Sept. 30. 1854.1 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



257 



LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1854. 



i^attS. 



" rXfi Dunciad." — The short notice I gave 

 (ante, p. 109.) of the copy o(Tke Dunciad (Lawton 

 Gilliver's edition) in my possession, having drawn 

 from The Writer of the Articles (on Pope) 

 IN THE ATHEN.a:uM SO Very important and sugges- 

 tive a paper as that on " Pope and the Pirates" 

 (ante, p. 197.), I am induced to throw out for his 

 consideration, and the consideration of Mr. Mark- 

 lAND, C, E. T. D., and other Popeian correspon- 

 dents, the following memoranda. 



Eirst, as to the date of the first publication of 

 The Dunciad, we have Pope's own evidence (taking 

 it for what it is worth), which fixes very nearly 

 the precise date. For it is evident that " The 

 List of Books," &c., in which our author was abused, 

 would be prepared with considerable care ; and 

 in that division of such list which describes those 

 ''^printed before the publication q/The Dunciad," 

 the last article with a date is — 



"Daily Journal, 3Iay 11 (1728). A letter against 

 Mr. P. at large, Anon. (^John Dennis)." 



While in the list of those " after The Dunciad, 

 1728," the earliest entry with a date is — 



" Mist's Weekly Journal, June 8. A long letter sign'd 

 W. A. (Dennis, Theobald, and others)." 



The publication is thus fixed as having taken 

 place between May 11 and June 8, 1728. 



I have quoted from my copy of the edition 

 " printed for A. Dob, 1729." And it will be seen 

 that this last reference to Mist's Weekly Journal 

 is much shorter than that in the later editions. 

 In Gilliver's edition, the reference to it is as fol- 

 lows : 



" llist's Weekly Journal, June 8. A long letter signed 

 W. A. writ by some or other of the Club of of {sic) Theobald, 

 Dennis, Moore, Cooke, who for some time held constant 

 ireekly meetings for these kind of performances." 



Now it would seem from a slip oi Addenda, which 

 is separately printed, and inserted in my copy of 

 Dob's edition, and is there described as — 



" Addenda to the Octavo Edition of The Dunciad, printed 

 for A. Dob {Price Two Shillings), which have been publish^ 

 in the News Papers as Defects aiid Errors, but were really 

 wanting in the Quarto Edition itself, and have only been 

 added to another Edition in Octavo, printed for Gilliver, for 

 which he charges the Publick Three Shillings. 



"Edition printed for A. Dob." 



that there probably exist different editions 

 printed for Gilliver; for the correction made in 

 these addenda to the original reference to Mist's 

 Journal contains a passage not given in Gilliver 

 as I have just quoted it. In the Addenda we are 

 told: 



"After ' a long letter signed W. A.' add the following, 

 viz. [ These initial letters were subscribed to cast the slander 



of writing this on Mr. A II, the present author of the 



British Journal, who has justified himself from this and all 

 other offence to Mr. P.] It was writ by some or other of 



the Club of Th , D s, M re, Co n, C ke, 



who, for some time, held constant weekly meetings for 

 these kind of performances." 



The passage which I have marked in Italics is, 

 as I have remarked, not in my copy of Gilliver, 

 neither is it in Warburton's edition. 



Gilliver's edition bears on the title " Written in 

 the year 1727 :" yet in the following, which is the 

 preliminary note to the first canto in this very 

 edition, we read that it was " writ in 1726." 



" This Poem was writ in 1726. In the next year, an 

 imperfect edition in Dublin, and reprinted at London; in 

 12mo. Another at Dublin, and another at London in 

 8vo. ; and three others in 12mo. in the same year. But 

 there was no perfect edition before that of London in 4to. 

 1728-9, which was attended with the following Notes. 

 We are willing to acquaint Posterity that this Poem (as 

 it here stands) was presented to King George the Second 

 and his Queen, by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, oa 

 the 12th of March, 1728-9." 



I have quoted this note at length, because it 

 furnishes evidence of the truth of the old proverb) 

 " that liars should have good memories." 



In the first place, while in the title-page the 

 poem is described as " written in 1727," it is in 

 this note declared to have been "writ in 1726." 

 In the next place, while we have in this same 

 volume the 



" Preface prefixed to the first five imperfect editions of 

 The Dunciad, printed at Dublin and London in Octavo 

 and Duodecimo." 



in this very note these editions "in buckram" 

 are clearly shown to be seven, and not Jive. 



Has any body ever seen a copy of The Dunciad 

 with the preface in question, standing as the 

 regular preface to the poem? Shall we ever 

 come at the real history of this publication, until 

 we have a good bibliographical list of all the early 

 editions of it ? Wii-liam J. Thoms. 



Another word as to The Dunciad. Can any of 

 your readers say in what year the edition men- 

 tioned by Mr. Thoms (Vol. x., p. 110.) as " printed 

 for Lawton Gilliver, in Fleet Street," with the 

 owl and ass frontispiece, was published ? Must it 

 not have been at least a year later than 1730? 

 As, in p. 17. of the copy now before me, I find a 

 foot-note appended to Cleland's " Letter to the 

 Publisher," containing remarks on Pope's ex- 

 tended reputation among foreigners, and naming 

 some who had been translators of his works, he 

 gives as instances : 



" * Essay on Criticism in French Verse by General 

 Hamilton. The same in Verse also by Monsieur Roboton, 

 Councillor and Privy Secretary to King George I. ; after 

 by the Abbe Reynel in Verse, with notes, Paris, 1730. 

 Rape of the Lock in French, Paris, 1728, &c. Yet Cleland's 

 Letter bears the date of ' St. James's Dec. 22. 1728.' And 

 strangely enough, the black-letter * Declarat' cor' me, 



