THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE ^^"^ THE SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE BY THE SAME AUTHOR A REGISTER OF NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Two Vols. 31/6 net. "To Mr. Courtney students of art, science and literature are under obligations for a work which is without a rival in the branch of scholarship embraced by it." — The Athenaeum. ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. THE SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Chapters in the History of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Writings of our Countrymen By WILLIAM PRIDEAUX COURTNEY JO LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LIMITED 1908 BUTLER & Tanner. The Selwood Printing wor::s, Fromb, and London. Preface The present volume is the first attempt made in any country to describe the history surrounding the chief works which have been pubhshed in its language without an author's name or with some disguise. The subject covers a vast extent of ground, and many tracts remain un- explored by me. They await the advent of another bibliographer. The theme is full of interest, and I hope that its attraction has not altogether evaporated in my handling. The index has been compiled by Miss Olive Crompton, w^hose ready assistance throughout the volume I gladly acknowledge. W. P. COURTNEY. nJ Reform Club Chambers, Pall Mall, S.W., September, 1908. :?\ A Contents PAGE I Histories of Anonymous Literature at Home and Abroad i II Anonymous Literature at the British Museum . . 12 III Feminine Reasons for Secrecy ..... 32 IV More Veiled Ladies ....... 40 V The Man in the Mask among Novelists ... 71 VI The Poet shrinking in Anonymity . . . .111 VII The Concealed Theologian . . . . . .136 VIII The Politician in the Dark . 151 IX Disguises in Miscellaneous Literature . . . 178 X Wholesale Thefts from Others . . . . .216 vii The Histories of Anonymous Literature at Home and Abroad If it has been the aim of many writers almost from the origin of printing to conceal from the knowledge of the world the authorship of the publications of which they were guilty, many" a literary student has felt even a greater desire to lift the veil which concealed the mystery and to expose it to the full light of day. The pleasure of finding out the secrets of our neighbours appeals to most minds- This may be bad manners, as Bernard Mandeville asserted in his anonymous Letter to Dion (1732) . It may be " a Rude- ness almost equal to that of pulling off a Woman's Mask against her Will," as he passionately exclaimed, but the wish is both widespread and deep. To effect this purpose no toil has been too great, no research too protracted. Much has been revealed by their labours, but in spite of all their zeal much more remains concealed. In this section of biblio- graphy the English student was content to lag behind in the race for many a generation, and even now his duty has been but imperfectly accomplished. The first treatise on the subject was by Fridericus Geisler, a native of Silesia, whose disputation with Daniel Schrock, " de nominum mutatione et anonymis scrip- toribus " was delivered " in auditorio Petrino " in the uni- versity of Leipsic, April, 1669, and published in that year. Two years later it came out without the author's name as Larva detracta, i.e. hrevis exposiiio nominum, sub qnibus I B 2 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE scriptores aliquot pseudonymi, recentiores imprimis, latere voluerunt. But the treatise was very slight, and though the name of Geisler appears in the biographical dictionaries as the first compiler in this section of bibliography, his fame has been obscured by the more thorough compilation of Vincent Placcius of Hamburgh, where he was born in February, 1642, and died in April, 1699. Placcius after studying at Helmstadt and at Leipsic was tempted by his zeal for knowledge into Italy and France and at Orleans he became a licentiate in the law. At the age of twenty-five he returned to Hamburgh to practise as an advocate, but eight years later, in 1675, he was appointed to the professorial chair of moral philosophy and the art of speech, and this post he retained until his death. Ill health, especially the all-pursuing gout, ran in the family, his mother and brother were reduced by it to lunacy and for the last twelve years of his life he subsisted on milk. Placcius issued at Hamburgh in 1674 a tentative work with the title of De scriptis ct scriptoribus anonymis atque pseudonymis syntagma, which marked a great advance on its predecessor. Very few Enghsh names, however, were contained in it. Cresswell, Parsons and Southwell were culled from Alegambe's work on the writings of the Jesuits ; the parentage of Religio Medici was known to him from a Leyden edition with the name of the writer subscribed to the preface ; and the authorship of Robert Boyle's Occasional Reflections upon several subjects had been revealed to him by an erudite friend who had learnt it from Boyle himself. Geisler's offer to Placcius of the further notes which he had collected had been refused on the ground of their abundance, and Adrien Baillet in his turn declined to avail himself of the manuscript material which Placcius had collected after 1674. The sick student of Hamburgh there- upon persevered in his undertaking and in 1689 issued a printed appeal for assistance to Magliabecchi and the other savants of the day. It was not made in vain, but poor HISTORIES OF ANONYMOUS LITERATURE 3 Placcius succumbed to his ailments before he could bring out a second edition, and Gerhard von Mastricht, to whom he had entrusted his collections, could not find a publisher until Matthias Dreyer, a learned canon of Hamburgh, had come to his aid. It was in 1708 that this huge folio, thea- truni anonymonim et pscudonymorum, after many diffi- culties, was given to the world, smnptibus vidua; Gothojrcdi Liebernickelii , and under the editorial care of L. F. Vischer. The volume was preceded by an address to the reader and a life of Placcius, both by the learned and industrious J. A. Fabricius, The main work was divided into two parts, first the anonymous literature, then the pseudonymous writers, and to chapter xiii, de scriptoribus anglicis of the first division --there are devoted 25 double-columned pages and 153 entries, many of which contain notices of more than one work. Part I runs to 678 pages, 2,777 entries, many sub- divided, followed by Gabriel Groddeck's treatise on the rabbinical writers (43 pages, 519 entries) ; Part II included 623 pages and 2,930 entries, many being subdivided, and this was succeeded by several smaller treatises, including that of Geisler. An index of 102 pages crowns the work. Placcius, as a pioneer, entering upon a new sea of dis- covery without charts or plans, committed many errors, and has incurred much censure from many later biblio- graphers, who laboured under happier conditions. The epitaph which he composed for himself ended with the words " vita sine litteris somnus, sine Christo mors est," and he must often have found in literature some solace for the pains which racked him. Johann Fabricius the younger, professor of theology at Hclmstadt, inserted some additions and corrections in the third part of his historia hihliothccce FahriciancB, pp. 138-71, and supplements were brouglit out by C. A. Heumann (1711) and by J. C. Mylius (1740). With all its defects the fame of this mighty compilation has not yet flickered out. Long years passed away without another German work 4 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE on the subject. But at last the field attracted another labourer. This was in 1856 when there appeared at Leipzic an octavo volume by Emil Weller entitled Index pseudo- nymorum, worterbuch der pseudonymen, oder verzeichniss alley autoren, die sich falscher namen hedienten. Petzholdt of Dresden in his neuer anzeiger issued lists of additions to it, and several supplements to the work itself were brought out in later years, one relating to false firms and another to fictitious places of printing. A second edition of Weller's work appeared at Ratisbon in 1886, with a preface on the literature dealing with pseudonyms. Germany, ever to the fore with great undertakings, has now all but completed a stupendous labour in bibliography, which may make the rest of the world green with jealousy, Michael Holzmann and Hanns Bohatta, two officials in the university library of Vienna, are compiling, and the Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen at Weimar defrays the cost of printing, a Deutsches anony- menlexikon, 1501-1850. Vol. I, dealing with works under the letters A to D — 12,295 entries in all — came out in 1902. Next year appeared the succeeding volume, covering the letters E to K and including 12,734 entries. The third volume brought the alphabet down to the end of R. It is dated 1905 and it contains details of 12,822 books. The fourth volume, completing the alphabet, and containing 13,892 entries, was issued in 1907. In 1906 appeared their deutsches pseudo- nymen lexikon, with a preface signed by Michael Holz- mann, which contained particulars of many other foreign works on this subject. Such a labour as this is " a thing for all the world to wonder at," and when finished, with the inevitable supplement for the years 1850 to 1900 and the additions for the years to 1850, we presume that Ger- many will be in this branch of bibliography far ahead of every other nation. Baillet, who had rejected the proffered transfer of the manuscripts of Placcius, for many years continued his re- searches alone. Brought up at the college of Beauvais HISTORIES OF ANONYMOUS LITERATURE 5 he was duly ordained and accepted some small preferment, but he put aside his chance of promotion in the Church to serve as librarian to the young Lamoignon, Marquis de Baville. For twenty-six years, from 1680 until his death in 1706, he laboured incessantly at literature, sleeping no more than five hours per day, leaving his desk but one day in the week, drinking no wine and seeking no company. The fourth of his great compilations appeared anonymously in 1690 under the quaint title of Autcurs deguiscz sous les noms Strangers, empruntez, supposez, feints a plaiser, cJiiffrez, rcnversez, retournez, ou changez d'une langue en une autre, and he makes up the me- thods of disguise to the grand total of thirty-one. Criticisms in his first \w)rk, Jugements des savants sur Ics principaux ouvrages des auteurs, had brought on him much censure, and one irate savant retorted in a series of epigrams culmina- ting in lines entitled asinus in Parnasso, and his friends warned him that a similar fate would attend him, did he publish his full collections on the concealed writings of France. He profited by their instructions and the pub- lished work, now a scarce volume, was no more than the prefatory chapters of a vast literary enterprise. The 615 pages of Baillet, piquant as they often are, are not those that we should naturally select as the httest com- panions during an imprisonment in the Bastille. But a copy of his work belonged to a capuchin who was immured there, and it was sold by him, about 1705, to a fellow prisoner, Rene Auguste Constantin de Renncville, who wrote in it between the lines with ink made of soot, wine and bone, the poems which he had composed to while away the tedious hours of restraint. This volume was on sale in London in the summer of 1906. More than a century passed away without any valuable accession to this branch of bibliographical literature. It was again a Frenchman that made his name famous in tliis division of bibliography. This was Antoine Alexandre 6 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Barbier (1765-1825). Brought up in the college of Meaux and for a time a curate in the French Church, he abandoned his orders in 1793 and took up as a serious profession that which had been his hobby for some years, the knowledge of books. After many years of quiet labour he gave the world, in 1806, the first two volumes of his Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pscudonymes, the preliminary discourse to which contained an interesting account of the works of his predecessors. In bibliography, as in most other pur- suits, there is always a second student burning with desire to trip up a hated rival, and the new author found his assailant in the Abbe Guairard ; but the attack was repelled with abundant vigour. Two more volumes came out in 1808, and the whole set contained 12,403 articles. One dis- tinguished Frenchman published an article on it full of curious research, and Barbier himself, day after day and year after year, persevered in obtaining additional facts. The result of this combined zeal was that in the second edition of 1822-7 ^^^^ number of articles was increased to 23.647- Querard, the unhappy Querard, had been working for many years on this subject with consuming energy, and in his France litterairc (vols, xi and xii) and his Supercherics liticraircs devoiUes (2nd ed. by Gustave Brunet and others, 1869-70, 3 vols.) had revealed to the world an enormous mass of new facts. These discoveries necessitated a revision of the labours of Barbier, and the third edition of his colossal undertaking was converted into a continuation of the second issue of Querard's Superchcries by the elimination of all the pseudonymous works contained in Barbier which had been inserted in the Superchcries. In its new form, augmented with the accessions given by many a zealous bibliographer of France, it was reissued in 1872-9 in four volumes. It may well be doubted whether any one will again be found of sufficient knowledge and energy to continue such a task. A few subsidiary works should be mentioned. De Manne, HISTORIES OF ANONYMOUS LITERATURE 7 father and son, brought out in 1834 a Nouvcau rccueil d'ouvrages anonymes ct psctidonymes. The restless Querard hastened to expose its faults, but the book had merits. The original volume was composed of 2,131 articles; in the third edition (Lyon, 1868), in reality a new work, this number was augmented to 4,616. Charles Joliet came next with a little volume on Les pseudonymes du jour (1867, new ed. 1884) ; and Antoine Edmond Poinsot, concealing himself for a time under the disguise of Georges d'Heilly, was responsible for a Dictionnairc dcs pseudonymes (1868 and 1869). Robert Reboul, an enthusiast in the study of the interesting litera- ture of Provence, contributed to the bulletin of the Archaeo- logical Society of Draguignan a paper, afterwards printed separately ^t Marseilles (1879), on its anonymous and pseudonymous literature, and Edmond Maignien published an account of that class of literature in connexion with Dauphine. Italy was the third of the leading countries of Europe to produce a work on this class of literature worthy of the epithet national. A well-known Italian bibliographer called Vincenzo Lancetti, of Cremona, induced a publisher at Milan to bring out, in 1836, a volume of Pseudonimia, in which he gave the literary disguises to that date of his country's writers, but without describing in detail the works which they had pubhshed. Far more comprehensive was the great work Dizionario di opcrc anonime e psaidonimc di Scrittori italiani of G. M., the initials of Gaetano Melzi. The first volume, covering the letters A to G, was brought out at Milan in 1848. Its successor, bringing the alphabet down to R, appeared in 1852, and the third volume was delayed until 1859. No work of this kind can be presumed to exhaust the subject, for the field is boundless. Varied and vast must be the omissions in all such undertakings. To diminish their number was the task that Giambattista Passano set himself to accomplish, and in 1887 he brought out at Ancona a supplement to Melzi's collections. Giovanni 8 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Battista Carlo Giuliari, who has expended a wealth of energy on the literature of Verona, has drawn up the lists of the anonymous and pseudonymous literature which have been struck off from its printing presses. France, Germany and Italy had produced considerable works on " the great unknown " in literature, but where was the companion volume for England ? About a hun- dred and fifty years ago the compilation of such a work had been mooted in the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine, but generation after generation of scholars passed away and nothing came of the suggestion. It was recorded in the pages of the Quarterly Review for 1843, page 8, that Mr, Glover, the librarian to the Queen, had made large collections for such an undertaking, and when he died in i860 the fact was restated in the obituary notice of him by a friend. These collections seemed to have perished. Possibly, Hke similar memoranda, they were unintelligible save to the recording chronicler. Very soon after the foundation of Notes and Queries the bitter cry for a dic- tionary of anonymous writers was heard from more than one of its contributors. The editor responded to these appeals with the hope (ist. S. xi., 59-60) that "every reader of Notes and Queries who can identify the author of any anonymous work upon any subject will record his discovery in our columns as a contribution towards that great de- sideratum in English literature A Dictionary of Anonymous Books." The first volume of the second series of Notes and Queries contained an announcement from Mr. Samuel Halkett, the librarian of the Advocates Library at Edin- burgh, that he had long been in the habit of noting down every piece of information on the subject, and that should no better qualified bookman be willing to undertake the duty, he would take it in hand. Some years later a communica- tion from Mr. I. D. Haig, who promised his assistance in the task, ehcited from Mr. Halkett the information that his collections then amounted to 8,000 titles, about the same HISTORIES OF ANONYMOUS LITERATURE 9 number that was contained in the first edition of Barbier, and that he was arranging and revising them witli a view to publication. Still the industrious Scot went on collecting, and still other public-spirited bibliographers, like Mr. F. S. Ellis, of King Street, Covent Garden, and the Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, one of the most learned men that the Roman communion in this country has ever produced, fed him with fresh mate rials. In this manner the years flew away, and Mr. Halkett died in 1871 without having committed his collections to print. Meantime the first attempt to tear away the masks from the disguised figures in English literature had appeared in 1868. This was the Handbook of Fictitious names by Olphar Hayy^st, an energetic student who thought himself obliged to concoct a name obviously fictitious and so to add one more to the long array of pseudonyms in our language. It dealt only with pseudonyms, ignoring altogether the masses of volumes published without any name, and, even as it was, the work, as the author would be the first to allow, touched only the fringe of the subject. None the less the volume was useful, and its pages were throughout entertain- ing, for the compiler had made an especial point of repro- ducing from The Athcnceum and similar journals the plagiar- isms which had been exposed in their pages. It is under- stood that Mr. Ral})h Thomas — the name has long been no secret — has made extensive collections on this branch of literary research in the nineteenth century, and every bookman will hope that these notes will be reduced into shape and disclosed to the world. They should not perish like Mr. Glover's. The labour of Mr. Halkett was not destined to fall fruit- lessly to the ground. For a short time his collections were under the care of Thomas Hill Jamieson, his successor in the Advocates library, but Jamieson's premature death put an end to his labours. They then passed into the hands of another learned librarian in the Northern Athens. The 10 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Rev. John Laing, librarian of the New College, at Edin- burgh, worked with rare enthusiasm at the subject for several years, but he too passed away without having been able to reduce the greatly augmented mass of materials into a form fit for publication. His daughter, Miss Catherine Laing, took up the unfinished task, augmented and revised the titles that her predecessors had collected, noted and amalgamated the supplementary lists furnished by such bibliographers as Cuthbert Bede and Mr. Axon, and had the satisfaction of bringing the great work into the light of day. Vol. I is dated 1882, its successor came out in 1883, the third in 1885 and the fourth in 1888. There was, how- ever, a drop of bitter in the cup of happiness. The pub- lishers entrusted the compilation of the indexes to another hand and Miss Laing thought it necessary to disclaim all responsibility for them. A like misfortune attended Mrs. Paget Toynbee in her excellent edition of Horace Walpole's letters. Several other works dealing with the disguised authors of the English-speaking race have appeared since 1882, but that of Halkett and Laing, as it is fondly called by bibliographers, still holds without dispute the first place. The best known among its successors are the two works by William Cushing [Initials and pseudonyms, 1886 ; Dictionary of revealed authorship, 1890, 2 vols.) and that of Albert R. Frey [Sobriquets and nicknames, 1887). Useful as they are, it is to the pages of Halkett and Laing that the enquirer turns in the first instance. Many other countries have found bibliographers willing to enter upon this field of discovery. Jules Delecourt communicated to the Bulletin du bibliophile beige a series of papers entitled Essai d'un dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes published in Belgium in the nine- teenth century, and especially since 1830, which he sub- sequently reprinted (1863-6) in an edition of 100 copies. The preface of Jan Izaak Van Doominck's volume Biblio- HISTORIES OF ANONYMOUS LITERATURE ii thcek van Ncderlandschc anonymcn en pscudonymcn is dated from Deventer in November, 1866 ; the supplementary note to it gives the date and place of issue as Zwolle, July, 1870. A second edition of it, entitled Vermomdc en naamlooze Schyijvcrs, came out at Leyden in 1881. Victor Alexander de la Montague printed at Roeselare in 1884 a volume of 132 pages on Vlaanische pseudoniemeji. A bibliographer of Scandinavia called Edvard Collin was the author of a treatise on the anonymous and pseudonymous to i860 in Danske norske, og islandskc litcratur, which came out at Copenhagen in i86g. Hjalmar Pettersen brought out at Christiania in 1890 a volume on the similar literature of the Norsk between 1678 and that date, and Leonard Bygden is engaged- in compiling and printing at Upsal a list of the Swedish writers of this class. The last part in the library of the British Museum brings the list down to the beginning of the letter K, and fills 799 pages. Notes by Diego Barros Arana for a dictionary of such works, issued in South America, were printed at Santiago in 1882, and Martino Augusto da Fonseca pubhshed at Lisbon in 1896 a list of the anonymous writers of Portugal. Carlos Sommervogel, the well-known bibliographer of the writings of the Jesuits, has laboured at their concealed productions both in a separate work, 1884, 2 parts, and in the ninth volume (1900) of his bibliography. Four years ago there appeared at Madrid in two sumptuous volumes a Catdlogo Razonado by Father Jose Eugenio dc Uriartc of the anonymous and pseudonymous volumes by the Jesuits of the ancient Spanish Assistancy. True it is that at the present time in every country in Europe some keen enthusiast, fired with a love for books, is bent on disclosing to the world the authorship of the volumes published therein without any clue to the name of the author. n Anonymous Literature at the British Museum The task of finding an anonymous work in the abysses of tlie catalogue of our national library has driven many a student to the verge of distraction. In any circumstances and under any system the arrangement of such works in an alphabetical list could not but be attended by difficulty, but the method imposed by its authorities does not err on the side of simplicity. Once anonymous, always anonymous, is their rule ; consequently the works of a writer who published either without a name or under a series of dis- guises must be sought for far and wide in the folio pages of the 700 volumes of the catalogue. Thousands of anonymous works are entered in the cata- logue under initials. Take as an example the first letter of the alphabet. The list begins with a long array of works published without any clue other than the letter A. These amount to a considerable total and the secrecy of that attenuated disguise conceals such names as Matthew .Arnold and .4nn Taylor, the elder of the two gifted sisters known as the Taylors of Ongar. Then come the compound initials of the letter and these run to many pages. The best known in this second class are in the following list : — A. A Alfred Ainger, whose name will ever be associated with Charles Lamb. C.A Christopher Anstey, the humorous author of The New Bath Guide. 12 LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 13 E.A Sir Edwin Arnold, known as the author of The Light of Asia. T.K.A Thomas Kerchever Arnold, whose school-books were imposed upon the lads of my generation. W.H.D.A..Winiam Henry Davenport Adams, the compiler of a whole sheaf of books. D.F.A Doctor Francis Atterbury, the most turbulent of English churchmen. One group of initials covering tlie authorship of a single work is of appalling lengtli. They are M.L.C.D.M.D.L.D. G.D.C.D.M.L.C.D'A., and they stand for Monsieur Le Chevalier Duvernois Marechal des Logis Des Gardes du Corps De Monseigneur Le Comte D'Artois, the author of a volume of essays on the possessions of the Turks in Europe which was printed at Neufchatel in 1784. A second portentous set of initials was used by Arthur Sykes on the title-page of his Enquiry into the meaning of Demoniacks in the Nciv Testament. They were twelve in number, consisting of " T.P.A.P.O.A.B.I.T.C.O.S." Their meaning never could be guessed ; they are the first letters of the words " The precentor and prebendary of Alton Borealis in the Church of Salisbury." Altogether letter A and the combinations of initials ending in A fill 61 pages, many being interleaved, of the catalogue, and at a rough estimate the total of the individual authors may be calculated at 1,200. Taking this as the basis for the other letters of the alphabets the aggregate sum of the anonymous authors entered under initials will not fall much short of 37,000. Letter B fills 191 pages, S runs to 181, M mounts up to 167 and C occupies 147. Four other initial letters require more than 100 pages of the catalogue. The choice of initials is not always confined to the opening letters of a name. When Camden was engaged in preparing his popular volume of Remaines (1605), he chose as the distin- guishing signature of his preface the letters M.N., the last two 14 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of his name, William Camden. Richard Bentley, in the tract which sets out the particulars of his proposed edition of the Greek Testament, concealed the authorship under the letters I.E., the first vowel in each of his names. H.E.O., which appeared on the title-page of the Diary of a Dutiful Son, 1849, were the second letters of Thomas George Fonne- reau, a man of fortune who dwelt at first among artists and wits in the Albany, and afterwards at the Italian villa of his own creation near Bushey in Hertfordshire. It was written at first for private circulation, but numerous extracts were inserted by Lockhart in the Quarterly Review and it was afterwards reproduced for the general public. The private impression was very scarce. I well remember rush- ing from the breakfast table about forty years ago to the shop of a second-hand bookseller, whose catalogue had that morning reached my hands, to secure the copy which he had for sale. The diary was a favourite with Mr. Gladstone. Many sets of initials have been famous throughout our land. L.E.L. [Landon] was the unfortunate poetess who died at Cape Coast Castle in 1838. The letters S.G.O. [Sidney Godol- phin Osborne] were affixed to many a letter in The Times on the sad condition of the agricultural labourer in Dorset. C.S.C. [Calverley] and J.K.S. [Stephen] stood sponsors for several volumes of verse, mostly humorous. A.K.H.B. [Boyd] set out in many a volume the recreations and other labours of the country parson. E.V.B. is well known now as the lion. Mrs. Eleanor Vere Boyle. Eighteen separate works from her pen are in the library of the British Museum, and this does not exhaust the list of her compositions. Days and hours in a garden by E.V.B. (1884) passed through six editions in three years. O. stands now for one of the most popular of our novelists [Quiller Couch]. It is the first letter of his second Christian name, Quiller, a name which belonged to his grandfather, father and uncle before him. A, the Greek letter delta, was the first initial of David Macbeth Moir. LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH M USEUM 15 Passing from initials to the principal headings in the cata- logue of anonymous and pseudonymous works it will be seen in the following pages that the entries amount to a considerable total. The chief of them is under the word " lady " or its plural. Twenty-eight years ago, in 1880, a list of the unknown writers concealing themselves under the word "lady" was drawn up by Olphar Hamst, under the title of " Aggravating ladies." The list of these "ladies," known and unknown, in the catalogue now exceeds a total of 800, and they sometimes veil the identity of the other sex. TJic Lady's neiu year's Gift or advice to a daughter, which passed into a second edition in 1688, and an eighth in 1707, was the com- position of the great trimmer in politics, George Savile, Marquess of Halifax. The Whole Duty of Woman (1753), which bore on its title-page the words " by a lady," was a fraud on the public by the notorious William Kenrick, the assailant of Goldsmith and of every other honest man of his generation. Tliese, however, were but exceptions to the general rule. It was a woman, Sarah Fielding, sister of the more famous Henry Fielding, that brought out as by " a lady " the novel entitled The Adventures of David Simple (1744), and it is said to have been Hannah Glasse who issued under the same secrecy that famous work The Art of Cookery (1747). Works on cookery must indeed be bad if they do not sell by thousands. The attractive title of Cookery made easy by a Lady ensured for it a twenty-first edition in 1875. But even that degree of popularity is exceeded by school books. Mrs. R. Ward's Child's Guide to Knowledge by a Lady ran into a thirty-ninth edition in 1866. And who does not remember the talk among the ladies and the sale to those just emerging from their teens which followed on the appearance of Mrs. Millicent Cook's How to Dress on /15 a year as a Lady, by a Lady (1873). Some names illustrious by birth or by talent ha\'c ap- peared before the world under the concealment of " by i6 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE a lady." Catherine Talbot, whose volume of Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week by a Lady was eagerly bought by the religious world of the eighteenth century, was the granddaughter of a Bishop of Durham and the niece of a lord chancellor. She and her mother lived, until his death, in the household of Seeker, who became the Archbishop of Canterbury, and her education was superintended by him. Though Horace Walpole and the few parsons who might be called " high church " sniffed at Seeker as having been brought up among the dissenters and at a foreign university without tests, the religious views of Miss Talbot reflected the opinions of the vast majority of the English laity at that date. Her volume of Reflections was published in 1770, after her death, by Elizabeth Carter, and the tenth edition appeared in 1784. Letters from the Mountains, the real correspondence of a Lady, was soon known to have been written by Mrs. Ann Grant, of Laggan. Amy Herbert by a Lady (1844) brought abundant popularity to Miss E. M. Sewell, and the words " by the author of Amy Herbert " ensured a ready sale to many a subsequent novel from her pen. Widely different views on theology were expressed by Harriet Martineau in her Devotional Exercises by a Lady (1823) and Addresses with Prayers and Hymns by a Lady (1826). The authorship of Little Derwent's Breakfast by a Lady is not mentioned in the catalogue of the British Museum Library, but the child was " Derwent Coleridge," the son of one of England's greatest poets, and the author was an accomplished lady called Trevenen, who many years later left him a modest com- petency. The number of works entered in the catalogue as " by a gentleman " is far less in total, for they fall short of two hundred. The widest known of them among men of letters is entitled Reflections upon learning by a Gentleman (1700), the work of Thomas Baker, the socius ejectus of St. John's College at Cambridge, which has been said to consist of but one reflection, long drawn out, on the insufficiency LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 17 of human knowledge as a guide for conduct in life. It passed through eight editions in this country and was trans- lated at Paris and Amsterdam. Most of the other works which have survived in memory are volumes of travel. That describing " several years travels through Portugal, Spain, etc., performed by a gentleman " (1702) was known to be the work of WiUiam Bromley, a Tory politician of the period. Bromley's experience of travel-books was unfortunate. His was the volume of Remarks in the Grande Tour of France and Italy, lately performed by a Person of Quality (1692; the remainder copies being reissued with new title-page, 1693) . As the descriptions were vague and the re- flections insipid, its pages brought some ridicule on the author. When his friends put him forward in 1705 as a candidate for the ofhce of Speaker of the House of Commons, his enemies reprinted it as a tribute to his demerits, and to heighten its absurdity penned a ludicrous table of its con- tents. The first entry in it is " Chatham, where and how situated, viz. on the other side Rochester Bridge, though commonly reported to be on this side," and the last runs " An university in which Degrees are taken." A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain by a Gentleman {1724) — the full title is of portentous length — was a popular compilation by Defoe. Often was it reprinted, the third edition being under the care of Samuel Richardson, the novelist, in whose fostering hands its size was much increased. The sixth issue in as many volumes saw the light in 1762 and it was reissued in 1778. Another work of travel, Letters and Observations written in a SJiort Tour through France and Italy by a Gentleman (1786), is attributed, but we think erroneously, to William Beckford. If the entries under " a gentleman " fall short of expecta- tion, those by " a layman " exceed it, for they amount to 522. Theology seems to possess an especial attraction for the legal mind. Lords Cairns and Selborne were as con- spicuous in ecclesiastical as in legal circles, and did not Lord C i8 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Westbury deliver a lecture at Exeter Hall ? The desig- nation of "by a layman " was chosen by Michael Dodson for his New Translation of Isaiah (1790), by Sir John Bayley for his Prophecies of Christ (1828), by Sir James Allan Park for his Earnest Exhortation to a Frequent Reception of the Holy Sacrament (1836), and by Sir E. H. Alderson for A Letter to the Bishop of Exeter on the Gorham case. A popular volume of Essays on the Church by a Layman, which passed into a seventh edition, set out the views on Church establishments, and the English Church in particular, of Robert Benton Seeley, the head of the firm of evangeHcal publishers, and the father of a writer, Sir John Robert Seeley, whose views on religion and politics were destined to create a great stir among men, and for whose invigorating lessons in the classics his pupils must always be grateful. The Duke of Grafton, whose name was at one time associated with such ladies as Nancy Parsons, developed in later life a taste for Unitarian theology and his collection of Hints Sub- mitted to the Serious Attention of the Clergy, Nobility and Gentry, by a Layman, reached a fourth edition in 1790. John Lavi- count Anderdon, a near relation of Cardinal Manning, and a writer of graceful style, published as " by a layman " a life of Bishop Ken (1851, 2nd ed. 1854), an ecclesiastic with whose career and character he was in hearty agreement. The following are, in round numbers, the totals of some of the other main entries in the catalogue for such hter- ature : — Account . • 150 Addresses . • 150 Adventures . 