364 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 289. 



interest for some " successor " to " Statfold," the 

 successor to the book transcribes the record. 



C. Shirley Brooks. 



The Gan-ick Club. 



ihutxitS. 



WANTED A PUBLISHER. 



Curiosities of Early Periodical Literature. — In 

 an early Number of last year, a suggestion was 

 thrown out by your correspondent Alpha, that 

 literary men who had wares to dispose of should 

 enter a description thereof in your list, in order 

 that " N. & Q." might still farther increase its 

 usefulness by becoming, to a certain extent, a 

 medium between authors and " the trade ; " and, 

 if I do not mistake, this scheme received the 

 editorial imprimatur in the form of a foot-note 

 expressing cordial approval. I am surprised that 

 no one has hitherto taken advantage of such an 

 excellent proposition. To that numerous class of 

 your readers whom D'Israeli has so happily classed 

 under the title of " men of letters" — gentlemen- 

 who write for the " ruhm " and not for the " ihr" — 

 and to whom our literature is indebted for so much 

 that would have met with scant justice at the 

 hands of the mercenary litterateur, its advantages 

 would be incalculable. What a world of blunder- 

 ing in the dark and rabid feeling such announce- 

 ments would save ! Jones of Exeter, and Brown 

 of York, each unknown to the other, have been 

 perhaps for years devoting their days and nights 

 to a Life of Robinson, or a History of the Coleo- 

 plera, or Kamschatkan Anthology, or some other 

 theme of no such transcendent popularity as to 

 threaten a blockade of Paternoster Row on the 

 day of publication. Now Robinson may be a great 

 man, and the poetry of the Esquimaux a most 

 desirable addition to transatlantic belles lettres; but 

 two books on the subject — to borrow a phrase 

 from the Row, where, happy fellows ! they can 

 calculate to a nicety the precise elasticity of the 

 public oesophagus — " won't go down." Ten to one 

 that any publisher would venture upon Brown 

 with the knowledge that Jones was also in the 

 market, and so, between the two, Robinson's im- 

 mortality is " dished ; " or, if the work is brought 

 out, its success is marred by the hostile party, 

 headed by Jones, who are down upon it with a 

 dash of criticism, to which the charge at Balaklava 

 was as a flight of butterflies. But here " N. & Q.," 

 like a good angel, interposes. Either such un- 

 pleasant conflict of interests is altogether avoided, 

 or every Beaumont finds his Fletcher, and the 

 rival candidates for fame lay their heads together 

 like Leo and Agnus in one of old Cats's views of 

 Paradise. 



To the professional litterateur, the man of many 

 irons, whose hours are his only coin, any plan 



which could prevent the mortifying waste of time 

 and brain often thus caused, would be a real 

 benefit. A scheme of this nature, and one for 

 opening a medium of some sort between buyers 

 and sellers, have always been leading desiderata in 

 the promising young crop of institutes and associ- 

 ations which periodically sprout up about this 

 time of the year. 



Not that I would turn the columns of " N. & Q." 

 into a foundling hospital for the sickly brats of 

 every Bedlamite. Every one who has conducted 

 a periodical, or who has had an opportunity of 

 becoming acquainted with the practical working 

 of a large publishing concern, must well re- 

 member the preposterous and unspeakably idiotic 

 schemes which he is daily called upon to negative. 

 I would mercilessly exclude all Histories of Rome 

 on new'principles in twenty volnmes, all Histories 

 of everything Human and Divine in fifty, all 

 obliging offers to edit new impressions of Hayleys 

 Poems and Hervey's Meditations, every five-act 

 attempt to revive the legitimate drama, and all 

 those twenty-times-anticipated and threadbare 

 subjects proposed by happy individuals guiltless 

 of Watt or the London Catalogue. Above all, I 

 would make an absolute stand against scissors and 

 paste In every shape, and look upon all petty at- 

 tempts at " book-making " with the eye of the 

 Great Leviathan (I don't mean Hobbes's). No 

 one Is so well calculated to exercise this kind of 

 supervision as the Editor of " N. & Q.," to whom, 

 with how much more truth ! might Time repeat 

 the reprehensible observation which he is reported 

 to have made to Thomas Hearne. No doubt there 

 is a certain delicacy violated in the idea of an 

 author coming forward Cheap- Jack-like to trumpet 

 forth his own wares; and as a Curtius seems 

 wanted, I have magnanimously resolved to offer 

 myself as the victim. I beg, therefore, to an- 

 nounce to all whom it may concern, that I have 

 been for a long time giving my leisure to a work 

 on the Cu7'iosities of Early Periodical Literature, 

 or Glimpses of old Journals and Journalists, In 

 which I have endeavoured to exhibit the Fourth 

 Estate in its long clothes and hobbetyhoyhood, 

 by means of curious or amusing extracts from the 

 old newspapers and periodicals, with illustrative 

 sketches of their history and contributors. I 

 should add that I have made a leading feature ot 

 the old satirical and humorous periodicals — a 

 chapter of our literary history hitherto, as Grose 

 has It, entirely " untapped." 



The work would probably extend to from 

 twenty to twenty-four sheets, medium 8vo. ; and 

 any communications addressed to the publishers 

 will meet with attention from Qu'est-il. 



