Aug. 11. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



107 



"Arranged with such perfect industry and skill." 

 " L' avea temperato con la sua lima," says Dante ; 

 "He had put it to rights by the strokes of his 

 file." 



The Venerable Bede, about whom your various 

 correspondents have been lately so profuse of 

 learned lore, when he said to his amanuensis, 

 " Accipe calamum ; tempera, et scribe velociter," 

 seems merely to have meant, " Here is thy pen ; 

 put it in order, and hasten to write." 



Accipere calamum is not exactly apprehendere 

 calamum. We may imagine the Venerable one 

 taking up the quill, handing it to Cuthbert, ad- 

 vising him to make it ready for use, nor to lose 

 any tittle or parcel of time. 



Fhilarete Chasles, Mazariuaeus. 



Paris, Palais de I'Institut. 



DEAN SWIFT AND "THE EXAMINER. 



(Vol. xii., p. 45.) 



The following miscellaneous notes relating to 

 Dean Swift's connexion with The Examiner are 

 prefixed to a copy of the original edition in folio, 

 1710 — 1714, formerly in the library of Charles 

 Burney, D.D., and were most probably collected 

 by him. This copy is now in the British Museum. 



J. Y. 



On August 3, 1710, appeared the first number 

 of The Examiner, the ablest vindication of the 

 measures of the Queen and her new ministry : 



" About a dozen of these papers. Swift says thirteen, 

 were written with much spirit and sharpness by Lord 

 Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Mr. Prior, Dr. Friend, 

 Dr. King, and others, and published with great applause. 

 But these gentlemen being grown weary of the work, or 

 otherwise employed, the determination was that I should 

 continue it, which I did accordingly eight months." — 

 Swift's Works, vol. xv. p. 26. ; Supplement to Swift's 

 Works, vol. i. p. 104. note, edit. 1779, crown 8vo. 



" But my style being soon discovered, and having con- 

 tracted a great number of enemies, I let it fall into other 

 hands, who held it up in some manner until her majesty's 

 death."— Swift's Works, vol. xv. p. 26. 



Dr. Swift began with No. 13. (No. 14. of the 

 original edition), and ended with No. 45., when 

 Mrs. Manley took it up, and finished the first 

 volume. It was afterwards resumed by a Mr. 

 Oldisworth, who completed four volumes more, 

 and published nineteen numbers of a sixth volume, 

 when the Queen's death put an end to the work. 

 Oldmixon concludes The Whig Examiner to have 

 been principally the work of Mr. Maynwaring, as 

 it was laid down to make room for The Medley. 

 The same writer, in his Life of Mr. Maynwaring, 

 attributes each number in The Medley to its 

 proper writer. The original institutors of The 

 Examiner are supposed to have employed Dr. 



No. 302.] ^ ^ 



William King as their publisher, or ostensible 

 author, before they prevailed on their great cham- 

 pion (Swift) to undertake that task. Mr. Prior 

 was by many still considered as the author of The 

 Examiner ; this appears by Swift's Journal to- 

 Stella, Feb. 9, 1710-11. (Swift's Worhs, vol. xxii. 

 pp. 157, 158.) 



When The Examiner was republished in 12mo.r 

 No. 13., for some reason, was omitted. (Supple~ 

 ment to Swifts Works, vol. i. p. 105., note.) 



See some account of Mr. Oldisworth in a note 

 by the editor of the Supplement to Swiffs Works^ 

 vol. i. p. 47., and by Swift himself, vol. xix. p. 256. 

 He is called an " under-spur leather," " a scrub 

 instrument of mischief of mine." Some people 

 assure that Mr. Oldisworth, supposed to have writ 

 or assisted in writing the last Examiner, was killed 

 with his sword in his hand in the late engagement 

 at Preston, in company with several others who 

 had the same fate, having resolved not to survive 

 the loss of the battle. {Weekly Packet, Dec. 31 

 to Jan. 15, 1715.) 



" The Examiner carries much the more sail, as it i9 

 supposed to be written by the direction, and under the 

 eye of some great persons who sit at the helm of affairs, 

 and is consequently looked on as a sort of public notice 

 which way they are steering us. The reputed author is 

 Dr. Swift, with the assistance sometimes of Dr. Atterbury 

 and Mr. Prior."— "Present State of Wit," reprinted in 

 Nichols's Supplement to Swift's Works, vol. i. p. 206., &c. 



" I have sent to Leigh the set of Examiners ; the first 

 thirteen were written by several hands, some good, some 

 bad; the next three-and-thirty were all by one hand, 

 that makes forty-six : then that author, whoever he was, 

 laid it down on purpose to confound guessers, and the last 

 six were written by a woman [Mrs. Manley]."— Journal 

 to Stella, Nov. 3, 1711, and note, edit. 8vo., 1768, p. 122. 



Dr. Hawkesworth, in a note, flatly contradicts 

 this circumstantial and confidential account of 

 The Examiner. Dr. Hawkesworth would not 

 have fallen into this absurdity, if he had consulted 

 the original periodical edition of The Examiner in 

 folio. The 13th number, in the copy in folio, dis- 

 claimed by Swift, was for some reason omitted by 

 Barber, when he reprinted The Examiner in 12mo. 

 The paper omitted is a curious defence of passive 

 obedience, not inferior, perhaps, in point of so- 

 phistry, or ribaldry, to any in the whole collection. 



Swift says : 



" The Examiner has cleared me to-day of being the 

 author of his paper, and done it with great civilities. I 

 hope it will stop people's mouths ; if not, they must go 

 on and be hanged, I care not." 



The letter In which this Is said. Is dated March 23, 

 1712-13, and alludes to the paper in The Examiner 

 marked No. 35., vol. HI. (See Swift's Works, 

 vol. xix. p. 226., crown 8vo.) Nevertheless, in a 

 letter to Mrs. Johnson, dated in the beginning of 

 the preceding month, he says : 



" I was in the city with mi/ printer to alter an Examiner 