60 Advice . . no Apology. . 60 Case . 145 Catechism 144 Catholic . 170 Character 90 Christian 308 Church . . 100 Collection 300 Considerations . 160 Discourse . • 300 Enquiry . 165 Epistle . 35 Essay- . 600 Farmer . 120 Hints . . 200 History . • 265 Letter . . 670 Life . 210 Notes . . 100 Observations 250 Observer • 55 Poem • 315 Question 190 Reflections , . no Remarks . 150 Religion 105 LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 19 Review . • 40 Rules . no Thoughts • 415 Treatise . • ^35 Tale Words . . • 295 • 320 World . . . 120 Far and away the most remarkable entry mider " ac- count " is the Plain Account of the nature and end of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (1737), which though never openly acknowledged as the composition of Bishop Hoadly is well known to have come from his pen. This enthusiast for polemical literature outdid all his brethren on the episcopal bench in his zeal to strip the Christian religion of its mysteries. Under his name he had published in 1716 his Preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Nonjurors, and had followed up fliis attack by a candid sermon on the Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ in which he denied the existence of a visible Church. Two hundred tracts, either in defence or attack, were thrown upon the world. Hoadly was at that time Bishop of Bangor and the title given to tlie fray was the " Bangorian Controversy." When a dialectical prime minister less than ten years since alluded from tlie platform to this ecclesiastical battle, the puzzled reporters gave it every title but the correct one. The plain-spoken exposition of his views on the sacra- ment was published after his translation to Winchester and attracted more attention on that account. Innumerable were the replies and defences ; his leading assailant in 1737, as in 1716, was William Law, the nonjuror. A very popular tract, entered under the word " address," was the evangelical Address to Young Persons on Confirma- tion (34th edition in 1820), the work of a conspicuous clergy- man in London called Basil Woodd. 'Ris Brief explanation of the Church Catechism ran into 45 editions. His Day of adversity passed into 40 editions. Both the last two works bore his name. But the most interesting to the literary world of all tlie works under tlie heading of addresses was the Rejected Addresses, or tJie New Thcatrum poctarum 20 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE (1812). A striking proof of their extraordinary success is given by Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley and Ward in the recently published volume of his letters to Ivy, i.e. Mrs. Dugald Stewart. At the end of October, 1812, he sends her the little volume, with the expression of his opinion that all the imitations, except Johnson, have merit, that some are " quite excellent," and that the best of all is Southey. The authorship was attributed to two young men, brothers, of the name of Smith ; and with an oblique glance at Sydney and his brother " Bobus," he adds, " it v/ould be droll enough if there were to be two pairs of clever Smiths in the world." Next month he confirms the author- ship of the brothers Smith, " one an attorney and the other (I believe) a wine merchant." A second month and he gives Frere's opinion that " it is the best thing since the Rolliad," and adds Frere's remark as to the " rapidity with which these things have been produced, not above six weeks or thereabouts could have been employed upon them." A few days later he reiterates the sentiment that " Johnson is a failure, let Mr. Stewart say what he pleases," and before the month is out he points out that in the second edition four new lines, " excellent " lines, have been interpolated in the imitation of Crabbe. These lines were — John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Was footman to Justinian Stubbs Esquire, But wlien John Dwyer listed in the Blues Emanuel Jennings polish'd Stubbs's shoes. I own for my part that the " Crabbe " is my special favourite. Some unknown scribe brought out A Sequel . . . by another Author, and this proved of sufficient popularity to reach four editions in 1813. Peter George Patmore, not an original mind, and best known now as the father of Coventry Pat- more, compiled in 1826, but issued in concealment, a volume of Rejected Articles in prose. It was the imitation of an imitation and, hke most such things, was damned with mediocrity. One of the papers was on Hazlitt, and it could LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 21 not have afforded his subject much pleasure ; it was perhaps in revenge that Hazhtt, in his lodgings a few days later, introduced the author to the Lambs. The imitation of Charles Lamb was " pecuharly inadequate," and when his sister Mary's attention was drawn by their host to the book her criticisms were not complimentary. The Adventures of a Pincushion (1780) is attributed to Dorothy Kilner, a lady who published several other works for the benefit or amusement of the youthful ; but I search in vain for any mention of the lady in our great biographical dictionary. The seventh edition of the Adventures of a Hackney Coach was published at Dublin in 1781, but even the pages of the National catalogue fail to give any clue to the authorship. E. J. Trelawny was the dashing author of the anonymous Adventures of a Younger Son (183 1), and the charm of his writings remains with us still. Sir George Stephen's Adventures of an Attorney in Search of Practice (1839) attracted many readers in its time, but its day is gone, and so, professionally, has the title of attorney. The heading of " advice " figures in the catalogue for about no cases. The earliest in date is the familiar Advice to a Son, the first part of which saw the light in 1656, and ere the year had run out had passed into a fifth edition. Francis Osborne signed the dedication of the second part (1658) with his own name and at the same time reissued the first part with his name on the title-page. It was one of the three most popular books of the age ; but Swift and Johnson condemned its style, and it has long passed into the limbo of forgetfulness. Daniel Waterland's anonymous Advice to a Young Student (1730) contained the instruction of one of England's best-known authorities in ecclesiastical lore. Advice a Satire [by Smollett] (1746) was an early composition of this caustic Scot. But for keenness of wit it probably yielded the palm to [Bishop Copleston's] Advice to a Young Reviewer, presumably a Scotch reviewer, with its sug> gestionthat he need go no further into any volume than the 22 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE preface, and with a criticism of Milton's l' Allegro as a specimen of the art of reviewing. Was it necessary for some unknown satirist to foist upon the world his Advice to the Devil in a Letter to Hell (1828) ? The same question could hardly apply to a quaint tract of Advice to a Noble nian on the Instruction of his Children on the Pianoforte, for, • oddh- enough, this reached a fourth edition in 1834, and the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Can any member of that sedate institution, the Travel- lers' Club in Pall ^lall, explain to us at this date wh\' \y. Stewart Rose's anonymous and amusing collection of anecdotes of monkeys should have as the first part of its title the words Apology Addressed to the Travellers Club ? Was that classical scholar, that friend of Sir Walter Scott, among those refused admission into its select coterie ? ^ An Apology for Bachelors (1808) speaks for itself. An Apology for Smokers (iS^i), attributed to an unknown B. L. Love, is a plea for a class of men whose aggressive habits and want of consideration for others need more apology now than they did three-quarters of a centurv' ago. The Apology for the Beard by Artium Magister (1862) is couched in a lower key than the Essay by a Natural Philosopher o» the Sin and Folly of Shaving [i860]. Both these works date back to a time when the appearance of beards and moustaches began to shock precise old bank directors and prim vice-chancellors. The heading " case " (145 entries) covers a mass of tracts on commercial and theological subjects. An exception is The Case of Authors by profession or trade. No Matter by Whom, now known to have been the composition of James Ralph, whose attempts at poetry secured for him a niche in the Dunciad. In prose he was more successful, ^ Rose loved the anonj-mous. His Letters from the vorth of Italy addressed to Henry Hallam (1819, 2 vols.) bore no name on the title- page, but the introduction was signed W.S.R. His Thoughts and Recollections (1825) were described as " by one of the last century-." LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 23 and as an author by trade, keenly alive to the value of a patron, contrived to obtain for his literary services to his party a stout pension. The Case of the Poor against the Rich fairly considered [1850], by one who posed as " a mutual friend," was the composition of Mrs. Grote and is included in her Collected Papers. The copy of the tract in the British Museum was presented to " Samuel Rogers, Esq. (with the Author's respects)." The chief entry under " catechism " is a Catechism 011 the Corn Laws, with a List of the Fallacies and the Answers, by a Member of the University of Cambridge, whicli was drawn up by a veteran in politics, T. Perronet Thompson. Indeed, the prefatory advertisement was signed by him. His tract was ^reproduced in the Pamphleteer, vol. xxvii. and by 1834 eighteen editions of it had been exhausted, a success which is merited both in substance and in style. The most popular work on the other side of the question was The Sophisms of Free Trade and Popular Poliiical Economy examined by a Barrister, who rose from a stuff gownship to be a serjeant-at-law and then to be Sir John Barnard Byles, Justice of the Common Pleas. His work first appeared in 1849, speedily ran through eight editions, and was reprinted in 1870 and 1904. Let me here interpolate another pseudonym under C. This is " Catholicus," which was adopted as a disguise by two widely different men in character, who began their clerical life in the Anglican Church and ended as cardinals in the Roman communion. Newman used it in the earlier stage of his life (1841) in discussing an address delivered by Sir Robert Peel on the establishment of a reading- room at Tamworth. Manning took the disguise in 1873 in defence of his sermon on the devotion of the Sacred Heart.i 1 The mention of these eminent names in thcolog}' reminds mc of another ecclesiastical disputant. " Rusticns " was the disguise of F. D. Maurice in his elaborate essay of Subscription [to the 24 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Under the title of Characteristics three works in three different ages by three dissimilar characters have been issued. The first in time was Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times {lyii, 3 vols.), by the third Earl of Shaftesbury. The second of them, Characteristics in the manner of Roche foiicault's Maxims (1823), came from the pen of Hazlitt. The second edition of 1837 was edited by R. H. Home and bore the author's name on the title-page. Another generation passed away and there appeared in 1865 a volume of Modern Characteristics : a series of short essays from the Saturday Review, which were soon recognized as the work of Mr. John Morley. The term " Christian " includes every sort and condition of man. You can find there such examples of the class as the "cheerless Christian," " the unlettered Christian," " the wearied Christian," and " the weeping Christian." Promi- nent among the works under that name is The Devout Christian's Companion (1707), which by 1763 had reached a tenth edition. The volumes catalogued under the title of " Collection " include the several issues of Dodsley's collection of poems, the most celebrated miscellany of poetical literature in the English language. Again the most popular work was religious, and on this occasion it was Bishop Cosin's Collection of Private Devotions (1627, 6th ed. 1672). More attractive to sinners would be the anonymous Collection of Lies, containing the Whole Art and Mystery of Lying, to which is Added a List of the Grand Lyars (1720). This is a title which would have gone home to the heart of the man who wrote in our own day a dialogue on the decay in lying. A Defence of Ignorance, by 'the Author of how to make home unhealthy (1850), was the satirical production of Henry Thirty-nine Articles] No Bondage, Oxford (1835). Dean Church, in his Oxford Movement, pp. 135-6, speaks of it as written " with great wealth of original thought and illustration and much eloquence but with the fatal want of clearness." LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 25 Morley. That industrious man of letters had hitherto been working witli great energy but with inadequate reward. The second and popular edition in this country of How to make home unhealthy,^ reprint of articles from the Examiner, " brought him nothing but a little more fame." The reprints in America did not produce even that satisfaction, for the work was pirated without payment and with the name of Harriet Martineau as the author. Under the word " enquiry " 166 entries are found. The first noticeable production in date, An enquiry into the Mea- sures of Submission to Supream Authority (1688), dealt with the question of the moment and was the work of a contro- versialist whose success in life was bound up with the per- manence of.^the government dc facto. It was written by Bishop Burnet. A lord chancellor burning with ecclesiastical tastes, Peter, Baron King, threw an apple of discord into the world when he published An enquiry into the Constitution of the Primitive CJiurch, by an Impartial Hand. The theo- logians of England hated such impartiality. Many were its editions and many were the rephes. Soame Jenyns concealed for a time the authorship of A Free enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1757) but the secret soon became un secret de Polichenelle. It was cut into ribbons in a slashing review by Dr. Johnson, but the satire made the world still more desirous to read the original, and in 1773 there came out a fifth edition. Edmund Burke's anonymous Philo- sophical enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful was also produced in 1757. By 1776 his treatise had reached an eighth edition. It was published at Basle in 1792, Of the six hundred entries to be found under " essay " or its plural, no less than ninety-seven have reference to the famous collection of Essays and Reviews, which in orthodox circles was said to have been written by the septem contra Christum. Even less in accordance with " orthodoxy " was An Essay on Spirit, Wherein the Doctrine of the Trinity 26 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE is Considered (1751). This was soon recognized as from the pen of Clayton, the Bishop of Clogher. It was quickly denounced as Arian, and his friends were equally prompt in their vindication. He himself published " a genuine sequel " to it and " a defence " of it. Later works exposed him to a stronger attack for heresy, but he died before his enemies could deprive him of his bishopric. Poverty prevailed among men of letters at the middle of the eighteenth century. Even the men of genius to be found in their ranks were too often impransi, and the thrift- less hacks that abounded among them slept on bulk- heads in Covent Garden. One unknown satirist with bitter irony published An Essay on the Antiquity, Dignity and Advantages of Living in a Garret (1751) The taking title of An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753) has caused the name of its anonymous author, Miss Jane Colher, to be remembered at this day. She belonged to the Wiltshire race of Colliers that Hved in friendship with Henry Fielding and his family. William Hayley is all but forgotten, but a certain interest still hangs about his Philosophical Historical and Moral Essay on old Maids, by a Friend to the Sisterhood (1785, 3 vols.) Mal- thus and his writings are ever with us. His name, when expanded into an adjective, is embodied in our language. The Essay on the Principle of Population was given to the world anonymously in 1798. The second edition (1803), " very much enlarged," openly acknowledged what was by that time no secret, his authorship. Loud was the din which it raised and innumerable were its critics. Among them was Hazhtt, whose anonymous reply is dated 1807. A volume of Essays Written in the Intervals of Business crept modestly into the world in 1841. Sir Arthur Helps was soon known to be the author,and for many years after that date the volumes pubhshed with his name found abundant popularity. Hints on Longevity {1802) a subject never without attrac- tion, expressed the views and the practice of Sir John Sin- LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 27 clair, a sturdy old Scot, who dabbled in politics and for many years was at the head of the Board of Agriculture. Still more engrossing is the theme of early education and nursery discipline, and the anonymous tract of " hints " on them which set forth the theories of Mrs. Louisa Hoare passed through nineteen editions between 1819 and 1877, and was reprinted so recently as 1905. The heading of " history " contains not a few entries of anonymous words which we should not expect to find. Who would naturally look under that heading for Defoe's Political History of the Devil (1726), for Dr. J. M. Neale's History of Pews, or for sue h publications as The affecting History of the Children in the Wood and The History of an Apple Pie ? Among such^ works stands out the majestic History of the World, by the ill-fated Ralegh, the first edition of which came into the world in 1614 without a title-page. Fur the full history of the various editions of this noble work the en- quirer must turn to the laborious bibliography of Dr. Brush- field, whose name will ever be associated in literary minds with that of Ralegh. Under " letter " and " letters " are to be found about 650 entries, and most of the more important articles relate to the history of politics. The first Lord Lyttelton's fiction of Letters from a Persian in England to his Friend at Ispahan was one of the earliest specimens of a class of work which found many successors. It was very popular and passed through many editions. Maria Edgeworth's anonymous Letters for Literary Ladies, her first published work, in which she advocated a higher education for girls, would attract now a larger, though possibly a less pleasant, class than it did in 1795. More than 200 entries are to be found under the heading of " life." The best-known farce of the eighteenth century is chronicled there. This was High Life Below Stairs, the composition of an under-master at the Merchant Taylors' school, with a love for the stage. It was printed in 1759, 28 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE reached an eleventh edition in 1780, and has been produced on the boards within the last few years. Some unknown satirist of the day thought it a good opportunity to shew to the audience the other side of the shield. He issued in the same year a farce with the title of Low Life Above Stairs ; ere the year was out three editions had been demanded. The Life of a Travelling Physician (1843) was written by Sir George William Lefevre, whose want of health compelled him to live abroad. Its value lies in the descriptions of life in Poland and Russia. Most of us who have arrived at middle- age are aware that the pages of the popular work called The Gentle Life (1864) were from the pen of James Hain Friswell. The word " observations " is responsible for close on 250 entries. A very pleasant treatise was that of Observations on Modern Gardening (1770), which went through at least six editions. They were the outcome of the keen vision of Thomas Whately, a man of repute in his time, though his fame is at the present time dwarfed by the reputation of a second member of his family, the caustic Archbishop of Dublin. The anonymous author of Observations on the Use of the Words Shall and Will (2nd. ed. Canterbury 1813), must have intended his disquisition for the benefit of those from Scotia. He was not the first critic of the language current across the Tweed. A Satirical View of London at the Com- mencement of the Nineteenth Century, by an Observer (1801), was soon known to be by John Corry, one of the earliest of the ever-increasing band of Irishmen entering upon journalism in London. The " chiel among us taking notes " at the commencement of the current century would require a much larger volume for his task. " Poem " and " poems " demand 318 entries. A Poem to a Widow upon a Fly getting into her Eye (1726) was an intelli- gent anticipation of an incident in the hfe of Widow Wadman, and the author, who witnessed the distressing result, must have been an acuter person than Uncle Toby. A comic title, indeed, is that of Poems Fit for a Bishop which Two LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 29 Bishops Will Read (1780). A contemporary note on the title-page assigns its parentage to a " Mr. Ellison." Original Poems for Infant Minds, which passed through any number of editions, was the compilation of the two sisters, Ann and Jane Taylor, women of simple taste and cultivated intellect. Many a boy in the remote districts of our country was inspired by its lines in youth and remembers them in his advanced years. Poems by Two Brothers (1827) is embedded in our literature as the pro- duction of the brothers Tennyson. The chief entries under " reflections " (113 cases) are on religious subjects. One of them is an anonymous treatise by the Duke of Grafton, mentioned on a previous page. It was entitled iScnoMs Reflections of a Rational Christian (1797). The heading of " rules " is responsible for no entries. Many of them relate to games, specimens of which are " squalls " and " flipperty flop," and among them is Abraham Hayward's Short Rules for modern whist. The Rules of Civility (1678 ; new ed. 1685) was a translation of the treatise on civility "qui se pratique en France," byAntoine de Courtin. An anonymous tract on Rules for Holy Living reached a seventeenth edition at Hackney in 1842, probably through the instrumentality of Henry Norris, the rector of that parish. " Tale " and " Tales " contain close on 300 entries ; " thoughts " over 400. Tour, travel, traveller, trip and a few other headings descriptive of wanderings in fact or in fancy, mount up together to about 120 separate works. Egypt by a Traveller (1824), the reminiscences of Henry Salt, was the first English work struck off from the printing presses of Alexandria. Our brethren across the Atlantic will not will- ingly forget tlie volume of Nile Notes which George William Curtis brought out as "by a traveller" in 1851. Very quietly there came out in 1792 a little work with the touching title of A Friendly Visit to the House of Mourning. It was from the pen of that prominent evangelical, Richard Cecil, and it reached an eighth edition in 1806. 