2 nd S. IX. Mar. 24. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



211 



LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 24. 1800. 



No. 221.— CONTENTS. 



NOTES — The Shakspeare Controversy, 211— The Ensisheim 

 Meteorite of 1492, 214 —Ballad on the Irish Bar, 1730, 216 — 

 Interest on Money, lb.— Fly-leaf Inscriptions, 217 — The 

 Old American Psalm Book, 218 — Godwin's Caleb Williams 

 annotated by Anna Seward, 219. 



Minor Notes : — The Goodwin Sands — Alliterative Poetry 



— Bonaparte's Marriage — S. Matthias' Day— Jackass — 

 Mottoes used by Regiments, 220. 



QUERIES : — Sir Bernard De Gomme, 221 — Punning and 

 Pocket-picking — Saint E-than or T-than — Early Com- 

 munion in Ripon Cathedral — Lambeth Degrees — Dur- 

 ance Vile — Trees cut in the Wane of the Moon — Dr. 

 Robert Clayton — Noble Orthography — John de la Court 



— Finch — Devotional Poems — Bullokar's " Bref Gram- 

 mar "— Johanne de Colet — Steel — Throwing Snowballs — 

 " Historia Plantarum," 222. 



Queries with Answers: — " Promus and Condus " — 

 Marv Channing — Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary— British 

 Scythed Chariots — "To Knock under" — John Nevill, 

 Marquis of Montagu — His Majesty's Servants, 224. 



REPLIES : — Donnybrook, near Dublin, 226 — Nicholas Up- 

 ton, 227— The Sinews of War, 228 — Bunyan's "Pilgrim's 

 Progress" — East Anglican Pronunciation — Symbol of 

 the Sow — Lord Eldon a Swordsman — "The Tarantula" 



— "My Eye and Betty Martin"— " Thinks I to My- 

 self" — French Church in London — Scottish Ballad Con- 

 troversy — Rev. John Genest — Man Laden with Mischief 



— Donnellan Lectures — The Society of Dilettanti — 

 The Label in Heraldry — Fye Bridge, Norwich — Malsh — 

 Donkev — Computus, &c. — Clergy Peers and Commoners 

 Clerical M.P.'s — Ferdinand Smyth Stuart, &c, 229. 



Notes on Books, &c. 



THE SHAKSPEARE CONTROVERSY. 



The publication of Mr. Collier's Reply to the 

 accusations of Mr. Hamilton (Bell and Daldy, 

 8vo. 1860), enables us to make a few remarks on 

 this most painful subject, — peculiarly painful to 

 us on account of our long friendship with both the 

 principal parties to the dispute. For something 

 like a quarter of a century we have enjoyed the 

 friendship of Mr. Collier, and for nearly the same 

 period have numbered among those whom we 

 have respected and esteemed, the distinguished 

 head of the Manuscript Department of the British 

 Museum, Sir Frederic Madden. AVe have ab- 

 stained from entering at all into the controversy 

 until both parties had been heard. That having 

 now been the case we shall say a few words, prin- 

 cipally by way of encouraging persons who are 

 interested in the subject to read for themselves 

 Mr. Collier's Reply. They will find it written (for 

 the most part)* with a calmness which, consider- 

 ing the nature of the charges, is very remarkable, 

 and with an air so unaffected, so simple, and so 



•■ We regret, as all must, the occasional touches of 

 anger in Air. Collier's 'Reply; but an excuse may be 

 found in what he feelingly describes as " the suffering 

 and irritation that, even in his innocence from all just 

 imputation, lie has been compelled for many months to 

 endure." 



truthful, that we hold it to be impossible for any 

 one to peruse it with unbiassed mind, and not to 

 conclude that it is a genuine honest explanation, 

 which may be implicitly relied upon. Every 

 word of it should be weighed with candour. Thus 

 considered it will be found to be a conclusive vin- 

 dication of the writer's bond fides. 



It establishes most satisfactorily what of course 

 we have never doubted, but what others have 

 sought to impugn, the truthfulness of Mr. Collier's 

 statement as to his purchase of the Perkins Folio. 

 No one, we presume, will suppose that Rodd had 

 at the same time two Folio Shakspeares, each 

 having " an abundance of notes on the margin" and 

 each being priced by him at "thirty shillings." 

 The identity, therefore, of the copy seen by Dr. 

 Wellesley and that purchased by Mr. Collier, and 

 now the subject of controversy, is beyond doubt. 

 The contradiction between Mr. Parry and Mr. 

 Collier, on which so much stress has been laid, 

 has been satisfactorily disposed of. Lord El- 

 lesmere's Letter again disposes of the charge 

 against the Bridgewater Folio ; and if some peo- 

 ple may think that Mr. Collier might have done 

 more to clear up the doubt which has been 

 thrown around the Dulwich Letter, the state- 

 ment now published shows clearly that Mr. Col- 

 lier took measures to preserve the Letter for future 

 inquirers, — a circumstance overlooked by Mr. 

 Hamilton, and utterly at variance with the con- 

 duct of one who had falsified any part of his tran- 

 script. It has been asserted that the endorsing it 

 as an " Important Document " was had recourse 

 to in order to deter others from examining it. 

 Mr. Collier must have been strangely ignorant of 

 human nature generally, and of the nature of an- 

 tiquaries in particular, if he thought to deter 

 them from looking at a paper by enclosing it in a 

 wrapper which declared it to bean "Important 

 Document, not to be handled until bound and 

 repaired, the lower part being rotten." There is 

 nothing in the injunction indeed beyond a proper 

 warning that if looked at it must be carefully 

 treated. We might indeed ask, if the passage 

 respecting Shakspeare did not exist in the Letter, 

 what else there is to be found in it which justifies 

 the epithet "Important Document? " With re- 

 spect to the Players' Petition, it is clear from Mr. 

 Lemon's Letter, that in all probability it is genuine ; 

 but, be it genuine or be it a fabrication, it ex- 

 isted in the State Paper Office before Mr. Collier 

 entered the building. And here we must, in the 

 spirit of fair play, despite our high respect for the 

 Master of the Rolls, and for his valuable services 

 to the cause of historical literature, enter a protest 

 against the course adopted by him with reference 

 to this document. When he empanelled a jury to 

 sit upon it, and placed upon that jury Sir F. 

 Madden and Mr. Hamilton, and excluded from it 

 both the gentlemen in whose custody that paper 



