volumes quarto, 

 in the summer of 1720 ; but "Molly Mog" is not 

 there. He never, I think, published another col- 

 lection — certainly not after 1726. Hence no 

 doubt the honour due to the author of "Molly 

 Mog" has gone a-begging to this day. 



W. MoY Thomas. 



There is another obituary record besides that 

 quoted in M. M.'s Note which strengthens the 

 inference that the statements of Lysons and the 

 Quarterly Review are incorrect. It appeared in 

 llie London Daily Post of Thursday, October 21st, 

 1736, and is as follows : — 



" A few days since died at Oakingham in Berks, Mr. 

 Mogg, who kept the Eose Inn there several Years with 

 great Reputation ; he was Father of Molly Mogg, on 

 whom the famous Song was made." 



W. H. Husk. 



I, JOHN V. 7. 



(2°« S. viii. 87.) 



The Vatican MS. mentioned in the British 

 Quarterly Revieio for October, 1858, is the cele- 

 brated one which contests with that at Cambridge 

 the palm of antiquity and authority for the Greek 

 text of the Old and New Testaments. The latter 

 is referred to by the letter A, and the term Alex- 

 andrine, by Griesbach and other critics. The 

 former is referred to by the letter B, or Vatican, 

 1209. Amelotte asserted that it contained 1 

 John V. 7., but falsely. (Michaelis, ii. viii. s. 6. 

 p. 343., Marsh.) 



The following are the only known Greek MSS. 

 which contain this verse. I. That which is num- 

 bered 180., and termed Montfortianus and Dub- 

 linensis ; probably the same as that which Erasmus 