30 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Many works, very dissimilar in nature, are catalogued under "treatise" (234 entries). Belief in witchcraft was rife in the second half of the seventeenth century and many an eager inquirer would devour the pages of A Pleasant Treatise of Witches, their Imps and Meetings (1673). A Treatise on Rents by a Late Lord Chief Baron {ly^^) could not long conceal, perhaps was not designed to conceal, the authorship of Sir Jeff ray Gilbert. The title of an anony- mous pamphlet, A Treatise on the Virtues and Efficacy of a Crust of Bread Eat early in a morning Fasting (1767) gave me a passing feeling of admiration for its author, Nicholas Robinson, M.D., but it was crushed out by the dictum of my friend, Norman Moore, M.D., that his writings " contain scarcely an observation of permanent value." The authorship of A Treatise on Tennis by a Member of the Tennis Club (i822)is attributed by the compilers of the British Museum catalogue to Robert Lukin. This was Robert Lukin, third son of George Lukin, dean of Wells, Mr. Wind- ham's half-brother. He was at Eton and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was elected fellow in 1802. Lukin was " secretary to the Tennis Club and one of the finest tennis players of the day." The writer of this note condescends to add that he was also "a very respectable scholar." Many extracts from this treatise are borrowed by the anonymous author of A Treatise on Tennis, which was published at Hobart Town in 1875. Under " view " the psychologist will find a Comparative View of the state and faculties of Man and Aitimals. This is a subject which interests an army of readers at this date, and it must have possessed a charm for man}^ students in an agelong passed away. A second edition was published in 1766 and a fifth in 1772. Its author was John Gregory, best known as the professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. A View of the Invisible World, or a General History of Apparitions, was by Defoe, and its fii-st appear- ance was under the disguise of Andrew Moreton. LITERATURE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 31 Either from the knowledge that the theme possessed an intense attraction for the reading pubhc of his day, or from its absorbing fascination over his own mind, Defoe more than once embarked upon the sea of discovery into the unknown. Perhaps the best of his ventures is the anonymous account of Mrs. Veal's appearance after her death to Mrs. Bargrave, A Brief View of Ecclesiastical History found a third edition at Dubhn in 1831 and a sixth in 1852, but the secret of its authorship has not become known to this generation. A Vindication of Natural Society . . . by a late Noble Writer (1756), obtained from these words a circulation beyond that which it would have enjoyed had the author's name been given. The booksellers intended to convey to the innocent publie the impression that it was a posthumous production of Lord Bolingbroke, and the public was deceived into buying several editions. It was an early work of Edmund Burke. A Word of Advice to Saints and Sinners had no such adventitious recommendation to popular favour. It depended for success upon the comprehensive nature of the classes to which it appealed and it found success. Its first issue was in 1746 ; the fifteenth edition is dated in 1804. The anonymous Word to a Drunkard (1780) fell unheeded. That class of sinners did not buy it ; and the saints knew that they did not need it. The two articles of interest under " world " (121 cases) deal with a world of the imagination. Such was the concep- tion of A World without Souls (1805 ; 2nd ed. 1806 ; 3rd American ed.i8o8), an anonymous volume by the Rev. J. W. Cunningham, long known as the evangelical vicar of Harrow. A second anonymous work by him found many admirers. This was the Velvet Cushion (1814). Very different were the religious views of John Mason Neale, who, under the title of The Unseen World, gave his opinions on apparitions, warn- ings, haunted places. It was published in 1847 ^^^^ six years later was brought out for a second time. Ill Feminine Reasons for Secrecy Olphar Hamst, in his enthusiastic memoir of the unhappy Querard, a man aptly designated " a martyr to bibhography," appends to his account a Hst, adapted from that compiled by Claude Charles Pierquin de Gembloux and printed in the magazine Le Querard (1855), p. 154, of " technical bibliographical terms." . This embraces most of those em- ployed in describing the various modes of disguise which have been used by pseudonymous writers. Many of the terms are uncouth and repulsive, such as only a professed biblio- grapher would desire to foist on the language, but the list is worthy of republication, for nearly all the devices will be met with in my pages. It runs, with a few alterations, as follows : — Adulterism, Name altered or adulterated, as Veyrat (Xavier Verat) d'Alembert (J. Le Rond-Dalembert). Allonym (allonymous). False proper name. Work published to deceive under the name of some author or person of reputation, but not by him ; as Peter Parley (an annual), a work with which S. G. Goodrich, who invented and used tliat name, had nothing to do. Alphabetism. As A. B. C. D. (Francis Attcrbury, 1710). Anagram. Letters of name or names arbitrarily inverted, with or without meaning, e.g. Olphar Hamst, i.e. Ralph Thomas. Anonym. Book without an author's name. Apoconym. Name deprived of one or more letters. Apocryphal. Book of which the authorship is uncertain. Aristonym. Title of nobility converted into or used as a proper name. Ascetonym. Name of a saint used as a proper name. 32 FEMININE REASONS FOR SECRECY 33 Asterism. One or more asterisks or stars used as names, as **** ****** (i.e. James Pycroft). Boustrophedon. Tiie real name written backwards, as Dralloc (CoUard). Cryptonym. Hidden subterfuge. Applied to an author who con- ceals his name in some part of his volume. See the example of John Gait, mentioned on page 91. Demonym. Popular or ordinary qualification or description taken as a proper name, as Chronicles of London Bridge by an anti- quary (Richard Thomson). Enigmatic-pseudonym. As les frercs Gebcodc (i.e. Gustave Brunei and Octave Delepicrre). Geonym. Name of country, town, or village, as an Englishman, a Londoner. Hagionym. Same as Ascetonym. Hieronym. Sacred name used as a proper name. Initialism. Initials of the author. T. B. (Brewer), S. E. B. (Brydges). Ironym. IronicgJ name, as Orpheus C. Kerr (office seeker), disguise of R. H. Newell. Pharmaconym. Name of a substance or material taken for a proper name, as Silverpen (i.e., Eliza Meteyard). Phraseonym. A phrase used instead of a proper name, as a Member of the Established Church (Sir John Bayley, Bart.). Phrenonym. Moral quality taken for a pro^ocr name, as Edward Search (Abraham Tucker). Prenonym. (Christian) Name taking the place of the family name, as Anthony Hope for Anthony Hope Hawkins. Pseudandry. Woman using a man's name, as George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). Pseudo-initialism, False initials, as Z., i.e. Hannah More or Major A*****, i.e. C. B. Coles. Pseudojyn. Man signing a woman's name, as Clara Gazul (Prosper Merimee), Sarah Search (Frederick Nolan). Pseudo-titlonym. False title, as a Lincolnshire grazier (T. H. Home) : Scenonym. Theatrical name. Stigmonym. Dots instead of name. Syncopism. Name deprived of several letters. Telonism. Terminal letters of a name, as N. S. (John Anstis). Titlonym. Quality or title, as a graduate of Oxford (i.e. John Ruskin). Translationism. Translation of the real name, as G. Forrest (Rev. J. G. Wood). The practice of publishing books without any clue to their authorship or under some form of disguise has existed in England from the beginning of printing, and the reasons D 34 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE for its adoption are many and diverse. In the old days the dread of exciting the censure of the ecclesiastical or state authorities, ever eager to suppress any novel views in religious doctrine or political thought, formed the chief motive. In later ages the fear of compromising relations or friends, or bringing discredit on oneself, has often led to the use of a pseudonym. This feeling of anxiety is especially marked in feminine authors. When the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, expended some of their tiny means in the publication of a small selection of their poetry — Poems by Currcr, Ellis and Acton Bell. London : Aylott & Jones, 8 Paternoster Row, 1846 — they screened themselves from personal publicity by adopting pseudonyms which corresponded with the initials of their genuine names. This they did " from a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names posi- tively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because, without at the time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called femi- nine, we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice." They had noticed that critics sometimes chastised them with the whip of personality or bedaubed them with a flattery " which is not true praise." The example of the Bronte sisters was followed in our own days by Miss Gregg. She chose the name " Sydney," for the reason which they gave, that it might be interpreted as either a masculine or feminine designation. Grier is a Shetland name, and at that time she was much interested in those isles. C. was inserted to make the name look a natural surname. By these successive steps in the process of evolution there sprang into life the full title of " Sydney C. Grier." " Lucas Malet " has become within twenty years known to the whole literary world as the disguise of Mrs. Mary St. Leger Harrison, a daughter of Charles Kingsley. Her FEMININE REASONS FOR SECRECY 35 reason for concealment was that she " did not think it right to trade on the Kingsley name," lest she should do it discredit. She therefore chose the " surnames of her grandmother and great-grandmother, both women of remarkable intelligence and character." Colonel Endcrby's Wife, the first of her works and the novel which gave her popularity, came out in 1885 and a Polish translation appeared at Warsaw soon afterwards. Since igo2 she has enjoyed the best-recognized proof of literary fame in the existence of a " Lucas Malet Birthday Book." The reasons given by the lady, now Mary Chavelita Golding-Bright, for the adoption of her pseudonym of " George EgQjrton," also spring from family associations. A woman's writing is for herself and her name should be " independent of that which belongs to her only by right of a husband." She was born at Melbourne in Aus- tralia. Her father's name was Dunne, from Queen's County in Ireland ; her mother was Isabel George Bynon, of Gla- morganshire. She owed, in her opinion, her good qualities to her mother, and George Bynon was her first dis- guise. The name of Bynon had been unlucky and it was quickly dropped for that of Egerton, the baptismal name of her second husband. Under the " distinctive combination " of George Egerton she has published nine works since 1893. Mary Ann Evans called herself " George Eliot " because the first word was the Christian name of her husband and " Eliot " was a " fine, short, full-sounding name that matched her style and story." Miss Emily Morse Symonds has taken as her pen-name the words " George Paston," still harping, like many another lady, on the name of George. As a native of Norfolk she was interested in the famous Paston Letters, and perhaps had dreams that in the future her works would be endowed with equal life. The Christian name of George she selected for the truly feminine reason, that it was lucky. 36 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE " and there were at tliat time no other feminine Georges in the field except George Fleming." This last name con- ceals the personality of Julia Constance Fletcher. " Hesba Stretton " has enjoyed forty years of popu- larity in her publications, many of which have been pub- lished by the Religious Tract Society. The name veils the identity of Miss Hannah Smith. The Christian name is a compound of the initials of her family and the surname has its origin in the village of Church Stretton, which lies in a long valley under the Longmynd. There she was born and there she spent many years of her life. " Ouida " was the childish rendering of Mademoiselle de la Ramee's baptismal name of " Louisa." The lady's name is said to have been originally Rame. Mrs. Des- mond Humphreys, who has in the course of years poured out a long stream of novels under the designation of " Rita," picked out a " short name — easily remembered — as in case of success or the reverse she had no desire to be known by her own name whenever she appeared in Society." There may also have been in the choice some remembrance of Rita, an Autobiography (1858), the anonymous production of that graceful writer, Hamilton Aide. The very short name of " Gyp " conceals from human gaze the very long title of the Countess " Sybille Gabrielle Marie Antoinette de Martel de Janville." Her works are French, but her name is taken from " le petit chien (Jip) dans David Copper field," and the orthography is changed " pour que le pseudonym eut la meme initiale que mon prenom " (Gabrielle). The name, as altered to " Gyp," has also been used for two small dog-stories — The Story of Gyphythe author of Agnes Falconer (1873) and Whose Dog is It? or 'the Story of Poor Gyp (1877) and for a brochure, not without use for boating-men, called Camping-out, or Holidays under Canvas, by Gyp, printed at Newbury in 1886 and reprinted in 1887. " Zack," a truly English pseudonym, is the sign in liter- FEMININE REASONS FOR SECRECY 37 ature of Miss Gwendoline Keats. She felt in lier modesty that the name of Keats had become the exclusive property of the poet. " Zack " was the name of the rustic " in whose mouth she had put the telling of her first story, Widdcr Vlint, and, having once made use of it, "she has stuck to it ever since." Lady Currie's reasons for appropriating, when she was Mrs. Singleton, the mask of " Violet Fane " were " purely fanciful," and she confessed that had she to begin again her literary career she would select a disguise " less flowing and sentimental." Mayne Lindsay, the author of four novels, and a lady whose real name is still hidden from the literary world, acknowledged that she selected this taking "^name because her own was but " common- place." It has the merit of concealing the writer's sex, and her tales of adventure are generally ascribed to some dashing man who has been the hero of most of them. Frances Elizabeth MacFall, who published in 1880 a volume under her own name, afterwards invented for her- self the name of " Sarah Grand," and the feeling in her mind was that such a designation would be " simple, short and emphatic — not easily forgotten." The literary title of poor Mrs. Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie, who died on August 13, 1906, before she had reached the age of forty, was " John Oliver Hobbcs," and her first novel — Some Emotions and a Moral — was produced under it in 189 1, when she was about twenty-four years old. The first name was that of her father and her son ; the second was selected " because of the warring Cromwell, and Hobbes because it was homely." For the last choice there was a second reason. She had a great admiration for the old philosopher of Malmesbury, and the recollection of his moral and intellectual qualities would always be a check upon her womanly "inclinations towards sentimentality and emo- tionalism." Other ladies have had their masks thrust upon them 38 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE by the publishers. One firm of these enemies of woman- kind would not bring out the first book — Cavalry Life (1881) — by Mrs. Henrietta Ehza Vaughan Stannard until she had assumed the name of a man. They thought that its chance of popularity would be endangered were it known to be by a woman. She believed in their worldly wisdom and assumed the disguise of one of her characters. Now the titles of her works fill several pages of the catalogue of the British Museum Library. She is said, indeed, to have published no less than ninety-six novels under her pen-name of John Strange Winter. The same class of beings fastened to Henrietta Keddie," the nameless immortal," said Charles Kingsley, " who wrote Meg of Elihank " {Fraser's Magazine, November, 1856), and the author of many pathetic stories of a later date, the name of " Sarah Tytler." She had nothing to do with the selec- tion ; that was made by a publisher, on very friendly terms with her. He considered that " Sarah had a certain mature, sagacious sound, while the surname Tytler had many historical and literary associations." These were characteristics that would be useful to her in her choice of plot and title. So she adhered to the appellation, and under it has brought out a long series of popular novels. " Carmen Sylva," a sweet-tripping name, veils the figure of a queen. The reasons why Queen Elizabeth of Roumania adopted them shall be given in her own words. " I was thirty-five when the thought struck me that if my writings were interesting enough to be copied many times, I might spare many people the trouble by publishing. But for obvious reasons I wished for, and succeeded with, a complete incognita. " One day I said to my doctor, ' Tell me the Latin word for forest.' " He said, ' Sylva.' " ' That's charming ! Now tell me a word for bird ! " ' Avis.' FEMININE REASONS FOR SECRECY 39 " ' No, I don't like that. But song, how is song in Latin ? " ' Carmen.' " I clapped my hands. ' Carmen Sylva, that shall be my name, as I began in the woods, and found my best songs in roaming through the forests of my home on tlie Rhine.' " In German I call myself ' Waldgesang.' " Carmen Sylva adds, " I wanted to make my name Latin as I belong to a Latin country." JSlote. — Some of the information in this chapter is deri\'ed from an interesting communication in the GirVs Realm, August, 1904. P- 870. IV More Veiled Ladies Ladies of the seventeenth century were not encouraged in rushing into print. They played a very low part in life. Theirs was not to reason why, either in conversation or in books. But their various tastes did sometimes show themselves in authorship. One section entered upon the field of romance, decent or indecent. Another interested itself in the composition of devotional works. Susanna Hopton, a convert to the Church of Rome in early life, who afterwards returned to her original fold of Anglicanism and became a patron of the nonjurors, was perhaps the best- known writer in the latter class, although her works were for the most part published anonymously. Her volume of Daily Devotions and Thanksgivings crept into the world in 1673 as by " an humble penitent." The better-known compilation of Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices was published in 1701 by George Hickes, the deprived dean of Worcester. This was a revision by her as " aperson of quality" to suit Anglican tastes of a manual by John Austin for his fellow-worshippers in Roman Catholicism, the second edition of which was published posthumously at Rouen in 1672. Its popularity was great. Four editions of the original collection had by 170 1 appeared for the use of Roman Catholics. Five for members of the Church of England had been issued under the reforming hand of Theophilus Dorrington, a convert from dissent to Angli- canism. The revision by Mrs. Hopton, which Dean Hickes 40 MORE VEILED LADIES 41 brought out in 1701, and Nathaniel Spinckes, a Bishop among the Nonjurors, reissued in 1717, received an ample popularity. This " humble penitent " was imbued with those high doctrines of Anglicanism which were professed by the vast majority of the nonjurors. Mrs. Elizabeth Burnet, third wife of the famous Whig Bishop of Sarum, belonged to the Low Church section among the clergy. Those who differ from her in theology cannot dispute her right to promulgate her religious opinions ; but they take pleasure in contrasting her " unaffected diffidence " with the fiery self-assertion of her husband. Her volume was A Method of Devotion, or Rules for Holy and Devout Living, and it was put together in the first place for private use, and afterwards published anonymously " to give a little assis- tance to young and ignorant persons." After her death, says the archidiaconal editor of the second edition, tlie name of the author was printed on the title-page, " which her modesty did not suffer her to consent to while she lived." This was in 1709. The fifth edition came out in 1738. Not twenty miles from the borders of London, in the rural seclusion of an obscure Essex churchyard, rests the tomb of one of England's greatest philosophers, John Locke. To it there proceeds now and then an occasional pilgrim, interested in the career of a much-wronged poli- tician and philosopher. But for the greater part of the year no wandering footstep disturbs the quiet of the graves. Locke had been driven into Holland by the Tory Court of Charles the Second, and with the accession of the Dutch William he returned to his native land. The smoke of London disagreed with him, and in 1691 he withdrew to the manor-house of Gates in the parish of High Laver, the seat of Sir Francis Masham, whose second wife Damaris was daughter of Ralph Cudworth, the " Cambridge " Pla- tonist. Gates was destroyed more than a century ago ; 42 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE but the tombs of Locke and the Mashams, a dozen or so, remam about the east end of the church. Damaris, Lady Masham, was origmally a devotee of that Cambridge school and a correspondent sympathizing with the views of John Norris, of Bemerton. But under the influence of Locke she abandoned her early views and published anonymously two volumes which his teaching had inspired. Their titles were A Discourse Concerning the love of God (1696) and Occasional Thoughts in reference to a virtuous or christian Life (1705). The former was translated into French by Coste. Mary Astell, the daughter of a merchant at Newcastle- upon-Tyne and the niece of a clergyman who trained her in " orthodox " views, was another of these feminine writers on theological topics, whose names, though their treatises were published anonymously, were soon revealed to an inquiring world. Her Christian Religion as Profess d by A Daughter of the Church of England (1705) sets out the doc- trines of the Church as expounded by the famous divines of the Caroline period. The Serious Proposal to the Ladies by a Lover of Her Sex (1694) was a proposition to set up a monastery for the performance of the daily services, " after the Cathedral manner," to which ladies might retreat from the world. " A certain great lady " talked of endowing the institution with £10,000, but Bishop Burnet employed all his energies against the scheme, and the unknown dame, possibly the Princess Anne, withdrew her promise. Mary Astell was not afraid to cross swords with such practised controversialists as Tillotson, Atterbury and White Kennet. Atterbury could not deny the strength of her attacks, but with masculine meanness assigned to her a want of good breeding. The name of Elizabeth Rowe is now forgotten save to the omnivorous and omniscient student that may be occa- sionally met with in Germany. She was the eldest daughter of a dissenting minister with a competent estate near Frome. MORE VEILED LADIES 43 Her earliest volume of Poems on Several Occasions (1696 ; 2nd ed., 1737) was issued as by " Philomela," a name, says the panegyrist," dear to all lovers of high-toned religious poetry." After its publication she was patronized by tlie Thynnes of Longleat and by their spiritual adviser, Bishop Ken. A very different spirit, but one equally warm in her praise, was Matthew Prior. The lady's best- known venture in literature was the anonymous Friendship in Death; in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living (1728). For nearly a century after this date editions poured from the press, and Dr. Johnson praised her as the earliest English writer who used " the ornaments of romance in the decoration of religion." Two translations of it were pub- lished in France and a German translation of her poems came out in 1745. Charles Lamb, in his essay on Distant Correspondents, in a letter to Barron Field at Sydney, N.S.W., handed on her name in the exclamation that a letter sent so far reminds him of one of Mrs. Rowe's super- scriptions, " Alcander to Strephon in the shades." A few years ago Theodor Vetter, a professor of English literature at Zurich, revived her memory in a biography of " die gottliche Rowe," a pet name conferred on her by Klopstock. Anne Finch, the Countess of Winchelsea, bandied poetical compliments with Pope and was praised by Wordsworth, who singled out lier "Nocturnal Review" as almost the sole poem in an age dominated by Pope's artificial verse, that was inspired by nature. Her nom dc guerre was the familiar " by a lady." Under this mask she published a poetic piece with the taking title of " The Spleen, a Pin- darique Ode " (1709), an imitation of Cowley's strains, and under it there was published in 17 13 her volume of Miscellany Poems. Again we must look outside England for tlie best work on an English poet. An ardent traveller in the by-paths of literature, Myra Reynolds, has brought together the lady's poems and prefixed to it the biographical details of her hfe. She is of " the department of English " 44 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE in the University of Chicago, and her volume was produced there in 1903. Charlotte Lennox was patronized by Dr. Johnson. When she brought out in December, 1750, her " first literary child," the novel of The Life of Harriot Stuart, Written by Herself, a supper was given by the club in her honour. Under his directions " a magnificent hot apple-pie " made part of it, and this was decorated with bay-leaves " because, forsooth," says the bitter Hawkins, in his best ironical style, " Mrs. Lennox was an authoress and had written verses." Later on in the entertainment Johnson " encircled her brows " with a crown of laurel. " About five, his face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade." The great success of Mrs. Lennox was her novel of The Female Quixote, or The Adventures of Arabella {'Ly^2). John- son took this in hand and wrote for it the dedication to the Earl of Middlesex. Fielding speaks of her in the Voyage to Lisbon as " the inimitable and shamefully-distressed author of the Female Quixote." It became very popular, being reproduced so late as 1810 and translated into Spanish in 1808. " By the author of the Female Quixote" was the familiar designation of the lady for many years. Under this sure passport to public fame there came out her Shake- speare Ulustrated (1753), tracing the sources of his plays, her novel of Henrietta (1758), and her dramatic pastoral of Philander (1758). With the same words on the title-pages she produced a variety of translations of French memoirs. With all her industry the poor lady's struggles for a com- petence were in vain. At the close of her life she was fed by the bounty of the Royal Literary Fund. Mrs. Montagu, on the other hand, was a literary lady of great wealth whom the Doctor looked at askance. She was an admirer of the first Lord Lyttelton, and Johnson loved him not. A depreciatory notice in the Lives of the Poets caused an open breach between the Doctor and the followers of that MORE VEILED LADIES 45 peer. Mrs. Montagu began her career in letters in 1769 by con- tributing without mention of her name three conversations to Lyttelton's anonymous Dialogues of the Dead, one of which, no. xxvii, between Mercury and a modern fine lady, Mrs. Modish, showed " both good sense and fine satire." Her famous pubhcation was the un-named Essay on the writings and genius of Shakes pear (1769), in which she repelled the strictures of Voltaire. Johnson cried aloud that there was not one sentence of true criticism in it, while Cowper lauded its " good sense, sound judgment and wit." The authorship was at once recognized. Subsequent editions, the sixth appearing in 1810, bore her name on the title-page and the work was translated into French and Italian. Miss Ellin(Tr Frere, aunt of John Hookham Frere and the wife of Sir John Fenn, editor of the Paston Letters, wrote under the names of Mrs. Lovechild and Mrs. Teach well for her brother's children and grandchildren and afterwards published from 1760 onwards several very popular works of fiction and instruction for children. One of the best- known of her works was Cobwebs to catch Flies, or Dialogues A dapted to Children [1783 (?) 2 vols]. This was often reprinted, and in 1833 was imitated by the Religious Tract Society in New Cobwebs. Her companion in popularity was Mrs. Slack, whose compilations appeared after 1750, under the pseudonyms of A. Fisher, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and George Fisher, accomptant. The books of A. Fisher were chiefly on exercises in composition, English grammar, and selections from English authors. Those of the accomptant were a corrected issue of Cocker's arithmetic (12 eds.) and a composite volume for a young man's education in com- mercial life (30 eds.). The grammar book of A. Fisher went through twenty-five editions. Clara Reeve, a name probably unknown to the rising generation, though fifty years ago her best-known work was the school-boy's delight, was one of the numerous band who entered upon authorship with a work " by a lady." This 46 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE was The Phcenix, or the History of Polyarchus and Argents (1772), a translation from the Latin of John Barclay's romance. It was sufficiently popular for her next work, The Champion of virtue, a Gothic story (1772) to be published " as by the editor of The Phcenix." It was " printed for the author by W. Keymer, Colchester, 1777," and Mrs. Bridgen, daughter of Samuel Richardson, revised and corrected " the errors of the first impression." The copyright was acquired by Dilly — it is said for^ £10 — and with the title altered to the more taking name of The Old English Baron, it was often reprinted with her name. It is usually found in old libraries, bound up with Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, of which it was " the literary offspring " ; but Walpole did not love the connexion. At least, thirteen editions have appeared, and it was translated into French in 1800. Clara Reeve was born and died at Ipswich, where her family had long resided. The unscrupulous publisher of London thought that he could rely upon this seclusion in country life to palm off undetected under her name the trash of the garreteer. Her nephew, the Rev. S. Reeve, of Walton, near Ipswich, wrote to the Gentleman' s Magazine for 1829, part i, p. 290, in indignant terms, that in making a summer tour through the southern parts of England he had found in several reading-rooms " a wretched novel, Fatherless Fanny, by the Author of the Old English Baron, to which the hack-compiler had placed a preface " almost a verbatim copy of the original " in her famous work. He denounced these proceedings as " a scandalous piracy," injurious both to the publisher and to her. It imposed for a time upon the authorities at the British Museum. Fanny Burney began writing as a girl of ten, and her novel of £"yc/mfl,though written when she was about twenty-seven, owed its charm to the girlish impression of life which it con- tained. Dodsley declined it ; Lowndes asked to see the entire manuscript and then gave £20 for it. The month of January, 1778, saw its appearance anonymously as Evelina, or a Young MORE VEILED LADIES 47 Lady's entrance into the World. Dr. Johnson heard of it through the Thrales, and the knowledge of the authorship soon went through his circle. Rarely, ttideed, has any story been crowned with more rapid success. Its attraction has not faded even now, for two editions have been published in this century. So long as the delightful diary of Fanny Burney continues to find readers, so long will the palpitations of her heart lest her maiden venture in print should end in failure find an echo in theirs. Hannah More still lives to us through the entries of her sayings and doings as a bright young lady in tlic literary and social life of London, which can be read in Boswell's Johnson and in the diaries of Fanny Burney. But when advanced in middle age she became famous as a writer. Her little volume Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to Qeneral Society (1788), was published anony- mously because " she hoped it might be attriluited to a better person." Attributed it was to many a well-known name. Among them were Bishop Porteus and Mr. Haylcy, but most frequently it was assigned to Wilberforce. " Have you seen The Manners of the Great ? " writes Cowper to a clerical correspondent on March 19, 1788. Whether written by Wilberforce or not, he adds, " it is undoubtedly the work of some man intimately acquainted with the subject, a gentleman and a man of letters." Twelve days later, when informed of the true authorship, he bursts out in a letter to Lady Hesketh, " How comes it to pass, that she, being a woman, writes with a force and energy and a correctness hitherto arrogated by the man, and not very frequently displayed even by the men themselves ? " This specula- tion as to the authorship heightened the volume's sale. Seven large editions were sold in a few months and a French translation appeared at the Hague in 1790. Her anonymous Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World by One of the Laity (1791 ; 5th ed. 1793), was eagerly bought and eagerly read. " Aut Morus aut Angelus," 48 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE exclaimed Bishop Porteus, after reading a few pages. John Newton confessed himself an ass because it took him "nearly a minute's brown study " to arrive at the same conviction. The tract with the title of Village Politics by Will Chip, which she brought out without her name in 1792, circulated in thousands, and its sale in Scotland and Ireland was fostered by government aid. In union with her sister she published for three years a series of " Cheap Repository Tracts." The most famous was The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, by Z., the signature of Hannah More. Two million copies are said to have been sold within the first year and it was translated everywhere. There burst upon the world in 1809 her anonymous novel of Ccelebs in Search of a Wife. One of her biographers depreciates in Carlylese strains its merits. " Whom written by, what written about, not worth inquiring into," is the verdict. Let us pass this by. At all events it cannot be denied that the novel swept through the land with the force of a tornado. In nine months the eleventh edition had been sold out. Across the Atlantic four editions succeeded each other with lightning rapidity, and ere she was dead thirty editions of a thousand copies each had been sold to the Americans. People of every station in life read it. Hannah More's friends had not been let into the secret. The Thorn- tons said that it could not be hers. Wilberforce was wiser ; " It is Hannah More's all over" ; and he was much pleased with it. Alas ! There was a fly in the pot of ointment. It was reviewed in the evangelical pages of the Christian Observer, when Zachary Macaulay was its editor, and although the greater part of the notice must have satisfied even her love of flattery, some passages excited her feminine irritation. An ample apology was made in the following number (March, 1809), but the angry author was not to be appeased. She wrote to the editor in scathing language, " The critic well knew the writer was a woman. ... He knew I wrote it." MORE VEILED LADIES 49 Its success gave birth to many an attempt to profit by the popularity of the name of Coelebs. • Ccelihia choosing a Htisband, a novel by Colonel Robert Torrens, came out in the same year of 1809. C celebs Deceived, a.n inevitable result of the search, was the anonymous work of Harriet Corp in 1817. This lady, for whom I look in vain in biographical dictionaries, published other anonymous works, the most famous of which, An Antidote to the Miseries of Human Life in the History of the Widow Placid and her Daughter Rachel, came to a tenth edition in 1824. The Laws and Practice of Whist, by Ccelebs, M.A., one of the Cornish family of Carlyon, who migrated to New Zealand, was published in 1851 and passed into a third edition in 1858. And in i860 there appeared Ccelebs in Search of a Cook, the most difficult search of all, be it for man or woman. Miss Edgeworth's first venture in literature was anony- mous (1796) and her first novel Castle Rackrent (1800) was anonymous. It was the story of an Irish estate as told by an Irish steward, and it was full of the national humour. Her success in the delineation of the character of her country- men made her famous, and led Sir Walter Scott to try his hand at describing the characteristics of the Scotch. The second edition of Castle Rackrent (1801) was issued as "by Maria Edge worth." All of Miss Austen's early novels were anonymous. The first of them, Pride and Prejudice, was offered by her father in November, 1797, to Cadell, but returned by the next day's post. Northanger Abbey was sold in 1803 to a Bath publisher for £10, but was rescued unpublished from his hands about 1816 for the same money. She wrote for her own amusement, thought that the sum of £150 paid to her for Sense and Sensibility was a prodigious sum, and up to the time of her death had received less than £700 for all her writings. The third of these anonymous ladies was Miss Ferrier. They all came from the cultivated class of society ; they all E 50 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE lived tranquil lives ; they all scorned publicity. Their writings had much in common ; each of them possessed a keenness of observation and a brightness of humour. Many years passed away before the manuscript of Marriage, her first novel, was committed to the press. It was began before 1810 and published in 1818 ; for it she received £150. Another six years elapsed, and her second venture The Inheritance came out. This time she was paid £1,000 for her labour. Oh, that the novelists, male and female, of this day would allow six years to pass away between each of their novels ! Elizabeth Hamilton, a Scotch essayist, obtained success for her Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (1800, 3 vols.) without any extraneous aid. It was published as by Geoffry Jarvis, and was unnoticed in the public reviews, but it ran through two editions in a year, partly perhaps because it contained many satirical strokes at the expense of Godwin. The Memoirs were composed in London, in Gloucestershire, and at Bath, and presumably the Modern Philosophers of the last place of resort supplied not a few hints towards its composition. " To give effect to the humour ... it was of importance that it should be published anony- mously," but with such encouragement from the public Miss Hamilton claimed a work, "the credit of which had been gratuitously conferred on two or three celebrated writers." Miss Benger gushes over its success. " Its favourite phrases have acquired popular puthority ; the name of the heroine is proverbial." This was in 1818 ; who now re- members the name or a single phrase in the book ? Mary Brunton was another Scotch lady. She says, in a letter to Joanna Baillie, to whom her novel of Self-Control was dedicated, that until entering upon its composition, she was ignorant of the art of prose-writing. It was issued anonymously in 1811, and the first edition was sold within a month. The object of her writing was " to bear testimony against a maxim as immoral as indelicate, that a reformed MORE VEILED LADIES 51 rake makes the best husband." Her second novel, Disci- pline, by the Author of Self -Control, also obtained popularity. Both of them were republished down to the fifties, and a French translation of Self-Control came out in 1829. Mrs. Sherwood, by her practical works of charity in India and in England, gave fresh charm to those tales of her com- position which commanded the religious world of Evan- gelicalism. Her first great success as a novelist was in her maiden days, as Mary Martha Butt, when she wrote, at Bridg- north, the History of Susan Gray, as Related by a Clergyman, and Designed for the Benefit of Young Women when going to Service (1802). This work was claimed as the first to incul- cate religious principles in the poor, and " it was pirated in every form until 1816, when the copyright, which she had sold for ;£io, was returned to her. ' ' Her husband's regiment — she married her cousin. Captain Henry Sherwood, in 1803 — was ordered to India about 1805. In her new country she at once resumed her literary and charitable habits. She sent home in 1815 a tiny story called Little Henry and His Bearer. Her sister edited it and a publisher at Wellington in Shropshire gave £5 for it. A hundred editions were pub- lished anonymously in England and it was translated into the' leading languages of Europe and Asia. Through it " little Henry " became the favourite name in child-literature. Among the volumes reproducing the name on the title- page were Letters to Little Henry from His Aunt (1841), and Little Henry's Holiday at the Great Exhibition [1851]. Mrs. Sherwood after 1815 published a host of works, many of which were anonymous. Mr. G. W. E. Russell has more than once praised her pictures of country life in The Fairchild Family. I connect with Mrs. Sherwood the name of anotlier ener- getic woman in anonymous literature. Her first husband was enveloped in law-suits, which ultimately made him insane. To support herself, Mrs. Phelan, as she then was, took to literature, and to retain her earnings for her own use she 52 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE published under her baptismal names of " Charlotte Eliza- beth." Thirty-eight anonymous works are entered under her name in the index of Halkett and Laing, and page after page in the catalogue of the British Museum Library is filled with the editions, for many of them attained to abundant popularity. They were all of them steeped in the spirit of Evangelicalism, which she loved, and they exercised a wide influence in that division of the religious world. Many were translated into foreign languages. Her name as Mrs. Tonna is not yet forgotten. Who was Mrs. Hannah Glasse, and who was the wit that first connected her name with the legendary warning, " first catch your hare " ? For long years her work was attri- buted to the facile pen of Sir John Hill, a genius in the art of rapid compilation. But the D.N.B. treats her as a genuine author, ignoring the fact that, although a certain Hannah Glasse may have existed in the flesh, the name may have been borrowed for his purpose by that clever impostor in the medical and other arts. It was in 1747 that this immor- tal work, a slender folio, first saw the light. The title ran, The Art of Cookery made -plain and easy, which far exceeds anything of the Kind ever yet published by a Lady. And it was among the thousand and one volumes published under that bewildering designation. The last edition at the British Museum is dated 1803. The reader will search its pages in vain for the proverbial saying, " first catch your hare." The nearest approach to it lies in the words, " Take 3^our hare when it is cas'd and make a pudding of it." As some consolation he can read the receipt in the last chapter, " a certain cure for the bite of a mad dog." A later rival in popularity was A New System of Domestic Cookery (1808) which was also issued as " by a lady." This was the work of Maria Eliza Rundell, wife of Thomas Rundell, the silversmith. The earliest edition at the British Museum Library is described as the third, and it was printed at Exeter in tlie United States. The sixty- MORE VEILED LADIES 53 fourth thousand came out in 1840 ; since then several other editions have appeared. The gifted lady at first adopted the high and mighty style of authorship. A preliminary advertisement announced that she would receive no emolu- ment from it. John Murray presented her with a fee of £150, but on the appearance of the subsequent editions, she declined to receive any further remuneration. This mood lasted until 1814, when she accused him of " neglect- ing the book and hindering its sale." An injunction to restrain Murray from republishing the volume was obtained by her in the Vice-Chancellor's Court and she transferred it to Longmans. Murray retaliated by obtaining a decree that she was to refrain from printing " any of his additions and embellishments." The case was with the lawyers, and, after the usual delays of the law, Murray purchased her interest in it for £1,000 and the payment of a similar sum to cover her costs. Tom Moore on October 21, 1826, called on the Longmans and learned the " curious fact that after Mrs. Rundell's Cookery had for many years produced seven or eight hundred a year," Murray had given £2,000 for the copyriglit.i Another very successful volume for consumption in the household was Eighteen Maxims of neatness and order by Theresa Tidy. The second edition is dated in 1817, and the twenty-fourth in 1844. Its author was Mrs. Elizabeth Susanna Graham, widow of Thomas Graham, of Edmond Castle, Cumberland, and Lincoln's Inn. She died on August 10, 1844 [Gentleman s Magazine, p. 439). Her other works were A Selection of Fables from Florian and other Authors, translated and versified by Theresa Tidy (1837) '■^^^^ Voyage to Locuta by Lemuel Gulliver, fun., 1818, which was a little fable designed to convey a clear idea of the character and offices of the parts of speech. A male Tidy — Tim Tidy, to wit — appeared upon the scene with a collection oi London ^ The Cook's Oracle of Dr. Ivitchiner, a delightful name for a writer on such a subject, was also anonymous and very popular. 54 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Oddities, issued in twelve parts and bound up together in a volume in 1824. They were a collection of whimsical songs and stories in the rollicking style of Tom and Jerry. Theresa must sometimes have blushed for her masculine cousin. I remember that when a boy I read and re-read Sir Edward Seaward' s Narrative of his Shipwreck and Conse- qitent Discovery of certain Islands in the Caribbean Sea . . . as Written in His own Diary (1831, 3 vols.), which purported to have been " edited by Miss Jane Porter," and to have puzzled my mind with doubts on the genuineness of the events. Wiser heads than mine were in the same quandary. The critical examination of Sir John Barrow, long the Secretary to the Admiralty, enabled him to tell Mr. Yorke, whose mind had been greatly exercised by the work, that " it was a mere romance, in imitation of Robinson Crusoe, neither more nor less than unmingled fiction from first to last, sprinkled with many pious reflections and assuming a solemn and sacred character." In the pages oi the Quarterly Review for December, 1832, Barrow told the literary world of the conclusions which had led to this belief, but even he called it "an interesting and amusing performance " in the school of Defoe and suspected that a naval man had been concerned in the manufacture. Caroline Bowles wrote to Southey that she had " devoured it with youthful appetite." She could not believe that it was a true story, but it deserved to rank with Defoe — indeed, it must rest "on some slender foundation of reality." A second edition came out in 1831, a third in 1841, and several subsequent issues were made, the last being in 1883. Its authorship is uncertain. A very popular volume stole into the world quietly in 1800. It was entitled The Progress of the Pilgrim, Good- Intent, in Jacobinical Times, and the pilgrim was represented as the great-grandson of Christian's eldest son in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The sting of the title lies in the last three words. It was another of the works by which the ladies of those days endeavoured to " check the MORE VEILED LADIES 55 course of false philosophy and anarchical principles." Under the influence of this alarm in aristocratic circles edition after edition came out in London and it was reprinted in Dublin, in Charlestown and in Salem. Sir James Bland Burges, a forgotten politician and author, prefixed to it a memoir, dated in September, 1813, of the writer. This was his sister, Mary Anne Burges, a lady endowed, if the fraternal biography can be trusted, with all the virtues. She taught herself French, Italian, Spanish, German and Swedish. She assisted De Luc in geology, drew up an account of the British Lepidoptera worthy of the " celebrated Marian " [by whom he means Maria Sibylla Merian, who died in 1717], composed music and painted well. Lastly, this feminine Crichton bore a long ihness " with great cheerfulness and resignation." This is one side of the picture ; th^ other appears in a letter of Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, 1808 {Memoir of Mrs. Grant, I. 166), wliere she is called " very learned, but extremely odd. To describe her is impossible and to me 'tis impossible to judge whether her peculiarity of manner is the result of affectation, or some odd habit." She was buried in the pleasant Devonshire village of Awliscombe, near Honiton. Many of us were nurtured in our youth on the food of Mrs. Markham's History of England. She was a Cartwright by birth, second daughter of the vigorous clergyman that invented the power-loom, and by marriage a Penrose, the wife of a Lincolnshire divine. Her name of Markham was taken from the village, near Tuxford in Nottinghamshire, where two maiden aunts lived. The History of England first saw the light in 1823, but its fife was uncertain for some time. Three years passed away before a second issue was demanded. After that date it became one of Murray's most valuable copyrights, and by 1856 no less than 88,000 copies had been sold. Its sale still continued, and it was reprinted down to 1874. The success of one history led to the compilation of another. A companion work, Mrs. 56 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Markham's Histwy of France, first came out in 1828 and was reissued down to 1873, having also been sold in tens of thousands. Across the Atlantic also her books were eagerly welcomed. The popularity of Mrs. Marcet's works rivalled those of Mrs. Markham. She represented the best of the foreign strains in the history of English life. Her father was a rich Swiss merchant who had settled in London, her husband came from Geneva and her daughter married into an eminent family that originally came from Lake Leman. Her scien- tific text-books influenced both young and old. Her anony- mous Conversations on Chemistry (1806) reached a sixteenth edition in this country in 1853, and it was calculated that by that date 160,000 copies had been sold in the United States. Two translations, one in i8og, another in 1825, appeared in France. Then came her anonymous Conver- sations on Political Economy (1816) and Conversations on Natural Philsophy (1819). The first was welcomed in 1824 in a fifth edition, the second in 1872 in a fourteenth edition. A group of scribbling ladies in high life now claims our attention. First among them is Lady Charlotte Bury, daugh- ter of a duke, the duke of Argyll, but compelled by poverty to write for a bare living. Flirtation (1828) was the first of her anonymous novels to achieve any success. It went through tliree editions and its successors were heralded into the world as " by the author of Flirtation." On the death of her first husband in 1809 she was appointed a lady-of- waiting in the household of the ill-fated Caroline, Princess of Wales. Here she had plenty of opportunities for studying the weak- nesses of mankind and womankind. The record which she kept of the httle court's life is believed to have been em- bodied in the Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV, by which a staid world professed to have been scandalized in 1838. Long after her second husband's death she died in a lodging-house at Sloane Street and was curiously entered in the official lists " as daughter of a duke and wife of the MORE VEILED LADIES 57 Rev. E. J. Bury, holding no benefice" [Did. Nat. Biog.). Next comes Lady Caroline Lamb, the daughter of an earl, and the wife of a Prime Minister ; attractive in person and original in conversation, all her acts had in them a touch of insanity. Her famous novel of Glenarvon was written in the middle of the night and her only confidante was a gover- ness. Its interest lay in the caricatures of Byron and of Holland House. A key to the characters is in the copy at the British Museum ; another is in Whishaw's letters. The Comtesse de Boigne says that at a ball given by the Marquess and Marchioness of Anglesey she saw Lady Caroline " hanging lovingly on her husband's arm and distributing the key to her characters with great liberahty " {English trans., II., 151). The yellow hycena, or the pale poet, was Samuel Rogers. Hoiaouskim was John Allen. He was dubbed by her, Lady Holland's " high priest," but among men he is more cornmonly known as that lady's " pet atheist." The novel was produced in 1816 and in the following year it was translated into Itahan. Lady Caroline has been delineated under various names by Disraeli and Lytton. Lady Chatterton was another prolific author among titled ladies, twenty-nine different works being assigned to her. Her first novel called Aunt Dorothy's tale, or Gcraldinc Morton, appeared anonymously towards the end of the sea- son of 1837. She was much amused at the comments on it of the people about her, some of whom asked if she had read it. When the Quarterly Review condescended to say a word or two in praise it " kept her awake all night with joy." For the Quarterly in those days, she naively adds, " owing to the severe criticisms of John Wilson Croker and Lockhart, was extremely formidable." Dacre, a Novel, edited by tJie Countess of Morley (1834), was the composition of Maria Theresa Lister, who later on became the wife of Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Lady Morley was a wit among Whig dames in this, the hour of their supremacy in Society, and her recommendation led to 58 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE a favourable review in the Edinburgh for July, 1834, where- upon the delighted husband, Thomas Henry Lister, wrote to Macvey Napier, the editor, revealing the secret of the author- ship. The volume is not mentioned in the life of Lady Maria Theresa Lewis in the D.N.B., but it is to be found in the catalogue of the British Museum Library under the name of the noble editress. Lister himself, the first Registrar General of England and Wales, was the author of a "clever society novel, called Granhy" (1826), which proved very popular and provoked the publication of at least three other novels " by the author of Granby." Lister was a Whig ; so the Quarterly charged him with plagiarism, an accusation which he warmly denied. Titled ladies were in demand in these days. The man without a name (1852), which was also edited by this witty Countess of Morley, was by Barbarina, the Hon. Lady Grey, wife of the third son of the second Earl Grey. She got £100 for the novel. Mrs. Frederick Sullivan published anonymously in 1833 the Recollections of a Chaperon, and in 1835 Tales of the peerage and peasantry, both of which were edited by her mother, Lady Dacre. For the first of them she was paid £500, with the promise of £200 more should it reach a second edition. Bobus Smith admired its feeling and style ; Sydney Smith praised the tales for containing the manners and conversation of real life (Lyster, a family chronicle) Mrs. Gore was not like most of these ladies, born within the purple, but, alike in quantity and in quality, she was the most successful of these feminine chroniclers of high life. She wrote in 1841 that her most popular novels had been published without her name. One was Mothers and Daugh- ters (1831) ; another bore the captivating title Memoirs of a Peeress, or the Days of Fox (1837), ^^^ ^^^ ^.n additional attraction it was advertised as " edited by Lady Charlotte Bury." By this time as Mrs. Gore's name had been " ap- pended to various translations of her husband's " it had MORE VEILED LADIES 59 become more "hackneyed" than her pen. She determined upon bringing out her novel of Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb (1841) in the same anonymous manner. It at once provoked curiosity, partly through the knowledge of club-Hfe in London, which " Vathek " Beckford liad im- parted to her. It seemed " as if a new star of magnitude had arisen upon the world," and outslione all others, but it proved to be the same old constellation. For a time it did not sell. The publisher " made me refund £60 of the £300 he gave me for it, on the pretence that it was unsale- able," was her bitter cry. Three years later the future Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, then an undergraduate at Exeter College, wrote to his father that a vague rumour prevailed at Oxford " that Aunt Sara wvote A gathonia." He had not seen the book himself, but a quoted passage against priests inspired him with the belief that it might be her composition. It would not do any in- justice to her reputation, for other passages " seem clever and in a clear vigorous style." The father could only say that it was not by her. Agathonia, A Romance (1844) was in fact the creation of Mrs. Gore. An anonymous little volume The History of a six weeks tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, with letters descriptive of a sail round the Lake 0/ Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni, 1817, the work of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, set out the travels of the Shelley party. They began on foot with a donkey for the baggage and for one of the women to ride. The donkey gave way to a mule. Then, as Shelley's ancle would not allow him to walk, they were forced to use a voiture. The volume contained interesting descriptions of the Lakes of Lucerne and Geneva, places then unknown to most English people. The success of her novels carried with it a strange and severe penalty. She brought out anonymously in 1818 her greatest work, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which was issued and reissued down to 1888, and dramatised for the Parisian 6o SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE stage in the summer of 1823. It showed genius, and Sir Walter Scott, then in the height of his fame, contributed a very favourable review of it to Blackwood' s Magazine, observing that it was attributed to Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mr. Garnett says that she could only have risen so far above herself through the magnetic influence of Shelley's brain. Many other novels followed as "by the author of Franken- stein." Their titles were : (i) Valperga (1823), " an historical romance of the fourteenth century " ; (2) The Last Man (1826) ; (3) Fortunes of Pcrkin Warbeck (1830) ; (4) Lodore (1835), a veiled autobiography, and (5) Falkner (1837). By the year of the publication of The Last Man, her personality had been revealed to the reviewers. By one of them Mary Shelley's name was mentioned as the author. This was discovered by Sir Timothy Shelley, and the unhappy woman, then struggling for a living, " was promptly punished by the suspension of her allowance." In her eighteenth year Elizabeth Barrett [Browning] stole into the literary world with an anonymous Essay on Mind, with other Poems. It slumbered for two years, when the Gentleman's Magazine (December, 1828, p. 533) gave a not unkind notice of its contents with the prefatory sen- tences, " These effusions are written by a Miss Barret {sic), a Herefordshire lady. ... It appears also that she is a classical scholar." The essay was pronounced " a most successful imitation of Pope," but the reviewer advised her to improve her " considerable poetic talent " by abandon- ing him as a type. "He leads to false taste, antithesis, and artificial, not natural flowers and does not exclude ideas which, as being abstract, do not belong to poetry." The next reviewer was cast in a harsher mould. Her version of Prometheus Bound, was issued as by the author of an Essay on Mind. It was dismissed in two sentences of contemptuous notice from the Athencemn [June 8, 1833]. This critic recommended " those who adventure in the hazardous lists of poetic translation to touch any one rather MORE VEILED LADIES 6i than iEschylus ; and they may take warning by the author before us." The writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (1833, pt. i., 610-11) again gave a kindly notice, announcing it as the work of " a female pen " and prattling on the days of Dacier and Carter. Evidently there was some one on the staff of this venerable paper that knew the young writer ; probably it was Mitford, its editor. Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese were not intended for the curious. But her husband felt that he could not reserve to himself " tlie finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare's." He persuaded his wife to entrust Miss Mitford with the printing and they appeared in a thin volume of forty-seven pages as Sonnets by E.B.B. with the imprint of " Reading, 1847," and the warning " not for publication." Three years later they were reproduced in her collected poems under their now familiar title of Sonnets from the Portuguese. She had suggested the expression Sonnets translated from the Bosnian, to whet the curiosity of the public for asearch after the originals, but her husband's favourite among her poems was the piece of verse named Catarina to Camoens. He put her fancy on one side, christened them Sonnets from the Portuguese, and in after years applied to her the pet names " Catarina " or " petite Portugaise." The first separate edition of them in the Library of the British Museum is dated in 1887. They have been translated into French (three times) and into Italian. Who remembers now the burning enthusiasm, the wild suggestions, the fierce condemnations that stirred the English mind on the publication of Jane Eyre by Currer Bell ? Lock- hart wrote that all liis household raved about it. " It must be, if not by a man, by a very coarse woman." Kingsley, like Lockhart, exalted its cleverness but condemned the author. She is " far the cleverest that has written since Austen and Edgeworth were in their prime. Worth fifty Trollopes and Martineaus rolled into one counterpane with fifty Dickenses and Bulwers to keep them company, but 62 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE rather a brazen miss." Charles Merivale wrote to his sister proving that the author was a woman. " It is by a woman, because the men's faces are described so intensely — by a young woman, and not a very refined one, from a certain want of acquired delicacy — by a governess, for the governess scenes are the most naturally and easily written — by an acquaintance of Mr. Thackeray's." The second edition of Jane Eyre was dedicated to Thackeray and this set all the curious agog. Even Mrs. Browning wrote to her friend. Miss Mitford, that she had it " in gossip from England," that the novel was the work of a governess in Thackeray's house. Char- lotte Bronte had dedicated her creation to him with heartfelt admiration, and was aghast when she heard that his wife was in the same hapless state as Rochester's wife in her novel. The world knew nothing of this, and the most charitable among them insisted that Jane Eyre must be the product of a governess of the Thackeray girls. Others, who thought them- selves cleverer, attributed its composition to a mistress of his. In an article which gave the author much pain, the reviewer in the Quarterly for December, 1848, Miss Rigby, afterwards Lady Eastlake, condemned its " coarseness of language and laxity of tone," and declared it to be " by no woman and certainly also by no artist," although there was an alterna- tive. Thackeray himself informed a friend that " old Dilke of the AthencBum vows that Procter and his wife between them wrote Jane Eyre, and when I protest ignorance, says, ' Pooh ! you know who wrote it — you are the deepest rogue in England.' I wonder whether it can be true ; it is just possible." Other gossippcrs assigned it to Fanny Kcmble (Mrs. Butler). Never did these people suspect that the brain which devised it belonged to a simple shrinking woman, the daughter of a parson dwelling in the retirement of a Yorkshire village. Lockhart by this time had adopted, if he had not sug- gested, his reviewer's views. " I know nothing of the writers, but the common rumour is that they are brothers of the MORE VEILED LADIES 63 weaving order in some Lancashire town. At first it was generally said Currer was a lady and Mayfair circumstan- tialized by making her the chere amie of Mr. Thackeray. But your skill in dress settles the question of sex. I think, however, some woman must have assisted in the school scenes of Jane Eyre." Lady Eastlake had begun her literary career as Miss Rigby by walking in anonymity. Her first work was a translation of Passavant's account of the art collections of England, the Tour of a German Artist in England, which was published without the translator's name in 1836 (2 vols). She became famous by her descriptions of life in Russia as witnessed by her during her sojourn of two years with a married sister at Reval. Under the title of Letters from the Shores of the Baltic her work passed through several editions. After her husband's death their friends sought to C&nsole her by their letters and their well- meant gifts of books and pamphlets. All these ex- pedients proved inadequate. She sought relief for her own woes in the composition of letters which might soothe the troubles of other mourners. They were published anonymously in March, 1S68, under the title of Fellowship ; Letters addressed to my Sister Mourners. The secret was revealed to the Queen and spread through the highest circles. The book became very popular. A second edition, much enlarged and also anonymous, was published in 1886. A very clever novel, extremely sensational, called Paul Ferroll, was published in 1855 as " by the author of IX Poems by V." and excited widespread interest. Inquiry was at once made for the author's name. G.A.S. — I would suggest that these initials stand for George Augustus Sala — recorded in Notes and Queries tliat he had been informed in America that it was the work of " a lady and the wife of a clergyman " ; the editor at once stated that the novelist's name was Mrs. Caroline Clive. She was the wife of the Rev. Archer Clive, a member of an old county family of Here- 64 SFXRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE fordshire, and he owned the estate of Whitfield in that county. This novel and its sequel, Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife (i860) both passed through several editions. As V. she had written many volumes of poetry. The winter of 1856-7 stands out prominently in the history of the house of Blackwood. It was then that George Henry Lewes introduced the compositions of George Eliot to John Blackwood, and the Scenes of Clerical Life began to appear in the pages of the magazine. Blackwood accepted them with the accustomed caution of a Scot. He even sent some suggestions for improvement to Mr. Eliot, but Lewes warned him of the timid author's diffidence and urged him not to make any objection to the series unless it were vital to their continu- ance. By the spring of 1857 the world had become excited as to the authorship, and speculation for some time was rife. Charles Dickens sent to Blackwood in 1858 his reasons for believing the writer to be a woman. ^ Major Blackwood had been to Richmond to pay Lewes a call, but " G.E. did not show. He is such a timid fellow, Lewes said." A little later, March, 1858, John Blackwood himself " drove to Richmond to see Lewes and was introduced to George Eliot — a woman (the Mrs. Lewes whom we suspected). This is to be kept a profound secret." Of all people in the world Sir Richard Owen had been suspected as the author. He called one day at John Black- wood's lodging in Jermyn Street and saw the brother, who reported to John, " Professor Owen has been here. He is a deuced clever-looking fellow, with a pair of eyes in his head ! I should not wonder if he is the author of Scenes from Clerical Life and had come to unbosom himself." This readiness of assumption sprang from a similarity of handwriting. Blackwood's suspicions had been directed ^ Lord Acton in 1883 wrote to Mary Gladstone that Cross had shown him this letter. " Dickens gives no good reason, and I am persuaded that he had heard the secret from Herbert Spencer, who at once detected it." MORE VEILED LADIES 65 towards Owen by this coincidence in penmanship. Other acute minds thought that Lord Lytton had again discovered a new vein of fiction. Two volumes of Traits of Character, Twenty -five Years Literary and Personal Recollections by a Contemporary, were pubhshed by Hurst & Blackett in i860. They found out soon afterwards that the book contained " some very disparaging and unpleasant comments on the Hon. Mrs. Norton," and the book was suppressed. It was the com- position of Miss Eliza Rennie, a lady who " went by the name of her pseudo-husband, Walker, a vile fellow who had entrapped her into a