2nd s. No 43., Oct. 25. '66.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



321 



LONIWN, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1856. 



STRAY NOTES ON EDMUND CUBLL, HIS LIFE, AND 

 PUBLICATIONS. 



No. 2. — CurlVs First Publication* 



Scarcely had our introductory paper on Ed- 

 mund Curll been committed to the press, in which 

 we confessed our ignorance of the place of his 

 birth, his parentage, and education, when our at- 

 tention was directed to the following account of 

 him, which is to be found in the Neto and General 

 Biographical Dictionary (1795), vol. iv. p. 447. : 



" Edmund Curll, a bookseller rendered notorious by 

 Mr. Pope in his Dunciad. He was born in the west of 

 England, and after passing through several mgnial capa- 

 cities arrived at the degree of a bookseller's man. He 

 afterwards kept a stall, and then took a shop in the 

 purlieus of Covent Garden. His transactions in the way 

 of his trade are well known to the publick by the notes 

 subjoined to that poem ; to which it may be added, that 

 lie was generally held to be of an immoral character; and 

 was highly injurious to the literary world, by filling his 

 translations with wretched notes, forged letters, and bad 

 pictures, by which practice he greatly advanced the price 

 of books. Thomas Burnet's Archceologia is a proof of 

 this.f He lost his ears for publishing the Nun in her 

 Smock, and another paltry performance. He died in 

 1748 [1747]." 



From this account we learn that he was born in 

 the west of England, and that before he arrived at 

 the dignity of a shopkeeper, " he kept a stall," 

 probably in the purlieus of Covent Garden. But 

 it will be seen from a controversy in which Curll 

 was engaged as early as the year 1710 — for he 

 seems to have got into controversy almost as soon 

 as he got into business — that he had been appren- 

 ticed to one " Mr. Smith, by Exeter Change." | 



This we gather from a curious work entitled 

 London's Medicinal Informer, 1710, from which 



* If any reader of these Notes has the good fortune to 

 possess a copy of the very worthless tract published by 

 Curll under the .title of The Curliad, a Hypercritic upon 

 The Dunciad Variorum, a thin octavo published in 1729, 

 the writer would feel greatly obliged by the loan of it. 

 If sent to The Editor of "N. & Q." every care shall be 

 taken of it, and it shall be safely returned. S. N. M. 



t ArchcBoloc/ice Philosophicce ; or the Ancient Doctrine 

 concerning the Originals of Things. Faithfull}^ translated 

 into English, with Remarks thereon, by Mr. Foxton. 

 Printed for E. Curll in the Strand, 1729. To this work is 

 prefixed "Ad Populum," an angry Preface, evidently by 

 Curll, reflecting on Francis Wilkinson, Esq., Burnet's 

 executor, for having obtained an Injunction in Chancery 

 to suppress a translation of this work. By-the-bye, who 

 and what was " Mr. Foxton? " 



X Was this Smith a bookseller? We know from Curll's 

 own statement that Francklin, who succeeded William 

 Jiufus Chetwood — 



" Chetwood who leaned against hia letter'd post "— 

 as a bookseller in Russell Street, Covent Garden, had 

 served his apprenticeship to Curll. A good account of 

 London booksellers is yet to be written. 



we learn that Curll was the publisher of a work 

 notorious for its quackery, entitled The Charitable 

 Surgeo7i, and that he combined with his trade of 

 bookseller that of vendor of pills and powders for 

 the afflicted — a practice, we believe, not un- 

 common in those days. This is shown by the fol- 

 lowing advertisement inserted in The Supplement 

 paper of April 8, 1709 : 



" Whereas by an impudent, as well as an ignorant ad- 

 vertisement in last Tuesday's Review, inserted by J. 

 Spinke, Mr. John Marten, surgeon, is insinuated to be the 

 author of The Charitable Surgeon. To do Mr. Marten 

 that common justice which is due to every man, I do 

 hereby assure the world, that he is not the author of the 

 aforesaid book ; neither has he (to my knowledge) any 

 acquaintance with, or ever saw the author, or I ever saw 

 IMr. Marten, 'till last Tuesday, in my life. And as for a 

 scurrilous pamphlet published in Spinke's name, intituled 

 Quakery Unmask'd, which he calls an Answer to The 

 Charitable Surgeon ; this is once more to let him know, 

 that he must expect no other reply, than what he has 

 had, viz. That no notice will be taken of such an ignorant 

 pretender. Whether he can read or write is a query ; but 

 he has given the world a demonstration, that he can't 

 cast account ; for, he says, the medicines sold at my shop, 

 come to between 3?. and 41. a packet, which the author 

 advises to be taken 40 days, and will at that rate cost the 

 patient about 201. ; but I am of the opinion, that physick 

 for 40 days at 10s. per dose amounts to 1201. So much 

 for his arithmetical learning. And for his grammatical, 

 though he pretends in his book to understand Greek, I 

 have five guineas in my pocket, which if John Spinke can 

 English so many lines out of any school-book, from ^ere- 

 tentia Puerilis to Virgil, he shall be entitl'd to. 'Tis 

 money easily earned, and will pay the rent of his house 

 in the dark passage for a year, and buy him ingredients to 

 make pills and powder for the Venereal Disease, to last 

 for that time. And for his assistance in this great task, 

 all the dictionaries in my shop shall stand by him ; and 

 if he does not perform it some time this week, he must 

 expect to be enrolled for a scholar. 



" E. Curll. 



" Temple Bar, April 7, 1709." 



After quoting the advertisement the author of 

 London s Medicinal Informer thus proceeds : 



" Now can any man imagine what should provoke 

 E. Curll to publish such a ridiculous advertisement, sup- 

 pose Marten be not (though I really believe he is) the 

 author of The Charitable Surgeon, unless it be (and then 

 sure E. Curll Avould not sell it !) a scandalous book. 

 What disadvantage is it to Marten to be insinuated to be 

 its author? But he was not insinuated so to be; he was 

 only asked, whether he knew its author? ' But a guilty 

 conscience,' &c. However, E. Curll may, if he pleases, 

 in another advertisement, promise five guineas more to 

 the person or persons that shall either prove, that Marten 

 and he well knew each other before the time he certifies 

 for ; or that the second edition of that quack pamphlet 

 was printed at Mr. Berington's near Bloomsbury-square; 

 and that when the sheets were sent from the press to 

 E, Curll to get them revised and corrected by the author, 

 he sent the same messenger with them to Marten for that 

 purpose ! ' Fools had never less wit than now-a-days.' 

 Besides, Marten, as jMr. James the printer tells me, 

 handed this advertisement to the press, and paid 5s. for 

 the printing it ; but we've an old saying, ' A fool and his 

 money,' &c. However, on the next day, being Saturday, 

 April 9th, I attended this ingenious E, Curll, and in his 



