^noS. No 110,, Feb. 6. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



105 



the 8vo. and 12mo. — except, and the omission is signi- 

 ficant, the paragraph about the Wycherley letters, which 

 is omitted in all except the *' Booksellers' " and one of 

 " Cooper's." We suspect the announcement in the title- 

 page is a mere pufF preliminary, but have not minutely 

 com'pared Smith's volume with the other editions. — Ed. 

 « N. & Q."] 



Mr. Pottinger, Pope's Cousin. — I am not dis- 

 posed to lay much emphasis on a difference in the 

 spelling of a name ; but I see great objections to 

 our varying the spelling without reason or autho- 

 rity. Mr. Hunter argues (p. 22.), in proof of the 

 respectability of Pope's paternal ancestors, that 

 he was related to the Potengers of Hampshire and 

 Dorsetshire, who were descended from Dr. John 

 Potenger, whose son, John Potenger, was Comp- 

 troller of the Pipe ; and he thinks it reasonable to 

 believe that "the Mr. Potenger, the friend of [Dr. 

 Bolton] the Dean of Carlisle, who objected to the 

 * fine pedigree,' was ' Mr. Richard Potenger,' the 

 M.P. for Reading." This statement is not, I sub- 

 mit, strictly correct ; and the inaccuracy, however 

 trifling it may appear, tends to mislead. The as- 

 sertion that the objecting Potenger was the 

 " friend " of the Dean of Carlisle is purely gratui- 

 tous ; Warton, the authority for the story, says 

 nothing of the sort, and Roscoe, to whom Mr. 

 Hunter refers, merely quotes Warton. Again, 

 Mr. Hunter everywhere spells the name uniformly 

 Potenger, whereas Warton spells the name of 

 Bolton's informant, Pottinger. Abundant evi- 

 dence, of course, could be adduced in proof that 

 this name, like most other names, was spelt dif- 

 ferent ways by different people; but each man, I 

 have little doubt, spelt his own name uniformly in 

 one way. I wish, therefore, to show that at that 

 time there were Pottingers as well as Potengers 

 in Berkshire: for example — a "John Pottinger, 

 bookseller, in Newbury," a man, and one per- 

 haps of a family, rather more likely to talk after 

 the vulgar fashion — "that cousin Pope had made 

 himself out a fine pedigree, but he wondered 

 where he got it," — than either the M. P., or any 

 of the kith or kin of the Potengers, descendants of 

 Dr. John. M. P. P. 



PEISONERS rOR DEBT. 



In your number (2""* S. iv. 142.) is given an 

 account of Judge Jefferies' house in Duke Street, 

 from a curious little book intitled The Cry of the 

 Oppressed, 1691 ; but as the copy used appears 

 to have been imperfect, may I supply you with a 

 bibliographical note, from a very fine copy in my 

 own possession, with all the plates, which, as you 

 will see by the following list, are very curious ? 



1. " Frontispiece. Interior of the Fleet ; prisoners at 

 the gate exclaiming ' Pray remember the poor debtors ; ' 

 in the foreground visitors putting money in the begging- 



box ; the background shows the wicket-gate, and spiked 

 wall in Fleet Street, with passengers beyond." 



2. " A debtor in Liverpool Gaol catching mice for his 

 sustenance." 



3. « A debtor drag'd in a hurdle cal'd the Gaoler's 

 Coach, by the Turnkeys of Lincoln, after they had robbed 

 him." 



4. " Debtors lying dead, some starv'd, others poyson'd, 

 in the gaol at Appleby, Westmoreland." 



5. "Debtors in Exeter Gaol broke out with boyles, 

 carbuncles, and botches." 



6. " Debtors in a dungeon 9 foot under ground at Lei- 

 cester." 



7. " A Gaoler knocking a woman in the head with his 

 keys in Hereford Gaol." 



8. " Debtors and Hogs together in Halifax Gaol, the 

 hogs feeding on beasts' Inwards." 



9. " A Debtor Iron'd to a wooden clog in the Castle- 

 prison, Oxford." 



10. " Debtors and Condemn'd criminals lodg'd to- 

 gether in the Gaol of Bury St. Edmund's." 



11. " Debtors' Wives and Daughters attempted to be 

 Ravished by Gaolers in the same prison." 



12. " A debtor thumb-screwed and Iron pothooks about 

 his neck, in the same prison." 



From this list you will perceive that the book 

 is devoted to a narrative of cruelties perpetrated 

 in Debtors' prisons all over England. Moses Pitt, 

 the unfortunate bookseller whose ill-luck seemed 

 to have commenced with building speculations, and 

 got to its worst phase over the erection of Judge 

 Jefferies' house, having woful experience of the 

 miseries of the Fleet Prison, did his best to call at- 

 tention to debtors' prisons in general ; and with 

 much cost, trouble, and patience, obtained this 

 frightful record of cruelty shown by gaolers to the 

 poor prisoners under their control. Nowhere do 

 we meet with such shocking details of their bar- 

 barity as this little volume furnishes, and it will 

 be of the greatest value to any one engaged in 

 writing upon the state of the English prisons in 

 the reign- of William III. 



What success may have attended the efforts of 

 our author, it is not now perhaps possible to dis- 

 cover ; but we may infer that little or no inter- 

 ference of the higher powers was exerted; the 

 Fleet seems to have been resigned to the cruellest 

 rule. Hogarth has immortalised the examination 

 of Bainbridge the gaoler before a Committee of 

 the House of Commons, for torturing and other- 

 wise ill-treating the debtors who died under his 

 hands. It would appear that we owe to John 

 Howard the first great movement which ended in 

 full practical results for the benefit of unfor- 

 tunate debtors. 



Pitt's volume consists of 164 pages ; the last 

 two not paginated, and being occupied by an ad- 

 vertisement of additional wrongs done to the 

 author. 



The extract you have already published curi- 

 ously proves the variety of interest possessed by 

 the " chap-book" series (for this in form, style, 

 and price, may be classed among them) ; and how 

 much information apparently foreign to their 