bigamous marriage " (Crosland, Rambles Round My Life, p. 381). In the minds of most Oxford men the name of Felicia Skene was surrounded by veneration. She published with- out her nam§. in 1852 a volume entitled The Divine Master, which at once hit the mark in popular favour. Some per- sons raised the objection that although it professed to be an original work it was a translation from the French book Lc Divine Maitre. In the preface to a second edition Miss Skene protested that she had never seen that volume or any trans- lation from it. Her book attained its eleventh edition in 1885, and several others of her compositions were committed to popular favour as by the author of The Divine Master. Hidden Depths, in which Miss Skene gave utterance to her strong views on " the social evil," stole into the world anonymously in 1866 in two volumes. It attracted but little notice and most of the copies lay neglected on the publishers' shelves. Nearly twenty years afterwards, when W. Shepherd Allen, an invalid, was seeking fresh health at Bournemouth, he sent to the library for some work to provide relaxation. These volumes were brought to him. He read, admired, and wrote to the publishers for the novelist's name. They demurred to give it, but after some further correspond- ence Miss Skene wrote to him direct, confessing the autlior- ship. Mr. Allen desired to reproduce it in a cheap form, and p 66 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE after he had purchased the copyright for £50 the firm of Hodder & Stoughton was induced in 1886 to undertake the reprint. " Nearly 28,000 copies of this cheap edition were sold in a very short time and about 2,000 given away to societies for promoting the welfare of young women." So Hidden Depths found readers far and wide. Emerson's great desire, when he met Leslie Stephen in 1868, was to learn some details about the Hfe of the lady [Elizabeth Sara Sheppard] who wrote the novel of Charles Auchester. He professed an absorbing admiration for it. Stephen with his blunt directness of speech dubbed it " a very wishy-washy performance." This novel was dedicated to Disraeli, who prophesied that " No greater book wiU ever be written on music." An article entitled, " An Unknown Humorist," by Mr. E. V. Lucas, which was included in the May, 1902, number of the Monthly Review, brought to light the contents of an unfamiliar book. Its name was Country Conversations ; it was written between 1845 and 1864, and its date was 1886, but the preface was subscribed " March, 1881." The volume had never been published, it was printed for private circulation only ; editor and contributor alike had to acknowledge in the August number that they were not justified in dealing with the volume "as if it were public property." Their enquiries ascertained that the authoress " was a lady. Miss Toilet, who died in 1883." These Country Conversations were " a source of keen and continual pleasure to Mr. Gladstone during the last years of his life." My enquiries have failed to produce a copy. Another of these retiring unobtrusive ladies, exercising a great influence over the minds that rioted in the bright day- light of public life, was MaryAnn Dyson, who was buried on the fourth of October, 1878, in the churchyard of Crookham, near Farnham. The name is entered in the British Museum catalogue in connection with Mrs. Valentine's Homehook of Pleasure and Instruction, on the title of which her name MORE VEILED LADIES 67 appears as one of the contributors, but for that work only. Her brother was Charles Dyson, a friend of Keble, Arnold and Cardinal Newman, and Sir Thomas Dyke Acland ; he was a country parson who " for nearly thirty years made the rectory of Dogmersfield the centre of a loving influence, animated by intelligence and guided by wisdom " ; and the best account of his life is given in the Rev. M. C. F. Morris's history of the parish of Nunburnholme, where he was rector from 1818 to 1828. She published without her name the tale of Ivo and Verona, or the Snowdrop (1842), which had in it a flavour of La Motte Fouque and was popular in its day. Besides this she brought out a short " companion " to portions of the Sunday and Saints' Day services, and a few otlier tales, all published anonymously. She liv^ed in quiet and would liave passed away without notice had not tlie late Lord Coleridge, one of those who 'basked in the sunshine of her brother's rectory, written an " In Memoriam, M.A.D.," subsequently inserted in the Monthly Packet, December, 1878, which Newman called " most interesting and touching." Her friendship with Miss Yonge 1 is commemorated in Christabel Coleridge's volume on that lady's life and letters. Poor Mrs. Oliphant was doomed to pass many a long year in the drudgery of composition caused by the troubles of others. A popular venture by her in early years was the anonymous Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait- land, of Sunnyside, Written by Herself (1849, 3 vols.). Other editions of it appeared in 1855 ^^''d 1862, and a continuation, Lillies Leaf, being a Concluding Series of Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, came out in 1855. Her mother assigns to her the authorship of John Drayton and his neighbour, presumably meaning John Drayton, a History of the early life and development of a Liverpool Engineer, 1851, the introduction to which, signed " W. M., Seacombe Street, Everton," refers to himself as Mr. Mit- ^ The anonymous novel of The Heir of Rcdcliffe (1853 ; 17th ed. 1868) formed the foundation of Miss Yonge's fame. 68 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE clicll, and The Mclvillcs, by the author of John Drayton, 1852. Her biographer asserts that they were " novels pubhshed anonymously for the benefit of her brother William, which some ingenious critics have supposed to be written by him." As a matter of fact in the catalogue of the library at the British Museum they are chronicled as the compositions of William Mitchell, novelist. John Blackwood, who knew not the history of these novels, pronounced it good for her " to have an anonymous reputation." Accordingly Katie Stewart, A True Story, was issued in 1853 without her name. Miss Charlotte Maria Tucker for some time maintained very strictly the use of her pseudonym of A.L.O.E., a lady of England. She even requested her publishers to address her as Miss Aloe. She was the daughter of Henry St. George Tucker, Chairman of the East India Company. In 1875 she went' out to India as a'Zenana missionary and died at Amritsar on December 2, 1893. Her first publication, a work for chil- dren, was The Ciaremont Tales. It was sent to Chambers of Edinburgh in November, 1851, but was passed on by them, as outside their range, to Gall & Inglis, by whom it was published soon afterwards. Since then her works have sold in thousands and tens of thousands. The titles of them would fill nine pages of the British Museum catalogue. The author. Miss Margaret Roberts, of Mademoiselle Mori ; A Tale of Modern Rome, published anonymously in i860, is happily still with us. Scores of other volumes by her have come out without her name on the title-page since then and have been eagerly welcomed by the reading public. A volume on Saint Catherine of Siena and Her Times, by the author of Mademoiselle Mori, saw the light in 1906. I doubt whether there is a second instance in modem litera- ture of a lady enjoying an established reputation in the world of letters continuing to publish under the guise of her first great success for forty-six years.i 1 Many of the best-known feminine novelists of the last generation have issued novel after novel uith a reference on the title-page to MORE VEILED LADIES 69 The name of " Edna Lyall " was the best disguise that Miss Ada Ellen Bayly could create by any transposition of the letters of her real name. Her lirst publication was Won by Waiting (1879). Her novel of Derrick Vaiighan, Novelist, reached the total of 23,000 issues in 1889. She was a brave woman and nobly spoke and wrote her tribute of protest against wrong. Four or five years after Edna Lyall began to publish she was obliged to reveal her identity to the world. A woman in Ceylon was proclaiming herself the author of these novels. " She was presumably out of her mind and was the origin of many false reports which caused great annoyance " to Miss Bayly Edna Lyall died young. Her home was at Eastbourne, where she is commemorated in St. Peter's Church. Her ashes rest at the foot of the old cross in Bosbury Churchyard, on the west side of Jihe Malvern Hills, and in the summer the spot is visited by many a pilgrim. Miss Elizabeth Missing Sewell died at Bonchurch on August 17, 1906. In 1846 she issued anonymously a little book, Stories on the Lord's Prayer, for which Burns, then pub- lishing for the Anglicans, gave her the sum of £5. A little later, it became necessary for her to add to the family resources by regular writing. Her famous novel of A))iy Herbert, by a Lady, was then produced and for long years afterwards a succession of popular novels " by the author of Amy Herbert" flowed from the press. Mrs. Charlotte Eliza Lawson Riddell, an Irish lady, made her debut in literature in 1858 l)y publishing a novel The Moors and the Fens, as by F. G. Trafford. She retained this tile work whicli first secured fame for tlicin. Every one soon learnt that "by the author of Lady Audlcy's Secret" was meant Miss Braddon, afterwards Mrs. Maxwell, and that " by the author of John Halifax, Gentleman," concealed the name of Miss Mulock, afterwards Mrs. Craik. Miss Rundic, of Tavistock, who became Mrs. Charles, was " the author of The Schonbcrg-Cotta Family," and " the author of Mary Powell" was Anne Manning, who published nearly fifty works, and all but one were without mention of her name. 70 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE appellation until 1866, by which time George Geith of Fen- court, 1864, had spread her fame far and wide. Many novels came from her pen, the last of them in 1905. In most of her works, " a backgromid of city and commer- cial life " gave her individuality among women writers. Mrs. Riddell died on September 24, 1906. The question of the authorship of Elizabeth and Her German Garden, 1898, 1901, and 1906, piqued the curiosity of those who read. It was renewed in The Solitary Summer, 1899 and 1901. But by 1904, the date of the pubhcation of Adventures of Elizabeth in Rilgen, her name was known. The lady's maiden name was May Beauchamp ; her title in marriage is the Countess of Arnim. Even her husband was ignorant of the publication of her first work. Not until it had proved a success was the secret imparted to him. The title of her first work still retains a pecuniary value. Quite recently there appeared as by " the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden," a volume with the name of Frdulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruthcr, being the Letters of an Independent Woman. Two ladies with fame acquired in anonymity passed away in the same month. Mary Elizabeth Hawker, granddaughter of the well-known Colonel Hawker, died at Broxwood court, Herefordshire, on June 16, 1908. Her pen-name was "Lanoe Falconer," and her novel of Mademoiselle Ixe was the first of the tall thin volumes in yellow paper called " The Pseudonym Library." She revelled in mystery, and as she was partly educated in France her creations, only four in all, had a delicacy of method akin to the best spirit of that land. Mrs. Beynon Puddicombe, known in literature as "Allen Raine," was born at Newcastle Emlyn and died at her home on Cardigan Bay on June 21. Her knowledge of the small farmer's life and surroundings, and the strong touch of re- ligion which animated her, secured for her fictions great popularity in the Principality and wherever Welshmen consort. Her first work was A Welsh Singer, 1897 ; Torn Sails migiit be considered her best. The Man in the Mask amonir Novelists fc> Our great-great-grandmotliers, or the ladies who flourished in the remote generations before them, possessed no novels of English growth. They lacked the resources of The Times Book Chib or of the great firm of Mudie, either of whom can supply the jaded Englishwoman with a new novel for each day in the year in exchange for a trifling sum. Their lot was to be content with adaptations from the Italian or translations from the great Scudery, " Englished by a person of honour," as the grandiloquent phrase ran, but in more direct English, by a garreteer from Drury Lane, who, as a rule, understood neither the language from which he translated nor that in which he wrote. Defoe was the first great writer in fiction whose birth was on English soil. He entered into the domain of imagination at all its entrances. Every disguise became him and endowed him with immor- tality. As a politician, an essayist, a weaver of historical or biographical fiction, his pen was at work in all directions. To track him in his tortuous ways has baffled the energies of more than one man of letters. But tlie subject has an irresistible fascination, and it now holds captive an American professor endowed with both industry and learning. Defoe was born not earlier than 1660 ; the plague w^hich devastated London raged in 1665. But his Journal of the Plague Year (March 17, 1722) which professed, on the title- page, to have been composed from day to day " by a citizen who continued all the while in London " and to ha\'e been 71 72 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE " never made publick before " imposed, from the veri- similitude of the incidents, on the chief medical expert of the day. The Memoirs of a Cavalier or a Military Journal, 1632-48, descriptive of events in Germany and in the Civil War of his own country, though now everywhere acknow- ledged as clothed in the fancy of Defoe, was accepted by thousands, including the Earl of Chatham, as a genuine autobiography. The editor of the second edition, which was printed at Leeds, went so far as to assign its authorship to Colonel Andrew Newport, and the edition printed in 1792 bore that name on the title-page. Subsequent investigation has shown that Newport was born about 1622, while the "cavalier" gives his own birth as 1608, that the narrative contains many errors in fact, and that the anecdotes are in the manner of Defoe. Lord Eliot, then recently ennobled, informed Dr. Johnson in 1784 that the best account of Lord Peterborough — " Peterborough the Post " as he might have been called from his repeated flights from England — was to be found in Captain Carletons Memoirs (published July 27, 1728) Johnson had never heard of this work ; his informant had a copy in the family seat in Cornwall, but he preferred to scour London for another copy to present to him. The sage was " going to bed when it came," but was so much pleased with the first glance that he sat up till he had read it through and found in it such an air of truth that he could not doubt of its authenticity. The young lord had mentioned an English book unknown to Johnson. A second edition, with an altered title-page, came out in the same year (1728) ; it was reprinted in 1741 and 1743 and it was edited by Scott in 1808. Since then the genuineness of this narrative has been a subject of dispute with the learned. Lockhart and Hazlitt assigned the composition of the volume to Defoe. Walter Wilson, one of his biographers, took the same view. Wniiam Lee, another of the experts on Defoe, considers it a true account from Carleton's own pen. This was the THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 73 line of Lord Stanhope, John Hill Burton, and of the writer in the Dictionary of National Biography. On the other hand, Colonel the Hon. Arthur Parnell, after investigating the question with intense persistency, has convinced himself that " Peterborough was the person who conceived its production, paid for its publication, and inspired its central portion." The literary scribe who weaved the materials in the web, he concludes, was Dean Swift [War of Succession in Spain, 1905, Appendix). Defoe's fictions, popular as many of them have been, all pale before the amazing triumph of his Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (ist ed. April 25, 1719)- It is a book which youth reads and old age rereads. It is a glorious perennial, all the more remarkable when we consider that this every boy's book was written by a man over fifty-eight years of age. Seventeen days exhausted the first edition and twenty-five days the second ; the fourth edition came out on the eighth of August. The author sold all his interest in it for a trifle and by it the publisher amassed a fortune. Twelve days after the appearance of the fourth edition Defoe came out with a volume on the Further Adventtcres of Robinson Crusoe, and in the August of 1720 there issued from the press a further volume by him with the title of Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprizing Adven- tures of Robinson Crusoe. This was warmly welcomed, for the sixth edition was published in a little over the year, but while the first of the works of Robinson Crusoe lives and win always live, both of its successors, w^orks in which Defoe traded on its popularity, are dead. The first volume of Robinson Crusoe, so ran the fable, was written by Harley while in the Tower. At this period of history no time need be wasted on such a slander. Few books in the Enghsh language have attained to such fame. Innumerable editions, abridgments and supplements have appeared. It has been edited for school use in general 74 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE and for the use of Catholic schools, revised for young persons, written anew for children, put into words of one syllable, done into shorthand, made a chapbook, dramatized and, worst fate of all ! continued by other hands. Scores of artists, from Stothard and George Cruikshank to J. D. Watson and Ernest Griset, have illustrated it, and it has been provided " with maps and engravings by the hydro- grapher of the Naval Chronicle." Translations have been issued in every European language, in the local dialects of our own country, in Latin and in the language of Brazil. Even an imitation, written in a foreign tongue, has been translated into English scores of times. This is the Swiss Family Robinson, the anonymous work of Johann David Wyss. Version after version came out in this country. It has been retold in English, abridged for use in schools and put into words of one syllable. Illustrated editions have been issued with the artistic aid of Sir John Gilbert, J. Finnemore and a third time by H. Kley. But still it has not that grip over youth that the original Robinson Crusoe enjoys. The incidents in Defoe's conception are natural. In his afterrunner the art is too apparent. These are not all the triumphs that this great work has accomplished abroad. Three enthusiastic Germans at least have ventured upon bibliographies in connexion with it. August Kippenberg printed at Hanover in 1892 a disserta- tion upon Robinson in Deutschland and upon J. G. Schnabel's imitation of Defoe, in which the bibliography occupies an appendix of nineteen pages. Six years later Hermann Ullrich of Chemnitz entered upon tlie history of Defoe's Weltbiich. Part I, issued at Weimar in 1898, is entitled Robinson und Robinsonadcn, bibliographic, gcschichte, kritik, and though it deals only with its bibliography fills no less than 248 pages. Ullrich followed this up by a reprint of Schnabel's work Die insel Felsenburg, to which he added an interesting preface on the history of such literature in foreign countries. A third Defoeite enters upon the field in 1903. THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 75 This was H. F. Wagner, and his contribution to Iiistory, Robinson unci Rohinsonadcn in tinsercv jugcndlitcratuv, was printed at Vienna. Lamb and his friends found an unfailing charm tlu-ougliout their days in the Life and Adventures of Peter Witkins, a Cornish- man, by R. S., which was adorned with very finely engraved copperplates by Louis Peter Boitard, " a passenger in the Hector, 1751." It was placed first in his list of the " classics " which were enjoyed by the boys at Christ's Hospital in his time, and he refers in his Sonnet to T. Stothard, Esq., to that artist's illustrations in the British Novetists of " that most romantic tale." When writing to his old friend, Barron Field, in New South Wales, on " Distant Correspondents " he pleads guilty to the self-accusation of not being able to image " where you are. Wlien I try to hx it Peter Wilkins's Island comes- across me." Leigh Hunt refers to it in several of his works, suggesting that the name of Peter Wilkins, the shipwrecked voyager, who found a people using wings, might have been derived from Wilkins, the Bishop of Chester who advocated the possibility of flying, and arguing that the novel might have been written by Abraham Tucker or Bishop Berkeley. Southey acknowledged that he was indebted to " this work of great genius " for his conception of the Glendoveers in the Curse of Kehama (bk. vi), adding that Coleridge and Scott " thought as highly of it as I do." The work passed through many editions and was translated into French and German. When attention was drawn to this romance by Lamb and his set the play-writers realized its aptness for the stage. It was dramatised in 1827 for Covent Garden and in i860 for Drury Lane. Three times was it the subject of a Christmas pantomime and the first of them was at Sadler's Wells in 1800. The agreement for the purchase of the original manuscript was discovered on the sale in 1835 of Dodsley's copyrights and manuscripts, when Robert Paltock of Clement's Inn was disclosed as the author. Further 76 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE investigation brought out the fact that a person of that name was buried in the Dorset Church of Ryme Intrinseca in March, 1767, aged 70, and that he was probably the creator of the romance {AthencBum, August 16, 1884). With that circumstance our knowledge of him ceases. The incidents in the tales of Boccaccio have been incor- porated in English literature. Upon them were based many of the plays and the fictions of the Tudor period. His works, especially the Decameron, were often prosified and versi- fied down to a much later date. A good translation of that work, said to be the " only good translation in English," crept into the world anonymously in 1741. From the statement of Samuel Pegge, his companion in the Grammar School at Chesterfield, we know it to have been the work of Charles Balguy, M.D., of Peterborough. "This translation," says Mr. R. F. Scott, the biographer of St. John's College at Cambridge, " is the standard Enghsh translation of Boccaccio, and has been several times reprinted with al- terations (generally for the worse) and without acknow- ledgment." The life of Dr. Balguy has been told by S. O. Addy in the journal of the Derbyshire Archaeologi- cal Society, volume VI. The same year (1741) witnessed the anonymous publica- tion of one of Samuel Richardson's works. This was a volume of 173 " letters written to and for particular friends on the most important occasions, directing not only the requisite style and forms to be observed in writing familiar letters, but how to think and act justly and prudently in the common concerns of human life," which two of the London booksellers had suggested to him as models for the use of the illiterate. Mrs. Barbauld mentions it as a favourite book in the servants kitchen drawer, and very epigrammatically adds that when its pages detained the eye of the mistress she wondered all the while " by what secret charm she was induced to turn over a book apparently too low for her perusal, and that charm was — Richardson." THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 77 The first two volumes of his anonymous Pamela are also dated in 1741. He turned aside from the composition of the Familiar Letters to write them. The ladies vied with one another in their praises, and some one taking the names of Conny Keyber (an obvious parody of Colley Gibber, and it has been suggested a disguise for Fielding) was so angry at the popularity of the work as to bring out a parody called An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews. The success of Pamela prompted a spurious continuation with the taking title of Pamela in High Life, whereupon Richardson wrote two more volumes. The novel was soon dramatised in England and in Italy. Clarissa Harloive, or The History of a Yomig Lady, pub- lished by the Editor of Pamela, saw the light in the years 1747 and 1748 in the substantial shape of eight volumes. War- burton, then fSr advanced on the high road towards the chief preferments that the English Church supplies, wrote a preface, and the volumes were translated into every European lan- guage. Richardson's fame reached its highest point in France, where Diderot ""gushed over his merits and Rousseau adopted him as a model. Clarissa was his conception of womanly merit, and his next composition — The History of Sir Charles Grandison, by the editor of Pamela and Clarissa, 1754 — was designed to exhibit all the graces of mankind. Its fame has not lasted so long as that of its predecessors, but the sale at that time was at least equal to theirs. The hero's name gave a new word to the language. " Grandi- sonian " is an epithet which has been used by Carlyle and Stevenson. Richardson's Pamela suggested another parody undoubt- edly the work of Fielding. This was the famous History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend, Mr. Abraham Adams (February, 1742, 2 vols.), which purported with great solemnity to have been written " in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote.'' It ran into a ninth edition in 1769 and has been often reprinted 78 SFXRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE since that date. George Criiikshank's illustrations, which originally appeared in an edition in 1832, were reproduced in that of 1904. A French translation was eagerly bought up in 1750. In after years Fielding's name was often used at home and in France by inferior imitators who wished to palm off upon the innocent public their works as his own.^ Fielding's sister, Sarah, wrote as " by a lady," a popular novel, with the alluring title of The Adventures of David Simple, containing an account of his travels Through the cities of London and Westminster in the Search of a Real Friend, 1744 (2 vols.). To the second edition her brother contributed a preface in which he repudiated several anony- mous works, especially the Causidicade, a forgotten political satire which had been assigned to his pen. Miss Fielding's novel was twice translated into French and was twice imputed by our lively neighbours to Henry Fielding. It was so popular that most of her other works were ushered into literary society as " by the author of David Simple." One of these was rendered into German in 1759. Smollett had a great attraction for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. His broad humour and the rollicking adventures which he recounted, appealed to her experience of life. She had been born in the days of Afra Behn and Mrs. Centlivre and their spirit had not passed from her. Four years after Smollett's first novel had been published she was still ignorant of the author's name. " There is something humorous in R. Random " — how odd the omission of the Christian name of Roderick makes it sound — " that makes me believe that the author is H. Fielding," she writes to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, in 1752. Three years later she was still in ignorance. In 1755 she exclaims, " I am sorry not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances ; I wish you ^ Mr. James Tregaskis, of High Holborn, London, printed in his Caxton Head Catalogue of second-hand books (No. 648, May 4, 1908) a receipt from Henry Ficltling, which showed that he was the anony- mous translator of The Military history of Charles XII, by Gustavus Adlerfeld, translated into English (1740, 3 vols.). THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 79 would tell me his name." A few months afterwards the subject again occurs to her. " I guessed R. Random to be Fielding's, though without his name. I cannot think Fathom wrote by the same hand ; it is every way so much below it." The names of Fielding and Smollett suggest a third, that of Sterne. The Sentimental Journey thyough France and Italy (1768, 2 vols.) bore on its title-page the words "by Mr. Yorick." 'Twere hard to tell whether the journey was more popular in France or England. The number of editions in the former country has been enormous. It has been honoured by the highest excellence in French pictorial illustration. To this period belongs the anonymous History of Ponipcy the Little, or the life and adventtires of a Lap-Dog. Its first issue was in 175 1 ; its fifth in 1773, and it was twice trans- lated into French (1752 and 1784). Fashionable society was very inquisitive as to the authorship, and Horace Wal- pole was not the least of its members in curiosity. Gray wrote to him that it was " the hasty production of a Mr. Coventry (cousin to him you know), a young clergyman"; he had found out the secret "by three characters, which once made part of a comedy that he showed me of his own writing. " Gray was right. It was the work of Francis Coventry, who died about 1759 when he was about 33 years of age. Richard Cumberland screened himself under the anony- mous in more fields of authorship than one. In 1767 his family pride revolted at a passage in which Lowth, the Bishop of Oxford, criticised the character of his grandfather, the great Bentley, in whose lodge at Trinity College he was born and with whom he passed many periods of childish life. He rushed into the fray with A Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of d " signed by " a member of the university of Cambridge." It went through two full editions, and Cumberland sunned himself with the belief that the verdict of the reading world was in his favour. 