Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853. Various
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is printed, but is too large to send. The Author of ye Booke has sent about a soft vindication of himselfe, that he is unwilling to be accounted a Socinian, &c. If I can gett a sight of it I will send you the contents. I do not know how far you are in the right about guessing at a Bursar: Tim. seems resolv'd to act according to ye song; but I to shew good nature even wthout a tree have promis'd to make him a Dial: and when that's done I will doe ye like at Astrop. I am
If you see Coll. Byerly, give my service to him.
Directed thus: These to George Clark, Esq., Secretary of War in Ireland.
By ye way of London.
Indorsed: W. Rooke, Recd at Tipperary, Sept. 7th.
A SHAKSPERIAN BOOK
"There exists," says Mr. John Wilson, "as it were a talismanic influence in regard to the most trivial circumstances connected with Shakspeare," and yet this enthusiast has not, in his Shaksperiana, alluded to the dramatic works of Mary Hornby, written under, and dated from, the dear old roof at Stratford-upon-Avon!
It was my late good fortune, after filling my pockets from the twopenny boxes of the suburban bookstalls, to find, on turning out the heterogeneous contents, that I had accidentally become possessed of The Broken Vow, a comedy by the aforesaid lady, who waits to be enrolled in that much wanted book, a new edition of the Biographia Dramatica. This Broken Bow which looks like a re-cooking of the Merry Miller of Thomas Sadler, 1766, bears to be "printed at Stratford-upon-Avon, for the Author, by W. Barnacle, 1820." Mary Hornby, following the example of the preoccupier of the butcher's shop, tries her hand at both tragedy and comedy; in the first line she stands charged with the perpetration of The Battle of Waterloo, which, I doubt not, rivalled its original enactment in its sanguinary character. I have not been lucky enough to fall in with this, which was a hit; our fair authoress, in her preface to the comedy under notice, modestly attributing its great success more to the kindness of her friends than to its literary merit.
Mrs. Hornby sustains the dignity of the drama by adhering to her five acts, with prologue and epilogue according to prescription. Looking to the prologue for the who, the why, and the wherefore, I am sorry to say I find no materials for the concoction of a biographical note; upon the second point, the why, she tells us:
"When women teem, be it with bad or good,
They must bring forth—forsooth 'tis right they should,
But to produce a bantling of the brain,
Hard is the task, and oft the labour vain."
That her literary accouchement should not be a failure, she further says:
"Lord, how I've bother'd all the gods and graces,
Who patronize some mortals, in such cases."
I take the expressive use of the word "some" here to indicate her predecessor, the ancient occupier of the tenement, who certainly was a protégé of the said parties.
Mrs. Hornby then goes on to relate how that during her gestation she invoked Apollo, Thalia, and Erato:
"Soon they arrived, with Hermes at their side,
By Jove commission'd, as their friend and guide.
But when the mirth-inspiring dames stepp'd o'er
The sacred threshold of great Shakspeare's door,
The heav'nly guests, who came to laugh with me,
Oppress'd with grief, wept with Melpomene;
Bow'd pensive o'er the Bard of Nature's tomb,
Dropt a sad tear, then left me to my doom!"
I leave the reader to judge for himself whether the Muses really "came to laugh" with Mary Hornby, or whether, under the belief of the immortality of our Bard, they did not rather expect a pleasant soirée with Gentle Will, and naturally enough went off in a huff when they found themselves inveigled into a tea-party at Mrs. Hornby's.
Mr. Wilson, in the work above quoted, does condescend to notice Mrs. Hornby,—
"Who rented the butcher's shop under the chamber in which the poet was born, and kept the Shaksperian Album, an interesting record of the visitors to that shrine. Some of the subscribers having given vent to original stanzas suggested by the scene, those effusions," continues the lofty bookseller, "the female in question caused to be inscribed and printed in a small pamphlet, which she sells to strangers."
Not a word, you will see, about the poet's mantle having descended upon the shoulders of our Mary,—which was unpolite of him, seeing that both the tragedy and comedy had the precedence of his book by some years. Not having before me the later history of Shakspeare's house, I am unable to say whether our subject deserved more consideration and gallant treatment at the hands of Mr. Collier, when he and his colleagues came into possession.
Minor Notes
Shakspeare's Monument.—When I was a young man, some thirty or forty years ago, I visited the monument of Shakspeare, in the beautiful church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and there copied, from the Album which is kept for the names of visitors, the following lines:
"Stranger! to whom this monument is shown,
Invoke the poet's curse upon Malone!
Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste displays,
And smears his tombstone, as he marr'd his plays.
Oct. 2, 1810."
This has just now been brought to my mind by reading, in page 155. of the second volume of Moore's Journal, the following account of a conversation at Bowood:
"Talked of Malone—a dull man—his whitewashing the statue of Shakspeare, at Leamington or Stratford (?), and General Fitzpatrick's (Lord L.'s uncle) epigram on the subject—very good—
'And smears his statue as he mars his lays.'"
I cannot but observe that the doubt expressed in the Diary of Moore—whether Shakspeare's monument is "at Leamington or Stratford (?)"—is curious, and I conceive my version of the last line, besides being more correct, is also more pithy. It is incorrect, moreover, to call it a statue, as it is a three-quarters bust in a niche in the wall.
The extract from Moore's Diary, however, satisfactorily explains the initials "R. F.," which have hitherto puzzled me.
Archbishop Leighton and Pope: Curious Coincidence of Thought and Expression.—
"Were the true visage of sin seen at a full light, undressed and unpainted, it were impossible, while it so appeared, that any one soul could be in love with it, but would rather flee from it as hideous and abominable."—Leighton's Works, vol. i. p. 121.
Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen."—Pope.
Grant of Slaves.—I send you a copy of a grant of a slave with his children, by William, the Lion King of Scotland, to the monks of Dunfermline, taken from the Cart. de Dunfermline, fol. 13., printed by the Bannatyne Club from a MS. in the Advocates' Library here, which you may, perhaps, think curious enough to insert in "N. & Q."
"De Servis.
"Willielmus Dei gracia Rex Scottorum. Omnibus probis hominibus tocius terre me, clericis et laicis, salutem: Sciant presentis et futuri me dedisse et concessisse et hac carta mea confirmasse, Deo et ecclesie Sancte Trinitatis de Dunfermlene et Abbati et Monachis ibidem, Deo servientibus in liberam et perpetuam elemosinam, Gillandream Macsuthen