2"<«S. NO40., Oct. 4. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



275 



clerk to the County Court at Newport in the Isle 

 of Wight, and at Newport he died in 1852. 



So early as 1814 he published Safie, an Eastern 

 tale, dedicated to Lord Byron, who had made 

 Eastern tales the fashion. Byron thought well of 

 it as a work of promise, and Reynolds is kindly 

 mentioned more than once in his published letters. 

 Byron indeed, as appears from those letters, sub- 

 sequently assumed that one of Reynolds's anony- 

 mous squibs — " I'he Fancy, by Peter Corcoran" 

 — was certainly written by Tom Moore ; a com- 

 pliment beyond suspicion of either personal feeling 

 or flattery. Sajie was, I think, reviewed in The 

 Examiner ; or rather Keats, Shelley, and Rey- 

 nolds were there brought forward as the poets of 

 especial promise ; and this served, in those times 

 of unscrupulous criticism, to fix on all the name 

 of cockney poets, or poets of the cockney school. 



Sq/ie was followed, in 1815, by The Eden of 

 Imagination — by An Ode, on the overthrow of 

 Napoleon — and in 1816 by The Naiad. Rey- 

 nolds too was "the wicked varlet" who in 1819 

 anticipated the genuine " Peter Bell " of Words- 

 worth by a spurious " Peter Bell" in which were 

 exhibited and exaggerated the characteristics of 

 Wordsworth's earlier simplicities. In 1821 The 

 Garden of Florence appeared. With the excep- 

 tion of Safie these works were all published ano- 

 nymously. It was neither prudent nor pleasant 

 for a young man to come before the public with 

 a contemptuous nick-name affixed to his publi- 

 cations. Times are indeed changed. We all 

 know the rank and position which Shelley and 

 Keats now hold. 



Reynolds, though full of literary energy at that 

 time, was always hurried and uncertain. He in- 

 deed played the old game of fast and loose between 

 law and literature, pleasure and study. He wrote 

 fitfully — now for the magazines, now for the 

 newspapers — one or two articles for the Edin- 

 burgh Review, several for the Retrospective Re- 

 vieio, and had a hand in preparing more than one 

 of Mathew's Monologues, and in two or three 

 farces. When the London Magazine was started 

 under John Scott he became a regular contribu- 

 tor, and so continued when, after the unfortunate 

 death of Scott, it was transferred to Taylor 

 and Hessey. This was the only true period of 

 his literary life. He now became associated 

 with Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, Allan Cunningham, 

 George Darley, Barry Cornwall, Thomas Hood, 

 and others, who met regularly at the hospitable 

 table of the publishers, and by whom his wit and 

 brilliancy were appreciated ; and he was at that 

 time one of the most brilliant men I have ever 

 known, though in later years failing health and 

 failing fortune somewhat soured his temper and 

 sharpened his tongue. 



Thomas Hood married the elder sister of Rey- 

 nolds, and the Odes and Addresses were the joint 



production of the brothers-in-law. I believe I 

 am correct in stating that Reynolds wrote the 

 Ode to Macadam — To the Champion, Dymoke — 

 To Sylvanus Urban — To Ellision — and The Ad- 

 dress to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. To 

 the Address to Maria Darlington both contributed. 

 The greater genius and fame of Hood have over- 

 ridden the memory of Reynolds ; and this appro- 

 priation is the more required. Reynolds also, for 

 some years, lent occasional assistance to the Comic 

 Annual, in suggesting, finishing, and polishing, 

 rather than in separate and substantive contribu- 

 tions. 



Reynolds was early intimate with John Keats 

 — was the "friend" to whom Keats addressed his 

 Robin Hood ; a reply or comment on a paper on 

 Sherwood Forest, written by Reynolds in the 

 London Magazine. Many letters addressed to 

 Reynolds and his sisters are interwoven into Mr. 

 Milnes's pleasant memoir of Keats. 



A man some of whose whimsies Byron assumed 

 must have been written by Tom Moore — while 

 others were by Coleridge affiliated on Charles 

 Lamb — who was associated in humorous pub- 

 lications with Tom Hood, and not unworthily, 

 deserves a niche in " N. & Q. ; but I claim it to 

 clear up an anonymous mystification, which is 

 misleading your readers. T. M. T. 



^t^liti to iMtnot ^ntxiti. 



Rubens' ''Judgment of Paris" (P* S. ix. 561.) 

 — One of the very scarce and valuable engravings 

 of the " Decision of Paris," now in the National 

 Gallery, is in my possession. This " gem " of 

 Woodman's is said to have been executed (while 

 the picture was the property of the Penrices of 

 this place) expressly to gratify the wish of the 

 Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., and that 

 only forty impressions were taken before the 

 plate was destroyed. The engraving purports to 

 have h^en published and sold by Orme in 1813. 



James Haegrave Harrison. 



Graat Tamworth. 



Walton's Polyglott Bible (1" S. vii. 476.; xi. 

 284.) — I take the following notice of this work 

 from Fergusson's America by River and Rail : 



" Among the literary curiosities shown to us in the 

 library of Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachu- 

 setts, were Walton's Polyglott, the copy which belonged 

 to Hyde, Lord Clarendon." 



In " N. & Q.," 1'* S. vii. 476., I stated that 

 Bishop Juxon's copy of Walton's Polyglott is now 

 in the Maltese library, and asked how it had ever 

 been taken from St. John's College, at Oxford, to 

 which library, as is recorded in the first volume, it 

 formerly belonged. W. W. 



Malta. 