8o SFXRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE On another' occasion Dr. Parr had hurled a thunderbolt at a neighbouring clergyman, the Rev. Charles Curtis, rector of Solihull, in Warwickshire. The subject was dis- cussed at one of the immortal dinner-parties given by Dilly, the publisher in the Poultry. It fell to Cumberland's lot " to turn out against Ajax," and out he came with the pun- ning title Curtius Rescued from theGulphor the Retort Courteous to the Rev. Dr. Parr, 1792. Some years previously when " passing a few idle weeks at Brighthelmstone " without any books but those of a circulating novel-shop he added one more work to their list with an anonymous story called Arundel, 1789 (3rd ed. 1795), and by its success was drawn into the composition of a second venture. He under- took a new class of literary composition when at the request of a great lady he composed the defence of the unfortunate Robert Perreau, which without the alter- ation of a syllable, was read by him at the bar. This was praised by Garrick the same evening with such rapture that Cumberland's vanity was strongly moved to tell him the secret. Afterwards Garrick, when knowing the circumstances, restrained his praises. Probably, thought the cunning Cumberland, because it " was not good policy in him to overpraise a writer for the stage." Henry Mackenzie lived to be a link between the old world and the new, for he was born in 1745 and died in 1831, the year before the Reform Bill. He was brought up as an Edinburgh solicitor, but became a legal official in Scotland, first as Attor- ney for the Crown, then as Comptroller of Taxes. About 1768 or 1769 he turned aside from his vocation and wrote the Man of Feeling, which he sent to his friend William Strahan, to print or reject. The work was of such a new character that the publisher desired the opinion of a literary expert, who took the manuscript with him to Bath and lost it. Here it fell, as will be told in a later chapter, into the hands of another who appropriated it as his own. It was published anonymously for T. Cadell in 1771 and made a THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 8i great impression on the minds of the sentimental. Edition after edition came out, and it was translated into Polish. This description of a sickly sentimentalist was followed in 1773 by its contrast, the narrative of a rascal, which was also anonymous and entitled The Man of the World. Its success fell short of the preceding work, and it was ignored in the advertisement of his next venture, Julia de Rouhigne, by the Author of the Man of Feeling, 'LJjy. In^this, his third work, a novel in letters suggested by Lord Kames, the author depicted the misfortunes which may fall on the blameless. It was warmly welcomed, passed through several editions in tliis country, and was translated into French. A translation of Mackenzie's works into French (5 vols.) was published in 1825. The " gothic romance " of the Castle of Otranto (December 1764) marked the dawn of a new era, the romantic revival in fiction. It purported to be " translated by William Marshal, gent., from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto." The existence of tlie black-letter original was accepted as gospel on all sides. No one suspected Horace Walpole of the author- ship until he divulged the secret in a second edition. A little piece by him had proved very popular in 1757. This was A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese philosopher at London to his Friend, Lien Chi, at Pekin. If it is true that Walpole wrote it in an hour and a half, easy writing for once did not prove hard reading. Five editions were absorbed in a fortnight. Mystery and secrecy exercised a wonderful fascination over the mind of William Beckford, " England's wealthiest son." One of liis volumes was the Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, 1780, an anonymous volume containing farcical memoirs of fictitious artists whom he in- vented and to whom he gave ludicrous names. It was written in ridicule of the Vies des Peintres Flamands, and it could not, one would have thought, have imposed on the credulity of any G 82 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE man, woman, or child, but it is said to have deceived the old housekeeper who used to show the family collection of pictures. Beckford travelled abroad, saw the Grand Chartreuse in 1778, spent much time in Italy in 1780 and 1782 and in 1787 visited Spain and Portugal. An attractive account of his earlier travels, made up of letters which he had composed from time to time, was issued, without his name, in 1783 under the title of Dreams, waking Thoughts and Incidents^ in a Series of Letters from various Parts of Europe. In after life he used to say that his book of Dreams gave him " disagreeable waking thoughts," and all but six copies were destroyed. These letters, with some omissions, formed the first volume of Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal by the author of Vathck, 1834, 2 vols., and the second volume was devoted to the Iberian peninsula. The opening sentence of the advertisement " some justly admired authors having con- descended to glean a few stray thoughts from these letters ' ' is a caustic reference to the use which Rogers and others made of them. " The author of Vathek " sums up Beckford's glory. As an eastern tale " it far surpasses all European imitations," said Byron, and those best acquainted with Oriental coun- tries will hardly believe that it is the product of an English- man. Part of it was written when Beckford was less than twenty-two years old, but the statement that its composition cost him " three days and two nights of hard labour," during which he never took off his clothes, is the voluntary deception of this man of mystery. He composed the tale in French, and it was turned into English by the Rev. Samuel Henley. Unknown to the author, who was then abroad, the translation was published by Henley without a name as An Arabian Tale from an unpublished Manuscript, with Notes Critical and Explanatory (1786). This act was manifestly improper, and the motive was possibly the vanity of author- ship. S.W. — the initials are those of Stephen Weston — sug- gested that the piece had been " composed as a text for the THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 83 purpose of giving to the public the information contained in the notes." S. H. [Samuel Henley] retorted that Vathek was the " translation of an unpublished manuscript," and that the notes were put together after " a great part of the text was printed " {Gentleman's Magazine, 1787, pt. i, pp 55, 120). Beckford was furious at this breach of confidence, and printed the manuscript, as it was originally written, at Lausanne, and a corrected text at Paris. It was issued and re-issued, both singly and in collections of novels. It has been reprinted (1876 and 1893) from the original French, with a preface by Stephane Mallarme, a well-known poet and critic of Paris. Anastasius, or the Memoirs of a Greek, written at the close of the Eighteenth Century, and published anonymously in 1819 in three volumes, was the work of a man born wealthy like Beckford, who, unlike his forerunner, kept his wealth to the last. "Thomas Hope, too, travelled mucli in European countries about 1790, and devoted himself, as his rival did, to the amassing of books and works of art. It was a long time before Beckford could believe that Anastasius was written by him. Hope had exhibited " less apparent capacity for the production of so fine a thing than any author he had known " (Redding, Beckford 11. 327). Some positively disbelieved. " Hope may say what he chooses, but I know that he is not bona fide the author of Anastasius '' [Wm. Blackwood and his Sons, i. 498). It was well known who " wove the final web," but they allowed him the benefit^of the " idiotic dedication." They added that his work on costume was so badly put together that Longmans employed some one to re- write it. These assertions were repeated in public and in private with such persistency that Hope had publicly to claim the authorship. Society had assigned it to Byron, who alleged that on reading it he had wept bitterly, first because he had not himself written it, and then because Hope had. Waverley, or 'tis Sixty Years since, appeared anonymously 84 SFX.RETS OF OUR NATIONAT. LITERATURE in 1814. It had been begun by its author in 1805 — hence the " sixty years " dating back to 1745 on the title-page — but on adverse criticism from Wilham Erskine was dropped, was resumed in 181 1, and again dropped, this time through the discouragement of John Ballantyne, and in the last three weeks of June, 1814, the two concluding volumes were written. It was published on July 7, 1814. Edition after edition passed through the press, and other works proceeded from the same pen with a regularity in production and a success in popular favour such as the world had never before wit- nessed. The words " by the author of Waverley " ensured for long years an unequalled popularity for all his novels. The secret of the authorship did not long remain unknown. Sydney Smith at once communicated to Jeffrey his suspicion " that it was written by Miss Scott of Ancram." Murray the publisher believed in the authorship of Thomas Scott, then in Canada, and this view was maintained on page 155 of the Gentleman s Magazine for August 1818. Some people attributed them to Sir Alexander Boswell, " the son of Johnson's biographer " and a man of taste and talent. Whishaw in his letters speaks of an unknown Mr. Green- field as the suggested author. Others mentioned " young Harry Mackenzie, George Forbes, Sir William's brother," Jeffrey, or Mrs. Thomas Scott, as the author. But most of the discerning minds in literature quickly fastened on Walter Scott as the begetter of these noble works, and by the time that he openly confessed, the secret had been divulged privately to about twenty persons, including Lady Louisa Stuart, to whom it was imparted very early in 1815. Mrs. Hughes of Uffington twice charged him with the crime, but he denied it. "I really assure you I am not the author of the novels which the world ascribes to me so pertinaciously ' ' was his reply. Denial was in vain. If by this time proof had been necessary, it had been given by John Leycester Adolphus in his anonymous volume of Letters to Richard Heber, Esq., containing Critical Remarks on the Scries of THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 85 Novels beginning with Waverley, and an Attempt to Ascertain their Author, which conclusively showed that they were written by Walter Scott. The name of Thomas Scott as the author was revived many years later. Its re-creator was W. J. F., the William John Fitzpatrick who, in after life, produced many volumes of Irish biography. His contributions appeared in Notes and Queries, and in two pamphlets entitled Who Wrote the Waverley Novels P (1856, 2 vols.). He was supported by an antiquary living at Bolton in Lancashire (Mr. Gilbert James French), who collected from a local paper and printed for presentation in that year a series of letters which he had written in support of this contention. The first five volumes of The Doctor came out anonymously, and Southey, for some months after the appearance of the first volume" in 1834, took great pains to put the literary world in scent of the authorship on the wrong track. He wrote to Mrs. Bray, January 30, 1834, that a copy had been sent to him. At a first glance he suspected Isaac D'Israeli but the style was too " easy and good." Rogers came next into his mind, but he had not " the Cervantic humour, and, moreover, he is a Dissenter." Then he thought of old Mathias, on the strength of the Italian quotations, but finally fixed on Frere, " for in liim all the requisites are united." To Sir Henry Taylor, who knew the secret, he sent a letter which was meant to be shown and was shown. He would, it asserted, have assigned The Doctor to the young DTsraeli had it been " more objectionable and offensive on the score of personalities." The sort of promiscuous reading in the book resembled that of the father, but the style was too good. He then babbles of old Mathias concocting it in his sunny retreat at Naples, and from the quotations and opinions concludes that it must be his handiwork. Southey told Lockhart that a copy had reached him at Keswick, and that he could not himself guess at tlie author, but had at once jumped at the suggestion that it was the 86 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE work of Frere, who possessed the necessary " wit, the humour, the knowledge, and the consummate mastery of style." Henry Coleridge told Lockhart that he knew the author, whereupon Lockhart writes to Milman " can it be, after all, Hartley Coleridge or De Quincey ? They both have lived much with the elder Lakers and may either of them have been Boswellising as to stories as well as opinions. I could have sworn Southey wrote the bit about Lord Lauder- dale and the chimney-sweeps — and now believe he spoke it." Milman's reply was " The Doctor must be Southey 's. He told me the story of Thistlewood, which appears there totidem verbis, when we met at dinner at Murray's. I confess that the gleams of genuine Southeyism appear to me faint, as far as his nobler qualities go ; much of the art is his and style." Southey continued weaving the web of suggestions. This time he conveyed them to J. W. Warter, his son-in-law. Sharp, " conversation " Sharp, was to be mentioned as a possible author on account of his " choice language in conver- sation and in relating a story, and the likelihood that he may have thus loosely put together the disconnected prepara- tions "which he had made for a periodical paper. To Mrs. Hodson — a bundle of his autograph letters to her, fifty-five in all, was on sale by Maggs brothers in November, 1906 — he went so far as to say that he might have suspected some parts to be his own. Another " nominable person " was William Bankes, and there was also Theodore Hook. Later on he amused himself by sending to Hook all the letters on the subject that came to the author of The Doctor, and once wrote him with thanks for a copy of The Doctor [Quarterly Review, May, 1843, pp. 107-8). In April, 1834, Charles Wynn was informed by Southey that " it amuses me to find myself suspected " of the author- ship. " Rogers' Italy was given to me in like manner before it was claimed by the author." Nearly two years later he wrote to Mrs. Hughes " that the author turns out to be a THE ]\rAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 87 Scotchman and a bitter enemy of the Enghsh church. At least this is positively affirmed." But Southey had doubts, and he went on to remark that Edward Dubois, a forgotten wit, had been named, and that " at Doncaster the Rev. Erskine Neale has the credit of the book." With such suggestions pouring upon him from all sides Lockhart was duped into the behef that the work was not written by Southey. It was reviewed in the Quarterly for March, 1834, with high praise for the better parts, but with the strong condemnation for two-thirds that " they might have been penned in the vestibule of Bedlam." Southey, Frere, Isaac DTsraeli — all these are mentioned in turn as suggested authors, but all are dismissed. Sir Egerton Brydges was possible, but then came the " frequent recurrence of passages indicating a happy and serene temper of mind," and this gif-t the sensitive baronet did not possess. Was it " a joint-stock performance," and was Hartley Coleridge the chairman of the company ? The reviewer in the Gentleman s Magazine, after premising that " Southey would have been more learned, Mr. Frere more polished, and Mr. DTsraeli more amusing," jumped to the same conclusion that it was the work of Hartley Cole- ridge. By November, 1835, wisdom had come, " aut Sou- theius aut Diabolus " was the cry of the third volume's reviewer, evidently John Mitford {Gentleman's Magazine, 1835, pt. II, pp. 517-20). Southey had long before this period published, under the assumption of a foreign title a description of his own country. This was Letters from England by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, translated from the Spanis/i, 1807, 3 vols. It was reprinted in the next year, and by 1814 had reached a fifth edition. Two editions came out in America before the end of 1808. In 1817 it was translated into French, and from that version there appeared in 1818 a German translation. The letters were sprightly. Jane Austen writes : " I read it aloud by candlelight. The man describes 88 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE well, but is horribly anti-English. He deserves to be the foreigner he assumes." The novels of Thomas Love Peacock are warmer favour- ites with the past than with the present generation, but minds " innocent and quiet " will at all times be capti- vated by their humour and erudition, mingled in his later efforts with an amusing if insurmountable prejudice. Head- long Hall is dated in 1816, and a long string of his anony- mous works succeeded. Among them were Melincourt (1817), Nightmare Abbey (1818), Maid Marian (1822), Crotchet Castle {18^1). After a great interval, one of thirty years, came his last effort in fiction, Gryll Grange (1861). G. R. Gleig, long known to us as chaplain-general of the forces, began life as an officer in the army, and served in the Peninsular campaigns of 1813 and 1814. He is said by Lady Dorothy Nevill to have carried the colours of his regiment at Waterloo. After the reduction of the forces consequent upon the peace of 1815 he took orders in the English church. In 1824 he began a series of articles descriptive of his own military career under the Duke, which Blackwood called " The Subaltern," and in 1825 issued as a separate publication. Croker was curious as to the author- ship, and instigated Lockhart into asking the author whether he had any objection to the secret of the paternity being revealed. The answer of Gleig left it to Lockhart's discretion . Croker was told ; he confided the information to the Duke of Wellington, and the Duke thought so highly of it that he accepted the dedication of the subsequent editions. With such patronage the volume became popular, an edition appearing so late as 1872, and most of Gleig's other works bore the words " by the author of the Subaltern." A very popular work after the French War was the anonymous The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome, with an account of his campaigns on the Peninsula and in Pall Mall, 1815. The author was Lieutenant-Colonel David Roberts, and a few days before his death he had given the THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 89 finishing touches to a second part. Truth to say, the poem was a sort of Doctor Syntax, and both verses and illustra- tions, which were drawn by the " facetious " Rowlandson, were a trifle coarse in conception. Still, the volume reached a second edition, and elicited in 1818 a companion work on The Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the Navy. When E. J. Trelawny had completed his early reminis- cences he sent the MS. to Mary Shelley for her friendly revision. She was to take it to " Murray and Colburn, or any other publisher," but on no account to trust the pub- lisher with his name. The author would at once be recog- nized, and the same publisher should have the "' second series which treats of Byron, Shelley, Greece, etc., which will at once remove the veil." She did her part well, and the book was published anonymously in 1831 by Colburn, with the happy title. The Adventures of a Younger Son that he had suggested. Though not at first a financial success it was often reprinted and translated into French and Ger- man. Inaccurate in some parts and over-coloured through- out, the work shows a marvellous power of description. It is to be hoped that Colburn did not in his estimate include the profits of the second series, for this, with an account of Shelley such as the world will never see again, did not come out until 1858. The woes of writers have often been delineated. Some day perhaps a publisher will tell of the troubles of his class with the prickly porcupines among authors. A swarm of anonymous authors has settled on Black- wood's Magazine at all times, but never were the writers more distinguished than at this period. Lockhart himself was the leader in mystification. Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, a caustic pourtrayal of society at Edinburgh, seems to have had its birth in 1819, and the next two years were spent in duping publisher and reader about their reputed author, an unknown -and-kept-in-the-background "Dr. Peter Morris." A review professedly of the first editicjn appeared 90 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE in the magazine for February and March, i8ig, which Lock- hart and his coterie whispered into credulous ears was the work of Scott. But this was a cunning device, and in fact there was no first edition, the first actual publication being palmed on the public as the second edition, a trick which since that date has often been adopted with success by the evening papers in London. The title was suggested by Scott's anonymous volume of Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk (1816), describing his visit to Flanders and France. William Blackwood attached an enormous value to the anonymous novel of Pen Owen, but who now has ever heard of it, much less read it ? He begged for the return of the original manuscript, which he " would feel proud ... to leave to his eldest son," and he paid ;^iooo for the copyright, but the book fell comparatively flat. Even less success attended a second work, Percy Mallory by the same author. His name was James Hook, the Dean of Worcester, brother of Theodore Hook and father of Dr. Hook, long prominent in the eccle- siastical world as the vicar of Leeds, and dean of Chichester. Sam Warren's best-known works were anonymous and came out in Blackwood. The first of them was the Passages from the diary of a late Physician, which imposed from its verisimilitude upon many an unwary reader. It ran through that magazine at intervals between 1830 and 1837. The first volume was printed separately in 1832, the third, which bore his name on the title-page, in 1838, and they were translated into more than one European language. Warren had studied medicine at Edinburgh, and possessed great powers in concocting scenes and situations. These extracts from a medical diary, until they were claimed by their author, were attributed to several physicians of distinction. Still more successful, though its serious parts often bordered on the farcical, was the novel of Ten Thousand a Year, which also came out in Blackwood. The vagaries of Tittle- bat Titmouse, the sharp practices of the rascally attorneys, Quirk Gammon and Snap (a firm ranking in popular estima- THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 91 tion with that of Dodson and Fogg) still possess a charm for the novel reader. Many of the characters in it are but thinly disguised. Subtle was Scarlett, Quicksilver stood for Brougham, Crystal was Sir Cresswell Cresswell and Lord Widdrington was intended for Lord Tenterden. Its success in 1841 was beyond all expectation. It was translated into all the principal languages of the continent, was republished in England down to 1884 and 1887, and in New York so late as 1903. Warren's vanity was a subject of constant jest. His novel was anonymous, but he was curious to know what the world thought of it, and wished every one to know that it was his. He asked one day a sprightly serjeant in the law if he had any idea of the author. His learned friend seized the opportunity with the playful remark, " Well, Warren, there are not many to whom I would entrust the secret, but it i§ safe to do so to you. The truth is, I wrote it myself." Scott thought that he had detected the hand of Lockhart in the composition of The Owcw, which he pronounced " a very beautifully written but melancholy tale." He had not read two pages when he exclaimed to his daughter, " l^ook, Eras- mus aut Diahulus." She remarked that it had been adver- tised as by Wilson, but the verdict of the family was that the style and thoughts were more like those of Lockhart, " more elegant and simple than he is when he sets about sentiment." It turned out to be the work of John Gait, and Scott gave it high praise in a review which appeared in Blackwood. Gait published many anonymous or pseudonymous works. Among them was the Wandering Jew, or the travels and ob- servations of Hareach, the Prolonged, 1820, which purported to have been written by the Rev. T. Clark, the reason being that Gait wished to conceal the use made in the compilation of his former works. It exhibited a view of society from the destruction of Jerusalem, and Gait thought it " a very curious volume full of striking incidents and displaying erudition." 92 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE He naively expressed his surprise that though it was never reviewed, two considerable editions had been sold. " Many of my own far inferior productions in originality and beauty have been much applauded, and yet I doubt if they have sold so well." The opening letters of the sentences of the " Conclusion," pp. 435-8, make up the words " this book was written by John Gait." In 1844 there appeared, in the conventional guise of three octavo volumes, an anonymous novel oi Albert Ltincl, or the Chateau of Langueduc, which was printed by Charles Knight and dedicated to Samuel Rogers. Lady Georgiana Chatter- ton was breakfasting with Rogers when he received from the author. Lord Brougham, the dedication copy. It was at once handed to her with the injunction to read it quickly " and not breathe a word as to the author." By the next evening the volumes had been devoured and this was lucky, for by that time Brougham had repented of his action and had sent to Rogers for his copy. So rigidly was the work suppressed that only five copies are said to have got abroad, one being in the British Museum Library, and their value in the book-market rose to a high figure. The rest of the impression, a thousand or so, was deposited by Brougham in a cellar, and on his death was disposed of, the copies being placed on the market as published by C. H. Clarke. The value of the work at once dwindled to a few shillings. x^bout this time the novel of Dr. Hookwell, or the Anglo- Catholic Family (1842, 3 vols.) attracted much attention. Most of the literary members of the Tractarian party were credited with its authorship. It was fathered in turn upon Mr. Gladstone, Bishop Wilberforce, Monckton Milnes and Lord John Manners. However, they were all of them guilt- less of the authorship. Its parent was the Rev. Robert Armitage, an English clergyman living in quiet seclusion on his remote rectory of Easthope in Shropshire. For several years after this date successive volumes " by the author of Doctor Hookwell " were ensured of a favourable reception. THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 93 Among them was one on the " rehgioiis life and death " of Dr. Johnson. When DisraeH was engaged in the composition of Vivian Grey he consulted Mrs. Benjamin Austen, of Bloomsbury Square, the wife of Plumer Ward's solicitor, for hints, and she arranged with Colburn the terms of publication. She had before this rendered similar services to Ward himself, whose once-famous novels of Treniaine and Dc Vere were also anonymous, and Colburn is said to have thought that Ward, a man of recognized talent and position in society, was the author of this new venture.^ Under this belief he " gave three times as much as he would otherwise have done " [Wni. Blackwood and His Soiis, by Mrs. Oliphant, i. 507). Whatever was the bargain that the cunning Col- burn made with this attractive dame, he more than repaid himself by the success of the work. The Rev. T. S. Hughes, a well-known bookmaker, wrote to Samuel Butler, then the headmaster of Shrewsbury School, to read it, as he wished to give Butler " the best treat of the kind he ever had in his life." Sir Walter Scott, on the other hand, noted in his journal that the volume which he had read was " clever, but not so much as to make me in this sultry weather go upstairs to the drawing-room to seek the other volumes." Bulwer Lytton's long web of authorship was woven in mystery. The anonymous novel of Falkland (1827), which did not bring the publisher a fortune and has long been for- gotten, was followed by Pclham, which was brought out in the same style, but with marked success. This passed through edition after edition at home, and was translated into nearly every European language. One bytouch of its success is still remembered. From that time until now, a period of eighty years, it has made a black coat the inevit- 1 This was not the sole instance in which Ward's name was made use of. P. G. Patmorc's Chatsivorth was issued anonymously as edited by the author of Tremaine and Dc Verr, and the world jumped to the conclusion that it was wrillen by Ward. 94 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE able costume of an English gentleman in the evening. Sir Walter Scott asked Lockhart who wrote it, praising " the light as easy and gentleman-like, the dark very grand and sombrous " but condemning a " slang tone of morality which is immoral." The reply was characteristic : " Pelham is writ by a Mr. Bulwer, a Norfolk squire and horrid puppy." From 1828 onwards a string of novels, romantic and his- torical, was unrolled without any name on their title-pages, which were speedily recognized as by the pen of Lytton. Such were Devereux, Eugene Aram, Godolphin, and The Last Days of Pompeii, and many another. The Caxtons published with his name gave him a new and a higher set of admirers. This came out in Blackwood' s Magazine, and it had followers in My Novel and What Will he do With it ? both of which appeared as the composition of Pisistratus Caxton. Another style was adopted by him with equal success in his satirical dream of the future, the anonymous novel of the Coming Race (1871). In two years it sped through six editions, imposing upon critic and reader alike. Lytton was in great glee when he found that it was attri- buted to Sir Arthur Helps. The volume was dedicated to Max Miiller, who " tried very hard to discover the author of it, but in vain." Only by A. K. H. B. was the writer sus- pected. A copy was sent to him by Blackwood and he pro- nounced it by Lytton, though " the book was very unlike the Caxtons, doubtless." The secret of the authorship was not divulged until after Lytton's death. ^ While Lytton was dying at Torquay in the winter of 1873 the anonymous novel of the Parisians was coming out in the numbers of Blackwood's. Few suspected its authorship, many attributed it to Laurence Oliphant from " the Picca- dilly-like social touches and the intimate knowledge of Parisian life. Blackwood would smile and say nothing. " It ^ His son, the second Lord Lytton, first appeared in print as Owen Meredith. There was a family tradition that Anne Meredith, who married a Lytton, was the sister or niece of Owen Tudor. THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 95 was to have been published without a name, and this mystery would have invested it with still greater attraction, but Loid Lytton's death rendered this unnecessary. When this severe condemnation of Parisian society in the sixties was published in book-form, the curious world learnt the name of its begetter. After the domestic differences of Lytton and his wife had ended in estrangement, she sought revenge in depicting her husband as the villain of the novel Cheveley, or The Man of Honour {yd ed. 1839), which she published with her name. A retort somewhat too obvious was made, by some un- known satellite, in Lady Cheveley, or The Woman of Honour (2nd ed. 1839). The recollection of these titles gave the name to the ambitious design of The Cheveley Novels (1878-79, 4 vols,). Blackwood expected great things from them, and they were launched, in emulation of the ambitious authors of the day, in -shilling monthly parts illustrated. But the vehemence was overdone and they failed of their purpose. Their anonymous author is stated to be Mr. Valentine Dur- rant, who printed at Dover in 1870 the high-sounding pro- duction of Inez the Queen. Thoughts of Poesy plaeed on record in Guise of Song and Story. Bulwer's talents were so versatile and his style so varied that his name was the first that came to mind for every anonymous work of merit. The Fawn of Scrtorius was published without an author's name in 1846. George Eliot read it and recommended it to Miss Hcnnell — " it is pure, chaste and classic, beyond any attempt at fiction I ever read. If it be Bulwer's, he has been undergoing a gradual transfigur- ation and is now ready to be exalted into the assembly of the saints " {Life, i, 149). It was not his. The author was Robert Eyres Landor, the placid brother of the fiery author of Gebir. Some unsuspected names lurk in the annals of anonymity. When Whewell in 1850 brought his suffering wife to the springs of Kreuznach he spent his leisure hours in translating 96 SECRETS OE OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Aiierbach's Die Frau Professorinn. Several pages, he says, were translated " on the top of the Faiilhorn and in the face of the Jiingfrau." On his return to England it was published anonymously (185 1) but " the foolish public never discovered either the merit of the story or of the translation " {Paulina J. Trevelyan's Literary Remains, pp. 234-5). More than half a century passed away without the appearance of a second separate translation in English. . A novel, which delighted me in my youth, was The Camp of Refuge (1844). It told how the Saxons withdrew to the fens of the Isle of Ely and kept at bay their Norman invaders. Charles Kingsley had probably never heard of it, but the subject was identical with his historical picture of Hereward the Wake, or the last of the English. By some strange freak of suggestion the novel was generally ascribed to Harriet Martineau, but it was really the composition of Charles Macfarlane, another of Charles Knight's colleagues in literary labour. He called his unpretending fiction a " novelet," and this is said to have been the first use of the word. Frederick Denison Maurice was ordained to the curacy of Bubbenhall, near Leamington, in January, 1834. Soon afterwards Richard Bentley published, after a long delay of more than three years, his anonymous novel of Eustace Coni&ay. Maurice was a child in this world's affairs, and had never heard of the name of Captain Marryat, the deliglit of adventurous youth. He gave that name to a " prominent character represented in no amiable