2«« S. Vr. 146., Oct. 16, '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



303 



was a quarto, and consisted but of a few sheets 

 (66 pages), there are but two, or at most' three 

 copies in existence." One of these is before me, 

 and contains some corrections in the author's 

 autograph. The few copies of this unambitious 

 brochure having been disposed of as presents " to 

 those friends at whose request they were printed," 

 a second edition, omitting some of the original 

 pieces, and comprising others recently written, 

 was printed and published by Ridge under the 

 title of Hours of Idleness. It was this work, as is 

 well known, that provoked the flippant notice in 

 the Edinhurgh Revieiv ; and this latter, in retalia- 

 tion, the dashing satire of English Bards and 

 Scotch Reviewers. Byron's time at Newstead, 

 where he was residing during the autumn of 1808, 

 was, according to Moore, " principally occupied in 

 enlarging and preparing his satire for the press ; 

 and with the view, perhaps, of mellowing his own 

 judgment of its merits, by keeping it some time 

 before his eyes in a printed form, he had proofs 

 taken off from the manuscript by his former pub- 

 lisher at Newark : " a most roundabout and un- 

 likely proceeding this may well have been deemed 

 by almost every person except he who has re- 

 corded it, — adducing the practice of Wieland, 

 and other German authors, as a precedent. What- 

 ever may be admitted or denied relative to the 

 noble poet's alleged design of thus " mellowing his 

 judgment," — and surely the epithet was never 

 less happily 'applied than to the character and 

 works of Byron at any and every period of his 

 life, — I am assured, on good authority, that Ridge 

 never printed a line of the poem in any way. The 

 manuscript was, indeed, given to the " publisher 

 at Newark," as frankly and unconditionally as 

 the Hours of Idleness had been given two years 

 previously ; and it would doubtless have been 

 issued from the same press, and the profits have 

 gone into the same pocket, had not old Ben 

 Crosby, of Stationers' Court, to whom, as Ridge's 

 London agent, the copy was shown, smelled, if not 

 gunpowder, at least half a dozen libels in it, — 

 persuaded his correspondent to follow his own 

 determination to have nothing to do with so dan- 

 gerous a production. It was ultimately printed 

 by Sherwin, and his proofs Byron may Lave kept 

 by him some time ; and, as was likely, greatly 

 altered after the matter was thus " made up." 



While on this subject, I may remark that there 

 are two or three allusions to the worthy Newark 

 printer of a not very complimentary character in 

 the Byron Letters, published by Moore. As for 

 the harsh epithet which the noble poet applies to 

 bis printer for mistaking one word of " a hand- 

 writing which no devil could read," of course he 

 deserved that, as every author — especially if his 

 autograjih be as crabbed as mine — must admit : 

 and as even Mr. Murray's clever typos were often, 

 in no mild terms, admonished to recollect ! The 



appellation, however, of " Newark pirate," which 

 his lordship elsewhere uses on the supposition that 

 Ridge bad reprinted the Hours of Idleness in spite 

 of the author's inhibition, implies a more serious 

 charge. The simple fact in this case is, that as * 

 the book sold. Ridge told his lordship that the 

 edition was "just out;" meaning, as every pub- 

 lisher in similar circumstances does mean, not 

 literally that there were no copies on hand, but 

 that it was time to commence reprinting. Byron, 

 however, resolved to terminate the issue with the 

 current edition. Meanwhile, Ridge not only sold 

 all the made-up copies, but, as he told his lordship, 

 had "reprinted some sheets to make up the few 

 remaining copies" of a book which he had been 

 led, and was entitled, to regard as being his own 

 property as much as Childe Harold could have 

 belonged to Murray after it was given to him by 

 the author. How trivial in its origin, and base- 

 less in reality, was the grave charge of " piracy" 

 in this case ; and how little Lord Byron, even at 

 the time, meant to reflect upon his respectable 

 neighbour and printer, is illustrated by the fact 

 that, as long as he remained in England, wiien 

 visiting Newstead, he used to testify his respect 

 by calling and purchasing a few books at the shop 

 in Newark. And so little, on the other hand, did 

 Ridge or his family suspect the existence of any 

 feeling or expression like those alluded to, that 

 one of them who happened to be in London in 

 1819, was, I believe, the first person to give Mur- 

 ray the information of surreptitious editions both 

 of the Hours of Idleness and Bards and Reviewers 

 being in the press ; and the publication of which 

 was, in consequence, immediately restrained by 

 an injunction from the Lord Chancellor. D. 



Kotherwood. 



THE "SETTE COMMUNI AT VICENZA," THE PEE- 

 SISTENCE OF " RACES," AND THE " POLYGENE- 

 SIS " OF MANKIND. 



Amongst the " Facts and Scraps" of a contem- 

 porary of " N. & Q." I find the following : — 



" Sette Communi at Vicenza. — This singular com- 

 munity descended from those stragglers of the invading 

 army of the Cimbri and Teutones, which crossed the Alps 

 in the year of Rome 640, who escaped amid the almost 

 complete extermination of their companions under Ma- 

 rius, and took refuge in the neighbouring mountains, 

 presents (like the similar Roman colony on the Trinsj-l- 

 vanian border) the strange phenomenon of a foreign race 

 and language preserved unmixed in the midst of another 

 people and another tongue for the space of nearly 2,(JU0 

 years. They occupy seven parishes in the vicinity of 

 Vicenza, whence their name is derived ; and they still 

 retain, not only the tradition of their origin, but the sub- 

 stance and even the leading forms of the Teutonic lan- 

 guage, insomuch that Frederick IV. of Denmark, who 

 visited them in the beginning of the last century, 1708, 

 discoursed with them in Danish, and found their idiom 

 perfectly intelligible. We may bo permitted to roft'i- fo 

 the very similar example of an isolated race and language 



