62 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[July 28. 1855. 



Even now, many persons are a little too fine, or 

 too fearful of offending, to ask a man how his wife 

 is. " How is your good lady ? " they say. If this 

 be expressly meant to refer to the distinction 

 between a good lady and a had lady, by way of 

 avoiding the ambiguity of the word lady used 

 alone, it is in very bad taste. Time was, moreover, 

 when in England, as now in Scotland, people 

 might have asked what a good lady is, as dis- 

 tinguished from a good-wife. 



How is it that the word man has never lost its 

 dignity, while the female sex has allowed woman 

 to become a terra for which " lady " must be sub- 

 stituted ? A similar question may be asked as to 

 husband and ivife. Why are the first two people 

 in the land not husband and wife, but consorts of 

 each other ? 



But the worst fate has attended the real English 

 feminine of husband, the word housewife.^ Under 

 the pronunciation hussif, it was long a little case 

 for holding needles and thread; under that of 

 hussi/, it still expresses a meaning the reverse of 

 its original. M. 



Author ship" of Anson s Voyage. — 1 



"Lord Anson's Voyage round the World, though it 

 carries the name of Walters, who was chaplain to the 

 Centurion, in the title-page, was in reality written by 

 Benjamin Robins, a man of great eminence and genius as 

 a mathematician and writer, under the immediate in- 

 spection of the noble officer who commanded the expe- 

 dition. So favourable was its reception with the public, 

 that four large impressions were sold within twelve 

 months, and it was translated into most of the European 

 languages. The work still supports its reputation, and 

 has been repeatedly reprinted in various sizes." — Naval 

 Chronicle, vol. viii. p. 267. 



E. H. A. 



Alison's History of Europe. — Sir A. Alison, in 

 his History of Europe from 1815 to 1852 (vol.ii. 

 p. 117.), asserts that the Grand Duke Constantine 

 of Russia, the Viceroy of Poland, was " son of the 

 Emperor Paul I. and the celebrated Empress 

 Catherine." I had previously imagined (1) that 

 there had been but one Emperor of Russia named 

 Paul, and (2) that the Empress Catherine was the 

 mother and not the wife of that potentate. Again, 

 the same historian (vol. iv. p. 288.) stntes that 

 Lord Palmerston " has been a member of every 

 administration, with the single exception of the 

 short one of Lord Derby in 1852, for the last fifty 

 years." This statement was published in the pre- 

 sent year ; and on reading it I learnt for the first 

 time that Lord Palmerston had been a member of 



(1) "All the Talents" government in 1806, or of 



(2) the Duke of Portland's in 1807, or of (3) the 

 Duke of Wellington's in May, 1828 ; or of (4) 

 Sir Robert Peel's in 1834, or of (5) Sir Robert 

 Peel's in 1841. If the above-quoted passages, 

 which caught my eye while turning over the pages 

 of Sir Archibald's work (which I have not ex- 

 No. 300,] 



amined throughout), are average specimens of its 

 accuracy, it has at all events a fair claim to be 

 called one of the most remarkable contributions to 

 history ever published at 155. a volume. M. A. 

 Oxon. 



eSuerfe^. 



THE "annual EEGISTER." 



Prior, in his Life of Edmund Burke, thus de- 

 scribes the foundation of the Annual Register by 

 that eminent writer and statesman : 



"At this moment also [1757], English literature and 

 English history became indebted to him in no ordinary 

 degree by the establishment, in conjunction with Dodsley, 

 of the Annual Register. Of the excellence and utility of this 

 work, the plan of which was ingenious, while the execution 

 ensured great and unfading popularity, there never has 

 been but one opinion. Several of the first volumes passed 

 to a fifth and sixth edition. It is the best, and without any 

 admixture of their trash, or being tediously minute, the 

 most comprehensive of all the periodical works ; many of 

 the sketches of cotemporarj' history, written from his 

 immediate dictation for about thirty years, are not merely 

 valuable as coming from such a pen, but masterly in 

 themselves ; and, in the estimation of some of the chief 

 writers of our day, are not likely to be improved by any 

 future historian. They form, in fact, the chief sources 

 whence all the chief histories of the last sixty years have 

 been, and must continue to be, compiled ; besides furnish- 

 ing a variety of other useful and illustrative matter. The 

 Annual Register for 1758, the first of the series, came out 

 in June of the "following year. Latterly a Mr. Ireland 

 wrote much of it under Mr. Burke's immediate dictation." 

 — P. 60., edit. 1824. 



From this statement it appears, that Burke 

 either composed, or superintended the composi- 

 tion of, the historical portion of the Annual Re- 

 gister from its commencement in 1758, until about 

 1788. The writer of this notice has been informed, 

 that some of the volumes, about the latter period, 

 were written by a gentleman named King. 



It seems that the twelve years from 1790 to 

 1800, inclusive, were written by Dr. William 

 Thomson, who is now chiefly known as the con- 

 tin uator of Watson's History of Philip III. The 

 following passage occurs in the " Annual Biogra- 

 graphy and Obituary for 1818," in the Life of 

 Dr. Thomson : 



" Towards the latter end of his life, the Doctor was chiefly 

 employed in bringing up the long arrear of Dodsley's 

 Annual Register. Of this employment he was not a little 

 proud, as he now considered himself the legitimate suc- 

 cessor of Edmund Burke. We understand that he com- 

 piled the historical part from 1790 to 1800, inclusive ; and 

 if paid as liberally as the Right Honourable gentleman 

 just alluded to, his remuneration would have exactly 

 amounted to 3000/. for ten volumes ; we have reason to 

 think, however, that eleven or twelve were undertaken 

 and completed by him." — Vol. ii. p. 111. 



Can any of your correspondents supply any ad- 

 ditional facts respecting the authorship of the his- 

 torical portion of the Annual Register during the 