colours," whereupon the real Simon Pure, overflowing with ire, presented himself before the astonished publisher and demanded an assurance that the choice of name was accidental. It was an age of authors with horsewhips for editor or publisher, and Bentley may well have been alarmed. But Marryat got the assur- ance. An unknown stranger in a coach, the precursor of the man in the street in our days, prophesied for it " a great noise. Some say that it is a violent attack on the Radicals, THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 97 some think it is against the Whigs. The writer has spared neither of them." That great noise was never heard. For it there was one and but one conspicuous admirer. This was Coleridge, who spoke of it " with very high and almost unmingled admiration " [Lijc of Maurice, i, 163-4). One of Coleridge's young disciples and a friend, with the habits and sympathies of Maurice, brought out a novel at this date ; this was John Sterling, who published anonymously in 1833 his novel of Arthur Coningsby. Mill sent it to Carlyle in Scotland, who thereupon pro- nounced it the product of "an opulent, genial, and sunny mind," but one, alas ! " misdirected, disappointed, experi- enced in misery." Its sale among the public was but slight. Mr. Richard Garnett praises in it the ballad " A Maiden came gliding over the Sea." All the world knows that " Boz " was the disguise of Charles Dickens, the pet name bestowed on him by his youngest brother. Under that concealment he brought out in 1836 the well-known Sketches by Boz and a second series in 1837. It was also used for the Memoirs of Grimaldi (1838) and for Oliver Twist (1838). He enters in his diary under the date of Januarys in that year that only two of his undertakings to that time were not issued as by Boz. One of these was Sunday under Three Heads ; as it is, as Sabbath Bills would make it, as it might be made," and this purported to be the work of Timothy Sparks. The other " work which he began on that day was the Sketches of Young Gentlemen." It appeared without a name in 1838, with six illustrations by Phiz, and ere the year was out had been welcomed in a sixth edition. With pardonable pride Dickens recorded, " One hundred and twenty-five pounds for such a little book, without miy name to it, is pretty well." ^ 1 The Sketches of Young Ladies by Quiz, 1838, also reached a sixth edition in that year and also had six illustrations by Phiz. It is attributed to Edward Caswall, a divine in the Anghcan church who subsequently went over to that of Rome, In 1840 Dickens was induced to write his anonymous Sketches H 98 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Poor Thackeray, after the loss of his fortune, toiled for his living for many years, and mostly under the nom de guerre of Michael Angelo Titmarsh, The first great success under his own name was the novel of Vanity Fair and from that time the world was at his feet. The letterpress of King Glumpus (1837) ^^^ ^^^ Exquisites (1839) which were illustrated by Thackeray, is usually attributed to him, but Mr. William Roberts stated in The Athencsum for February 23, 1907, on the authority of Mrs.Ellicott,widowof the Bishopof Gloucester and Bristol, that they were written by John Barrow (second son of Sir John Barrow) who died at Chipping-Norton on December 9, 1898, at the great age of 91. He was an early volunteer, an original member of the Alpine Club and the author of several books of travel. Both these booklets have fetched extra- vagant sums as the composition of Thackeray. Thackeray's name reminds us of John Leech, who did the illustrations for A Little Tour in Ireland by an Oxonian. The text was by one critic assigned to Mark Lemon, but it was the composition of S. R. Hole, afterwards Dean of Rochester. The volume was published in the autumn of 1859 ^i^^ reprinted in 1878. For it the delighted author received the welcome sum of £105. He talked of a sequel, A Little Tour in Holland, but neither tour nor volume seems to have been accomplished. The first part of Nina Balatka appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for July, 1866, and the whole novel was published separately in 1867. In the next year followed Linda Tressel, by the Author of Nina Balatka, a description which Black- wood thought might prove very convenient for such a prolific author. The authorship of the first of them excited much curiosity. Laurence Oliphant wrote, " I am much questioned as to the authorship of Nina Balatka ; is it of Young Couples, also with six illustrations by Phiz, but its popularity was not so great. THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 99 Trollope ? " Blackwood replied diplomatically, with the suggestion that if much pressed he should hint that it was the work of Disraeli. The secret was discovered by Richard Holt Hutton of the Spectator, who detected in its pages the repeated use of some special phrase which he connected with the name of Trollope, Trollope received £450 apiece for them, which compared but badly with the sums, over £3,000, which he received for each of his three works, Phineas Finn, He Knew he was Right, and Orley Farm. But he always maintained among his friends that they were good novels, and their scenes, Prague and Nuremberg, were de- scribed from personal knowledge of their buildings and streets. Lockhart wrote to Croker on the authorship of The New Timon, 1846. He suspected it to be the work of " Bulwer or Disraeh, or possibly Dicky Milnes," basing his belief on the conviction that it was not the inspiration of " a poet, but it is the work of a clever man who understands the construction of lines and the rhythm, and, in short, all that people can learn without inspiration." Lockhart was right in his guess and not unjust in his criticism. It was the anonymous product of Bulwer Lytton, and his genius did not reach its highest level in the realms of poetry. It went through three editions in a year. Lockhart in the same letter referred to the Modern Orlando, a contemporary piece as " from some mere reporter or penny-a-liner." This was the composition of George Croly, the rhetorical parson who held the benefice of Walbrook just behind the Mansion House. It did not reach its second edition until 1855. New phases in religion and politics developed themselves with startling emphasis after the Reform Bill. Dr. Thomas Gordon Hake, a physician, was the anony- mous author in 1840 of the strange romance Vates, or The philosophy of madness, which was illustrated with " equally strange etchings," by Thomas Landsecr. The name was afterwards changed to Valdarno, or the Ordeal of art ivorship. 100 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Dante Gabriel Rossetti, to whom novelty in every form was a perpetual attraction, read it about 1844. It captivated liim, and he busied himself to find out the author. Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, struggled hard through many years for the bread of his life and for the spread of his opinions. There appeared in January, 1854, i^i the open- ing number of the Northern Tribune (a periodical edited by my friend of late years, the well-known " Joe " Cowen, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne) a review of Alderman Ralph, or the History of the Borough and Corporation of the Borough of Willowacre, by Adam Hornbook, a gentleman pleasantly described in the title-page " as student by his own fireside, and among his neighbours, when he can secure the arm- chair in the corner." This was by Cooper, and he took the manuscript to Mr. Edward Chapman for publication, who consented " to receive it for c-o-n-s-i-d-e-r-a-t-i-o-n." Such a proposition was outside poor Cooper's range. It was, however, accepted and published by the firm of Rout- ledge in the year 1853 (2 vols.). The price paid for it was £100, and he received the same sum for another work of fiction. The Family Feud (1855), which was also published under the disguise of " Adam Hornbook." Kingsley's Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet, an autobio- graphy of a Christian socialist, came out anonymously at the close of 1849, passed into a third edition in 1852, and was often reprinted, the issue in 1876 containing a prefatory memoir by his old friend and colleague in belief, Thomas Hughes. A copy of the original edition was sent to Carlyle, but his impetuous wife wrote to her husband that " she had flung it aside as not readable." She subsequently heard from Miss Jewsbury that the novel, although " too like Carlyle," was the work of young Kingsley, " a produc- tion of astounding merit." So she was going to read it. This work and the other productions of Kingsley that were composed at this date under the influence of a consuming zeal for the worthy, but helpless poor, exposed him to THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS loi much obloquy from the conventionaL He was in advance of his time and had to pay the penalty. Upon one of its reviewers this novel had a marked effect. Shirley Brooks, then engaged in reviewing for the Morning Chronicle, was so impressed by it that he wrote to the publishers asking for the author's name in strict secrecy. He felt that he could " deal much more satisfactorily with the work if he knew anything of the writer's antecedents " (G. S. Layard, Shirley Brooks, pp. 98-9). Tom Hughes was among the most successful of anonymous authors. Tom Brown's Schooldays, by an Old Boy, saw the light in April, 1857, ^.nd ere the year was out had been through five editions. Rumour was soon busy as to the authorship. Fanny Kemble suggested to W, B. Donne that he was the author, but the name of the real writer did not take long in oozing out. Often was this faithful picture of an English schoolboy's daily life in work and sport reprinted ; it was translated into German, and imitated, save the mark ! in French. Its successor, Tom Brown at Oxford — the child was father of the man — fell far short in popularity, but it, too, was imitated in the French. The most read of all novels on Oxford undergraduate life, caricature as it was, and the work of one not connected with the University, had a long innings of fame ; this was Verdant Green, by Cuthbert Bede (1853). The real author was the Rev. Edward Bradley, a graduate of Durham University, where the patron saints of the cathedral are Cuthbert and Bede. Strangely enough, his first production, a series of twenty-four etchings of college life, came out at Oxford under his own name in six parts (1849-50). The last of them stated that " the second series and all re-issues of the first, will appear under the nom de guerre of Cuthbert Bede, M.A." In after life he was beneficed in the Midlands of England, and his frequent com- munications in Notes and Queries were never without interest. The merit of Verdant Green lay in its delightful stock of harmless merriment. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE 102 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE The description of a London clerk at the Scouring of the White Horse on that hill in Berkshire, which Tom Hughes had visited so often in his youthful days, was published in 1859 '^s by the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays. Tom Brown's Schooldays was, it may be added, the first great popular success of the prosperous firm of Macmillan. Another name inseparably linked with those of Kingsley andCarlyle was James Anthony Froude, who is said by Mr. Herbert Paul [Life, p. 37) to have published " two anonymous stories called Shadows of the Clouds and The Lieutenant's Daughter."" The first of them, a series of tales, by Z. 1847, is described as " a valuable piece of autobiography. Without hterary merit, without any quahty to attract the public, it gives a vivid and faithful account of the author's troubles at school and at home, together with a slight sketch of his unfortunate love-affair " [Paul's Froude, p. 37). The Lieutenant' s Daughter is said to have been ' ' long and deservedly forgotten," so much so, I may add, that it is not even men- tioned in the memoir of Froude in the D.N.B. Possibly it was the volume described in the Catalogue of the British Museum Library as The Lieutenant's Daughters, or the Little Mother [1874]- The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 produced a brace of anonymous tracts that caused much stir in the world. One of them owed much of its popularity to its taking title, and to the political prejudices of the day. It was called The Fight at Davie Europa's school, showing how the German Boy thrashed the French Boy and how the English Boy looked on, the latter being the position commonly adopted both among " boys " in schools and " grown-ups " in after life. Nearly 200,000 copies of it were sold in England, and a very large number in America. It was translated into nearly every continental language, and provoked many pamphlets for and against it. Moreover, it enjoyed an exceptional distinction in securing from Mr. Falconer Madan, of the Bodleian Library, a special bibliography of THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 103 its own issues and of the literature connected with it. Its author was the Rev. Henry Wiiham Pullcn, a vicar clioral of Salisbury Cathedral. " The said word, Salisbury, gave rise to the ascription of it to Lord, and also to Lady, Sahs- bury." Magee, the Bishop of Peterborough, was among the other notable persons to whom it was assigned. The vaticinations of The Battle of Dorking, which repre- sented the views of a man of great distinction both in war and in literature, attracted nearly as many readers. Its pages described the progress of an invader who successfully landed his forces in England, won his great battle at Dork- ing, and ultimately conquered the country. This pro- phetic vision appeared in Blackwood for May, 1871, when several large editions of the Magazine were disposed of. It was then issued separately, and over 100,000 copies were sold. Translations were circulated in thousands in France, Germany and Sweden and an imitation came out in Italy. It provoked several reviews and elicited several sequels. The author was Colonel, afterwards Sir, George Tomkyns Chesney. Leslie Stephen had been told by Mr. Moule, a Dorchester worthy, that the author of the anonymous Under the Green- wood Tree was Thomas Hardy. He then wrote to ask for a novel for the Cornhill, and the first section of Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd duly appeared in January, 1874. It at once attracted notice through the suspicion that it was the work of George Eliot, and the rumour soon passed from mouth to ear that Mrs. Lewes was publishing in this unusual and anonymous manner in order to test the reality of her reputation. The Spectator (January 3), was more than usually confident on the point. It asserted that the character of the novel in conception and composition showed irrefutable evidence of the authorship of George Eliot. The complete novel, when published, bore the name of Thomas Hardy. James Payn, as the editor of i\\^ Cornhill Magazine, intro- 104 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE duced to the public, under an anonymous or fictitious con- cealment, many an author whose real name has since become a passport to fame. He himself during the early years of a life passed in authorship, published under a mask. His most popular novel was Lost Sir Massingberd, which was issued in 1864, and received with such popularity as to justify a fourth edition in 1878. For many years his novels were published as " by the author of Lost Sir Massingberd." One of James Payn's chums in life was William Black. Until Black had retired to live at Brighton and until Payn was incapacitated by illness they met almost every day at the same luncheon table in the beautiful coffee room of the Reform Club. What secured for Black fame and fortune was his A Daughter of Heth (1871). It appeared in driblets in the weekly edition of the Glasgow Herald, but without adding to the circulation of the paper, and some of its subscribers showed their want of appreciation by asking when the concluding part would appear. The novel was without an author's name in the paper, and it crept silently and anonymously into the world of London, for Black thought that he had enemies on its Press, and notably on the Saturday Review, where a sneer had been inserted on a Scotch writer who had the presumption to write English novels. It was the sensation of the season, and before 1872 had passed away the eleventh edition had come out. When the publisher seeks out the author, it is a clear sign of fame. This was the case with Hamerton, a writer of especial grace, gifted with an exceptional knowledge of France. One of the firm of Roberts brothers of Boston, in the States, wrote in 1876 to say that he was contemplating a series of novelettes to be published anonymously, to be called The No Name Series, and to be issued in "neat square i8mo volumes of about 250 pages, to sell for one dollar." I do not think that this suggestion ever blossomed into fruition, but it probably inspired Hamerton with the desire of concocting the novel of Marmorne ; the Story THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 105 is told by Adolphus Segrave, the youngest of Three Brothers. The scene was laid on the imaginary estate of Boisvipere, in that district of Burgundy that Hamerton loved so well, and it was published for him in 1878. George Eliot and George Lewes recognized the author at once, and Lewes wrote a letter to " Mr. Adolphus Segrave, care of P. G. Hamerton, Esq." It was published in England and America and in two issues in France, but the sale disappointed the publishers. The profits to the author were considerably less than £200. Sir John Skelton loved to conceal himself. The preface to Thalatta ! or the Great Commoner, a Political Romance, 1862, was signed with the single letter S. It was under the mask of Shirley that he published both his Nugcc Criticce (1862) and his Campaigner at Home (1865), and his tract on Benjamin Disraeli, the past and the future (1868) was issued as by " a democratic Tory." Thalatta was a strange mix- ture of beauty and what is not beauty, with an idealised portrait of a politician, embodying some of the characteris- tics of Canning and some of Disraeli, who is the subject of unbounded eulogy in a prefatory note. Its descriptions of nature and of life on sea — the sea smiles and sparkles on every page — delighted Froude. " The yacht scene made him groan " over days that had past and would probably have no successors. C. L. Dodgson, of Christ Church, when he began to write for The Train, a magazine edited by Edmund Yates, which lasted from January, 1856, to June, 1858, found the need for a literary disguise. He proposed " Dares " (the first syllable of his birthplace), but the suggestion did not meet with his editor's approval. A choice of four names was then submitted : (i) Edgar Cuthwellis ; (2) Edgar N. C. Westhall (both of which were formed from the letters of his two Christian names, Charles Lutwidgc) ; (3) Louis Carroll, and (4) Lewis Carroll, which are merely variants of the same names (Lewis = Ludovicus = Lutwidge ; Carroll io6 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE =Carolus= Charles). The last pair was adopted and was used by Dodgson in a poem called " Solitude " {The Train, March, 1856). For all time the name will be famous among youth and children of a later growth. From Mr. Grant Allen's pen there flowed a never-ending stream of works, scientific and otherwise. Through fear lest his reputation for serious science should be damaged he adopted a cloak for his works in the realm of fiction. The pseudonyms for his first essays in fiction were J. Arbuthnot Wilson and Cecil Power. These continued for a time, but with the increased appreciation by the literary world of his varied powers, the mask was thrown on one side. Later in life he returned to concealment. As Martin Leach Warborough he wrote a tale for children called Tom Un- limited ; as Olive Pratt Rayner he brought out The Type- writer Girl and Rosalha. It is on record that when James Payn succeeded Leslie Stephen in the editorial chair of the Cornhill Magazine the same post brought to Mr. Grant Allen two letters. One addressed by Payn to him in his real name was to inform him with regret that his scientific articles would not suit the new character of the magazine. The other, sent to J. Arbuthnot Wilson, was to invite con- tributions from that gentleman as the author of a tale called Mr. Chung. To Frederick William Robinson may be assigned the palm for fecundity of writing in his day. He gained a wide popularity for his novel of Grandmother s Money, by the author of One and Twenty, i860, but feared lest he was producing too rapidly for consumption by the novel-read- ing world. He accordingly took another string for his bow and published in the same year, without his name, the well- known novel of High Church. With this he broke ground in a new world, attracting a fresh class of readers whose interests were in religious topics, even though they were treated as fictions. It was followed by No Church, 1861, which showed his acquaintance with the life of the poorer THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS 107 classes in the slums of London, and by a series of what he called " my Church Novels." When these stopes were worked out, Robinson explored fresh mines. He started a third series of works in fiction, dubbed " The Prison Stories," which attained an equal success. The set began with Female Life in Prison, by a Prison Matron, 1862, which was accepted by the rulers of the leading papers of England and by the subscribers to Mudie as the genuine experience acquired within its walls of such a being, and was followed by Memoirs of Jane Cameron, Female Convict, 1864. His highest triumph in imposing upon the unwary is the fact that Halkett and Laing were misled into assigning these works to the expert in prison life, Mary Carpenter. The anonymous novel of Ready-money Mortiboy, re- printed from the pages of Once a Week — what a wealth of merit lies lost in that much-loved periodical of our earlier days ! — brought fame and money in 1872 to Walter Besant and James Rice. When that partnership ceased and Besant laboured by himself, his great success was in the anonymous Revolt of Man [1882], showing the world turned upside down and man endeavouring to regain his supremacy. Its first appearance was chilling. If any journal noticed the book it was to " damn " it without faint praise. At last an article in the Saturday Review, written in absolute ignorance of the authorship, " struck the first note in the chorus of praise. Besant asked his " friend, the editor, to lunch and confessed the truth. In five or six weeks we had got through about nine thousand copies." Some years ago York Powell wrote to J. B. Yeats, the Irish artist, " Do they know in Dublin who Fiona Macleod is ? She, or he, has done some few beautiful things." In- quiry was in vain. The unknown person afterwards figured in Who's Who as a veritable author taking recreation in "sailing, hih walks, and listening," and the name, with a host of Celtic tales entered under it, appeared in the Catalogue of the British Museum Library as a real entity. The rumours io8 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE attaching to her personality are set out in a letter by Katharine Tynan entitled William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, [Fortnightly Review, March, igo6). After the death of William Sharp in December, 1905, it was an- nounced that he and Fiona Macleod were one and the same. Speculation was at rest. A brief life of abundant popularity was the fate of Frederick John Fargus. One year he put out his leaves ; next year the tree was dead. He was a Bristolian, born on December 26, 1847, and as Bristol is a city still enjoying a savour of the sea, he fell under the inspiration of the nautical novels of Marryat. When not quite fourteen years old he went to the school-frigate Conway, and when he required a pseu- donym the name of Conway, with the Christian prefix of Hugh, w^as his choice. Called Back, by Hugh Conway, came out in January, 1884. " By March, 1884, thirty thousand copies, and by June 27, 1887, three hundred and fifty-two thousand copies had been sold." A French translation by B. Pauncefote appeared at Brussels in 1885 and it was rendered into German, Italian, Swedish, Spanish and Dutch. As a drama it ran for nearly 200 nights. Far- gus died at Monte Carlo on May 15, 1885, from a chill caught in the treacherous climate of the Riviera, and was buried in the cemetery at Nice, with an epitaph by Lord Houghton. V Canon Ainger wrote to his old friend, Du Maurier, in 1882. " Have you seen and read a new story called Vice Versa ? It is one of the cleverest and most humorous books I have read for many a long day." With more than feminine curiosity he implores his friend to find out who wrote it. " F. Anstey " must be a nom de plume, writes Ainger. He was correct. It was in part the author's name, Thomas Anstey Guthrie. Vice Versa took the world by storm. It gladdened the jaded novel-reader and it diverted those who only read a novel as an occasional exhilaration. It w^as often reprinted, was dramatised in 1884, and was the first, I must THE MAN IN MASK AMONG NOVELISTS log add the best, of many a piece from his sportive pen. " The man has extraordinary talent in my judgment " was the verdict of Ainger. The work of Henry Harland in the eighties was pubhshed under the pseudonym of " Sidney Laska," a name not, so far as human knowledge goes, appertaining to any living person, past or present, but dreamed of by Harland " like a bad dream." It was dubbed " lurid," and its colours, broad and thick, obtained considerable popularity in America. He determined upon entering into a new line under his own name and with The Cardinal's Snuff-box, 1900, produced a sweet and touching story, the like of which he never again accomplished. Marion Harland, an American lady, whose writings rejoice in America in a circulation reckoned by tens of thousands, is described by the authorities of the British Museum as the disguise of " Mary Virginia Hawes, after- wards Terhune." Publishers sometimes throw light on the authorship of the works published by their houses. Mr. William Tinsley tells the story of the novels which he brought out as by Edmund Yates, though, unknown to him, they were con- structed in partnership with Mrs. Cashel Hoey. She was certainly the part author of Black Sheep [iSGy), Rock Ahead (1868), Forlorn Hope (1867), Land at Last (1866) and the sole author of A Righted Wrong (1870). Tinsley published the last novel, and one which bore Mrs. Cashel Hoey's name on the title-page within a few weeks of each other, and " nearly double the number of copies was sold " of the work, which purported to be by Edmund Yates. Mr. Henry Vizetelly reveals the mystery f>f the composi- tion of Fotir Months among the Gold-finders in Alta California. A perusal of Colonel Fremont's history of his expedition in that country suggested to him the idea of setting out the experiences of a raw hand in endeavouring to make his fortune in the new fields. He took Mr. David Bogue into partnership, spent the greater part of ten consecutive nights no SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE in the composition of the fictitious narrative, and issued it "as by a young M.D., calhng himself J. Tyrwhitt Brooks . . . quite the kind of name hkely to disarm suspicion." The deception caught on. The Times gave it a review of nearly three columns in length, the Quarterly quoted it in support of sundry views on Sunday postal labour, and The AthencBum gave it the first place in a list of publications on that district. It met with a large sale in America, and was translated into several foreign languages. Haydn's Diction- ary of Dates epitomized Brooks's account of the gold discovery and it appears in the admirable catalogue of the London Library as a genuine chronicle. My poor friend, Hugh Stowell Scott, kn own to the world as Henry Seton Merriman, died young, ere his vein of literary ore had panned out. His father possessed a lucrative business in the city and Scott for some time rowed in the family boat. But his hatred of business life got the mastery of him and he ceased to attend at daily practice. His father was wont at times to reproach him with frivolling in literature instead of dabbling, like his brother, profitably in stocks and shares. One day he said, " Now, if you could produce a book like this," holding up the Sowers, purchased at a bookstall, "you might call yourself an author." Even then the youth kept silence. But he went on working. And at last the father gloried in his son's fame. VI The Poet Shrinking in Anonymity Dread of adverse criticism is the motive for concealment among poets. The poetical enthusiast creeps into the world with blushing countenance and beating heart. His memory is full of the finest passages of his predecessors, and, conscious too often of his own defects, he fears the censure of the reviewers. Cooper's Hill was written by Sir John Denham in the distracting days of 1640. It was spread about in manu- script for two years and was then published without his name on the title-page from, it is alleged, a " false transcript which stole into print by the author's long absence from this great town " of London. In this form it was printed and reprinted more than once. The poem in its final shape appeared in 1655 with an unknown J. B. as its editor. The famous apostrophe to the Thames, the only fragment of the poet which lingers in the world's memory, was inserted for the first time in this edition. Few lines in English poetry are more celebrated ; " without o'erflowing, full " was the description applied by Disraeli in one of his budget speeches to the condition of the treasury. Pope said that these changes of Denham were effected " with admirable judgment." Many of Dryden's poems appeared without his name. Among them were (i) Absalom and Achitophcl; (2) The Hind and the Panther ; (3) Mac Flecknoe, and (4) The Medal ; 111 112 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE and his favourite disguise, if disguise it can be called, was " by the author of Absalom and Achitophel." This prac- tice carried its penalty with it, for when John Sheffield, then the Earl of Mulgrave, circulated his Essay on Satire, the world persisted in attributing the production to Dryden, who indeed may have revised it. At all events, under the im- pression that it was by Dryden a troop of bravos, hired by the Earl of Rochester, severely beat him " in a narrow street off Covent Garden on a winter's night in 1679." The bibliography of the writings of Dryden is a work yet to be accomplished. It will tax the energy and talent of some enthusiast. To describe in full the mystifications of Pope would require a volume all to itself. The subject has engaged the attention of many keen critics, the chief of them being Mr. Dilke, but the story of the entanglements which the poet wove round himself is far from complete. His Essay on Criti- cism was published anonymously in 1711, but it hung fire until its author adopted the expedient of sending round copies to well-known members of the literary world. Addi- son praised it, and poor old John Dennis attacked it, and this combination of talent helped to make it famous. When the seventh edition was issued in 1722 the author's name was published urhi et orbi. When Dennis printed in the summer of 1713 a severe attack, but with " some very fair points," on Addison's Cato — an unsuccessful dramatist among the Whigs pouring out the vials of his wrath against a more fortunate brother in play-writing and politics — the wasp of Twickenham revenged himself. He concealed himself in the anonymous " narrative of Dr. Robert Norris concerning the strange and deplorable frenzy of Mr. John Denn , an officer of the custom-house " and stung the soured critic in " the style of coarse personal satire. . . . Dennis is described in his garret, pouring forth insane ravings . . . but not a word is said in reply to Dennis's criticisms. It was plain THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 113 enough that the author, whoever he might be, was more anxious to satisfy a grudge against Dennis than to defend Dennis's victim." Addison thereupon caused Steele to write a note to Lintot, disavowing the pamphlet and stating that he had refused to look at it when it was offered for his inspection. 1 During the years 1730 and 1731 Pope was mainly occu- pied in composing and revising his philosophical venture in poetry. The first part appeared in February, 1733, as An Essay on Man ; Address d to a Friend (pt. i, n.d)^, and other parts quickly followed, the fourth in 1734. The friend was Lord Bolingbroke, who had instigated the publication and probably set out the framework. The mystery of the authorship was well planned. Pope himself hinted at a well-known divine. He had gone to a new publisher and he was known to be " issuing at the same time other pieces of some length " with his old publisher. He told his friend, Harte the poet, that in order to complete the disguise he had inserted a bad rhyme,^ and Harte remembered that he had often heard it urged that the essay could not be Pope's on account of this very passage. All these tricks worked together and the authorship of the poem was given to every one except him who had written it. Suspicion, however, by degrees fastened on the real author, and with the fourth part Pope claimed the work as his own. The following anecdote does not rest on a foundation of fact, but every one would wish it to be true. To the delight of every one, so runs the fable, David Mallet fell into the trap. He had attached himself to the great poet and paid him familiar visits. One day Pope asked him in a casual ^ Mr. Dilke put forward some grounds for believing that the paper against Dennis was by Steele {Papers of a Critic, I, 253-65). If so, he must have felt much natural shame in sending his com- munication to Lintot. Dennis alleged that Pope had prompted his attack on Cato. 2 A cheat ! a whore ! who starts not at the name In all the inns of court or Drury Lane. I 114 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE way what was the newest thing in Hterature. The answer was something called an Essay on Man, but that as he, Mallet, had inspected it he could testify to the incapacity of the author, " who had neither skill in writing nor know- ledge of his subject." Pope gratified himself and rebuked Mallet by reveahng the secret. Mallet was disliked by every one. The genial Garth was everybody's friend. But the credit of his anonymous poem was assigned by the envious to others and Pope has pre- served this slander in the line Garth did not write his own Dispensary. Young's The Complaint, or Night-thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality came out, like Pope's Essay on Man, anonymously and in parts. The first- four nights were issued in 1742, a fifth in 1743, two more in 1744 and the last brace in 1745. They obtained great popularity among Englishmen and exercised even greater influence over Klopstock and the rising talent of France and Germany. Translations, in whole or in part, of Young's works were printed in French, German, Italian, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese. His influence in Germany was set out by Johannes Barnstorff in a tract printed at Bamberg in 1895. The chief life of him is in French, by W. Thomas, the maitre de conferences in the University of Rennes. Gray, who followed the course of current literature with close observation, refers in his correspondence with Thomas Wharton to " a bulky poem upon health, wrote by a physi- cian ; do you know him ? " This was the anonymous Art of Preserving Health (1744), in which John Armstrong, M.D., showed a grasp of blank verse beyond the reach of his con- temporaries. Many years later Gray when mentioning the name of Launcelot Temple, who wrote Sketches or Essays on Various Subjects, 1758, confesses to having heard but for- gotten his real name and to have attributed it to Fulke THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 115 Greville, who brought out a cognate vohime in 1757. It was in reaUty the disguise of Armstrong, and the sketches were so sprightly that the world of London insisted on imputing to his friend, John Wilkes, most of the merit of their composition. In 1771 the name of Launcelot Temple was retained by Armstrong for his Short Ramble through some parts of France and Italy. Akenside pairs off with Armstrong, both as a poet and a physician. He began his poetic career, ere he was sixteen years old, as a contributor of " patriotic " verses to the Gentleman's Magazine, in which the youth aped the follies of his seniors. His great work, The Pleasures of Imagina- tion, was published by Dodsley in January, 1744. It was anonymous, but within four months it was followed by a cheap edition bearing the author's name. ^ Dr. Johnson had heard the pubhsher say that when the manuscript was offered him the price- demanded (£120) seemed to him so large that he consulted Pope, who after an examination of the poem advised him not to make a niggardly offer, for " this was no everyday writer." Johnson was another instance of Pope's appreciation of struggling merit. His poem of London came out on the same day of 1738 on which Pope produced the first dialogue of his satire on that year. Johnson's poem sold well, reaching a second edition in a week, and the society-dabblers in literature became eager to know its authorship. They contrasted its success with the public's tardy recognition of the new poem from Twickenham and more than hinted at the superiority of the unknown bard. Pope felt the curiosity, entrusted a friend to make inquiries, and, on learning that it was the work of some " obscure man " named Johnson, remarked, " he will soon be deterred Wharton, as a north-country man dwelling at Durham, asked Gray his opinion of the poem of Akenside, a native ^ Its theft by Rolt is narrated on page 216. ii6 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of the adjoining county of Northumberland. The answer was couched in Gray's quaintest style : " , . .You desire to know, it seems, what character the Poem [the Pleasures of Im- agination] of your young Friend bears here. I wonder to hear you ask the Opinion of a Nation, where those who pretend to judge, don't judge at all ; and the rest (the wiser Part) wait to catch the judgment of the world immediately above them, that is Dick's Coffee-house, and the Rainbow ; so that the readier Way would be to ask Mrs. This and Mrs. T'other, that keeps the bar there. However to shew you I'm a Judge, as well as my Countrymen, tho' I have rather turn'd it over than read it (but no matter ; no more have they), it seems to me above the middleing, and now and then (but for a little while) rises even to the best, particularly in De- scription ; it is often obscure and even unintelligible, and too much infected with the Hutchinson-J argon ^ in short, its great fault is that it was publish' d at least nine years too early, and so methinks in a few Words, a la Mode du Temple, I have very pertly dispatch'd what perhaps may for several years have employed a very ingenious Man worth 50 of myself." Gray wrote at the same time that he read " a small poem called ' The Enthusiast ' which is all pure description and as they tell me by the same hand; is it so or not? " The "same hand " was Mark Akenside, but his informants were wrong. " The Enthusiast, or the lover of nature," a poem, 1744, was an early work by Joseph Warton, written in 1 741, when he was about eighteen years old. Gray himself shrank from the publicity of publication. He involved himself in anonymity. Horace Walpole per- suaded him to allow Dodsley to print in the summer of 1747 his " Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College " anonymously as a thin folio tract priced at sixpence. This ^ The allusion is to the style of Francis Hutcheson, the professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow. THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 117 was his first venture in print. Tlie " Elegy written in a Country Churchyard " was begun at Stoke Poges in the autumn of 1742, continued in the winter of 1749 and by the following summer was perfected. It circulated in MS., and a copy reached the hands of the directors of the Maga- zine of Magazines, who thereupon informed Gray of their intention to include it therein. In an agony of apprehen- sion he wrote to Walpole : — " As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can. Yesterday,! had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who have taken the Magazine of Magazines into their hands. They tell me that an ingenious poem, called ' Reflections in a Country Churchyard,' has been communicated to them, which they are printing forthwith ; that they are informed that the excellent author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his indulgence but the honour of his correspond- ence, etc. As I am not at all disposed to be either so indul- gent, or so correspondent, as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me ; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name , in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character ; he must correct the press himself and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them ; and the title must be — ' Elegy written in a Country Church- yard.' If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better. If you behold the Magazine of Magazines in the light that I do, you will not refuse to give yourself this trouble on my account, which you have taken of your own accord before now. " If Dodsley do not do this immediately, he may as well let it alone " [Letters, ed. Tovey, I, 208-9). ii8 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Dodsley lost no time. It was published anonymously in February, 1751, price 6d., and " went thro' four editions in two months." Not many years passed away before this timid poet attracted the attention of the satirists. There came out in July, 1760, price one shilling, a slim quarto anonymous volume containing " two odes," the themes being obscurity and oblivion, and the intention being to satirize Gray and Mason respectively. The first of them was by George Colman the elder, the second by Robert Lloyd, the unhappy friend of the reckless Charles Churchill. The Monthly Review chal- lenged the poets to reply, but the prudent Gray warned Mason against it. Lloyd acquired some reputation by his anonymous poem of The Actor, a Poetical Epistle to Bonnell Thornton, 1760, another member of this little set of wits. It is said to have stirred Churchill into writing the Rosciad. That pungent piece was declined by one publisher after another, although the author, then a modest man, asked but five guineas for it. Churchill had reliance in his abilities and produced it anonymously at his own expense in March, 1761, Its success was instant and a greedy public clamoured for the name of the author. The writer in the Critical Review insinuated that the poem was by " one of the new triumvirate of wits who never let an opportunity slip of singing their own praises." Lloyd and Colman disclaimed the author- ship ; Churchill advertised it as his and promised to con- tribute an " Apology addressed to the Critical reviewers." There was commotion in the ranks of the staff of that review. Smollett, its editor, got Garrick to tell the author that he was not the writer of the obnoxious notice. The great actor, who trembled for his own skin, went about London proclaiming that he was Churchill's admirer. The lucky author in two months cleared £2,000 by the sale of his poems. Lady Austen interested Cowper one day in the autumn of 1782 with the story of John Gilpin, John Gilpin, Citizen THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY ikj of London, as it is gravely entered in the catalogue of the British Museum Library. Next morning Cowper came downstairs with the famous ballad in his hands. It was sent to Unwin on November 4, 1782, with the intimation that he could do what he liked with it. " Auctore tantum anonymo imprimantur, and when printed send me a copy." Unwin " laughed tears " over the perusal, and it was inserted in the Public Advertiser. That year and for long after- wards the story was reproduced anonymously in a variety of forms. Even a version into Latin passed through two editions and, strange symptom of appreciation, the piece was " translated into the oldest form of the Orkney dialect." Cowper's first period of mental depression was passed in the private asylum of Nathaniel Cotton, poet and phy- sician. Cotton's chief volume. Visions in Verse, a moral rendering of the fables of Gay, stole from the press anony- mously in 1751. A ninth edition came out in 1776, and it was reissued so late as 1810. Very little is known about this kindly and cultivated gentleman. " He never put his name to his own published writings ; his tombstone gives neither date nor description ; and his son, when editing liis collected works, gives no life of the author." Two dwellers in Sussex, who dabbled in poetry, were among Cowper's friends and imitators. James Hurdis, the vicar of Bishopstone, near Seaford, brought out in 1788 a poem called the Village Curate, which passed through four editions. He communicated the authorship to Cowper, who replied with professions of respect for the abilities of the author, and avowed that before the receipt of the " obliging letter I knew your name, your place of abode, your profes- sion, and that you had four sisters ; all which I learned neither from one bookseller, nor from any of his connexions ; you will perceive, therefore, that you are no longer an author incognito ; the writer indeed of many passages, which have fallen from your pen, could not long continue so. Let 120 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE genius, true genius, conceal itself where it may, we may say of it, as the young man in Terence of his beautiful mistress, diu latere non potest." The other Sussex poet was more intimate with Cowper. This was William Hay- ley, one of the few poets who have received for their writings more than they deserved. His friends endeavoured to prevail on Dr. Johnson to read the Triumphs of Temper. The sage held out for some time, but at last consented. He read the first two pages and put the work aside with a few words of contempt, which were duly conveyed to the writer. Hayley endeavoured to revenge himself by portraying Johnson as Rumble in his comedy of The Mausoleum, and by publishing without his name A Dialogue in the Shades between Lord Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson [see anecdotes by Mrs. Rose, in Birkbeck Hill's Johnsonian Miscellanies, II, 420-1]. Sussex gives place to Scotland, and the friends of Cowper to those of Johnson. An Ode to Tragedy, by a Gentleman of Scotland, was printed at Edinburgh in 1761 (pp. 12, price 6(^.), with a dedication to " James Boswell, Esquire." It afterwards appeared that the ode was written by Bozzy himself. He announced its coming in a letter to a friend, with a full-length description of himself such as he only could write : "At length it comes, it comes ! The author is a most excellent man. He is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, on which he values himself not a little. His parts are bright, and his education has been good. He is fond of seeing much of the world. He eats of every good dish, especially apple-pie. He drinks old hock. He has a very fine temper. He is somewhat of a humorist, and a little tinctured with pride. He has a good manly countenance, and he owns himself to be amorous. He has infinite vivacity, yet is observed at times to have a melancholy cast. He is rather fat than lean, rather short than tall, rather young than old. His shoes are neatly made, and he never wears spectacles." THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 121 The dedication with somewhat of this spirit dwells on his " old-hock humour," his love of boasting at the fine eyes which have shone upon him, and his desire " to display extensive erudition." It praises " the noble feelings of that honest, open heart of yours." The life of the piece is in the dedication. Beattie was a man of a different cast, but his chief work was anonymous. In 1771 there appeared in this manner the first book of The Minstrel ; no ordinary poem descrip- tive of no ordinary boy, for the touches of Nature with which it abounded were the recollection of the long hours that he himself had spent, night and morning, as a boy in sauntering among the fields. Four editions of it appeared before the publication in 1774 of the second canto, with the addition of his name. Richard Cumberland, another member of the set which hung round Johnson, dabbled in every kind of hterature. His earliest " offering to the press " was an anonymous ^imitation of Gray, " another churchyard elegy, written on St. Mark's Eve, when, according to the rural tradition, the ghosts of those who are to die within the year ensuing are seen to walk at midnight across the churchyard." The author acknowledges that the piece did not take with the public, and that poor Dodsley did not profit by its publication. When a new king arose in 1760, Cumberland undertook in poetic strains to teach him his duty. He published without his name a poem in blank verse, setting out the proper principles of conduct for the young monarch. With great prudence' the fretful bard did not on this occasion apply to Dodsley for the extent of its circulation, or search the reviews for any notice of it. Dr. Johnson wrote in November, 1781, that whilst at Lichfield he had been pestered to read a poem, but that he had replied, declining to " review the work of an anony- mous author." His reason was odd. " Why should I put m}^ name in the power of one who will not trust me with his own," Birkbeck Hill thought that the work might 122 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE have been Erasmus Darwin's Loves of the Plants, which hved for many years in manuscript, though it was not pubhshed, and then anonymously, before 1789. My name was withheld, says Darwin, " though it will be known to many," because its appearance would lead the world to believe that I " thought it a work of consequence." Its success was great. A fourth edition of Part I appeared in 1799, and one thousand guineas were paid before pub- lication for the part called the " Economy of Vegetation," which was published last. Thomas Thomson, the Edinburgh Advocate, in reviewing Miss Seward's Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin [Edinh. Rev.,Apl., 1804), pointed out the similarity of the Botanic Garden with an anonymous poem The Uni- versal Beauty, 1735, and confessed ignorance of the author- ship of the poem on beauty. It was by Henry Brooke, author of The Fool of Quality, and the hnes are said to have passed under Pope's revising hand. Darwin's lines were in Popeian measures. Another of Eng- land's poets, a man whose later strains were marked by his own individual feelings, began his career as an avowed imitator of Pope. This was Crabbe, who while picking up scraps of medical knowledge and collecting simples among the lanes and heathlands of Suffolk, brought out anonymously at Ipswich in 1775 a didactic satire of some four hundred lines, in which whole passages from the Essay on Man and The Dunciad were quoted and copied. The name was Inebriety, a little quarto pamphlet priced is. 6d., " printed and sold by C. Punchard, bookseller, in the Butter Market, 1775." Its value now is what the wealthy American book-collector chooses to give for it. When Crabbe came to London in search of fortune, his chief stock in trade was an anonymous poem, The Candidate. It was a "poetical epistle to the authors of the Monthly Review," and it was published by H. Payne, " opposite Marlborough House, Pall Mall." The managers of that periodical, then the arbiter of literature, treated this appeal to their atten- THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 123 tion with repelling frigidity. If the piece had any sale whatever, all was lost through the bankruptcy of the pub- lisher. An appeal to Burke for assistance brought the desired aid in money, and secured the publication of one of Crabbe's poems. The great man himself took The Library to Dodsley, read to him many of the lines, and expatiated on their merits. It was published anonymously in 1781, priced 2s. — the charge for a copy now is over 30s. — and the whole profits were given by the kindly bookseller to the necessitous poet. Through Burke's well-timed efforts Crabbe's success was assured. Few poetical satires have been more popular than the anonymous Pursuits of Literature which came out in parts, running from 1794 to 1797. The sixteenth impression bears the date of 1812. Even in 1797 Gibbon's Lord Shef- field did not know the name of the author ; by him this new writer was deemed " as masterly and as unknown as Junius." Fuseh was quoted as the authority for some of the remarks in the notes to the poem, and that acute man at once spotted the author. It must be Mathias, was his remark, for he recollected the time, the place and the occa- sion on which that particular conversation occurred. Many of the literary people of the date thought that Mathias must have had assistance in its composition, but after his withdrawal to Italy the family made no secret of the authorship'and repudiated any assistance in its composition. Samuel Rogers as a youthful poet was too timid to obtain the interview with Dr. Johnson which he desired. He put his feet on the doorstep of the great Cham's house, but did not venture to lift the knocker. As an old man with a reputation in poetry, which he was afraid to mar by injudicious haste in composition, the house of Rogers which faced the Green Park was in its turn the resort of many a youthful aspirant in literature. The Pleasures of Memory was published early in 1792, as by the author of An Ode to Superstition with some other Poems. The 250 copies printed were sold 124 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE at once. Within sixteen months it had passed into a fifth edition, and the author's initials were affixed to the pre- fatory lines. The nineteenth edition was born in 1806, and by this time 22,350 copies had been put into circulation. The first part of Italy was published anonymously in 1822 while Rogers was still travelling in that country. It was a " small duodecimo volume of 164 pages . . . little more than a mere rough sketch of the first part, as it was issued in the illustrated edition " some years later. Even the publishers, Longmans, knew not the author at first. They sent it to Tom Moore asking for his advice as to pub- lication, and when he opened the parcel the manuscript, to his surprise, proved to be by Rogers. To mystify those acquainted with the poet's movements, the traveller was depicted as entering Italy by the great St. Bernard, whereas on both journeys he crossed into it by the Simplon. The critic in the Literary Gazette (January 19, 1822) did not shrink from attributing the authorship to Southey. The second part of the poem (1828) had the name of Rogers on the title-page. The illustrated edition, the joy of many an English household, offers, says Hay ward, " a rich treat to the scholar, the virtuoso, and the lettered traveller." The first volume of i\\e Poetical Sketches (1783) of William Blake was given to the world as "by W.B." Its cost was defrayed by two of his friends, Flaxman and the Rev. Henry Mathew (who wrote an advertisement which was pre- fixed to it), and the copies were given to Blake to dispose of as he Hked. Johnson, the bookseller in St. Paul's Church- yard, is said to have pubhshed for him in 1791 the first book of an anonymous poem on The French Revolution, no copy of which has survived. A very strange work was that called The Revolution, issued by Johnson in 1790. Long extracts from it are in the Monthly Review, v, 375-82 (1791), and the Rev. William Pow was suggested as its author. Tom Moore revelled in the pseudonymous. " Thomas Brown the younger " was one of his adopted titles. Under THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 125 that designation he brought out his vohime of Intercepted Letters, or the Two-penny Post-Bag, in 1813, and ere the year was out the eleventh edition had seen the Hght. The six- teenth edition bears the date of 1818. The World at West- minster (1816) and Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823), both pubhshed under that disguise, fell comparatively flat. Renewed popularity was the lot of the younger Brown's Fudge Family in Paris (1818), eight editions of which came out in a year, and a second edition in 1835 marked its sequel, The Fudges in England. In order that the New Englanders might not complain of neglect The Fudge Family in Wash- ington was issued in 1823 by some one screenmg himself under the name of Harry Nimrod.^ Every one of mature years knows that the Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little (1801) was by Tom Moore. The fifteenth impression came out in the year of its majority, 1822, and it was again issued in 1828. Tom Crib's Memorial to Con- gress saw four editions in the year of its publication (1819). The wittily-titled Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion (1833) provoked Blanco White's volume of Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman, and a Reply by Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, the high-sounding name of con- cealment for Bishop Kaye of Lincoln. With Moore let us associate the name of Henry Luttrell. the prince of diners-out and of society-poets. There was an ineffable charm in his jests and his verses. He softened even Rogers into praise ; he made Lady Blessington think. His anonymous Advice to Julia, 1820, afterwards expanded and improved into Letters to Julia, is a reminiscence of the eighth ode of Horace, book i, and it need not fear a com- parison with the best lines of Praed. The dcliglits of life ^ Perhaps the best-known satirical Hnes of Tom Mooro are, — But bees on flowers ahghting cease their hum, So setthng upon places Whigs grow dumb. They occur in another of his anonymous works, Corruption (1808), and were prompted by the " cruelty " of both factions to Ireland. 126 SECRETS OE OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE in London for all classes are depicted in every stanza. I will quote ten lines by him. His prayer against the man of cant — O that there might in England be A duty on hypocrisy, A tax on humbug, an excise On solemn plausibilities — shall be followed by his pity for those suffering from ennui or depression. In vain the chesnut on their sight Bursts in full blossoms silver bright ; Lilacs their purple cones unfold, Or rich laburnums stream in gold ; No smile is on their lips, no word Of cheerful sound among them heard. When the Edinburgh Review criticized Lord Byron's volume of Hours of Idleness with flippant harshness, the poet retaliated in the publication, but without his name, of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. It was successful at once, and the second edition bore his name. "The misery is," writes the Duchess of Devonshire, " that his severest lines were on Lord Carlisle, and therefore Lord Morpeth has not yet and can't bear to meet him. But Lord Byron has bought up all the third [? fifth] edition, which is a great sacrifice to have made, and ought to conciliate everybody." Byron often affected to hide himself. The Waltz, an Apostrophic Hymn, was published in the spring of 1813 by Sherwood, Neely & Jones, publishers not identified with his name, and as by Horace Hornem, Esq. He feigned annoyance at the rumour " that a certain malicious pub- lication on waltzing " was attributed to him, and suggested that Murray should contradict it, " as the author, I am sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and bells.'' It must have been to this piece that Ward referred in his letter to Ivy (April 22, 1813). " Have you seen Waltz, a THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 127 poem without a name, but evidently Lord Byron's ? It is coarse and careless, but marked clearly enough with the hand of the master. Both for facility and power, he is really a most extraordinary person." Byron heard with indignation that the great Napoleon had abdicated and not died " as honour dies." He dashed off an Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, and forwarded it to Murray with the lordly intimation that he could print it or not as he pleased, but that if it appeared by itself it must be anonymously. Printed it was and issued on April 16, 1814, only five days after the abdication had been signed. Byron had no objection to " its being said to be mine," and there was no mystery about it. The ode was accepted by the critics as his, and treated accordingly. The thirteenth edition soon saw the light. So recently as 1903 a transla- tion into Hindustani was printed at Lahore. Two anonymous poems by two eminent authors were published together on August 6, 1814. One was Lara, by Byron, the other Jacqueline, by Rogers. This union of fire and water only existed for a short time. A divorce then ensued. But the first separate impression of Jacqueline was also anonymous. The mock heroic poem which was entitled Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work by William and Robert Whistlecraft of Stowmarket in Suffolk,^ Harness and Collar- makers, intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table and written in an " excellent manner," reviving in English poetry the octave stanzas of Pulci and others, was by John Hookham Frere. Byron avowed that it had inspired his own humorous Bcppo, a Venetian Story. This was published anonymously on May 4, 1818, and the seventh edition appeared before the year was out. ^ A lady of Suffolk caused much amusement amonc; her friends by making a journey to Stowmarket to see " those very intelligent harness-makers . ' ' 128 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Don Juan burst upon the world in the summer of 1819. Byron consulted Hobhouse and others on its publication, and they were unanimous in advising its suppression. He put their advice on one side with the remark that their opinion was desired on " the poetical merit, and not as to what they may think due to the cant of the day." If Murray agreed to publish he was to omit the stanzas on Castlereagh and " the two concluding words (Bob Bob) of the two last lines of the third stanza of the dedication to S." [Southey]. He might, however, wrote Byron, " publish anonymously or not at all : in the latter event print fifty on my account, for private distribution." When the earlier issues of the first five cantos came out they were doubly anonymous. " Neither author or publisher subscribed their names on the title-page ** [Works, Letters, iv, 275-6, Poetry, vi, p. xviii), and the dedication to Southey was omitted. Campbell published anonymously at Edinburgh in 1803 a little volume entitled Poems. It consisted of two stirring poems, Lochiel's Warning and Hohenlinden, which fanned into a fire of enthusiasm the feelings of Walter Scott. Still more conspicuous was the success of John Wilson Croker's anonymous Battles of Talavera, a Poem, 1809. No short poem that had ever appeared in print had fastened with such a grasp on the mind of the public. The sixth edition corrected, with some additions, appeared in 1810, the tenth in 1816. Croker was a past master in the composition of anonymous literature. His Familiar Epistles to F. J[one]s, Esq., on the present State of the Irish Stage (1804) was an imitation of Churchill, but it went through five editions in less than a twelvemonth, and was reprinted in 1875. An Intercepted Letter from J T , Esq., front Canton, a satire by Croker on Dublin society, ran through seven editions in the same period of time. The anonymous A Sketch of the State of Ireland, Past and Present, 1808, reached a higher level. Twenty editions spread the knowledge of this rhetorical pamphlet far and wide. THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 129 Landor's Gehir, a poem in seven hooks, published in 1798 and sold for a shilling, was praised by Southey both in public and in private. " I would go a hundred miles to see the (anonymous) author," he wrote to Cottle. "It has miraculous beauties " was his expression to Grosvenor Bedford. De Quincey wrote that Southey and himself had for some years been its sole purchasers, but that malicious little critic did not stick at a trifle. It came into a second edition in 1803, and was translated into Latin verse in the same year. Two later volumes of poetry by Landor (1800 and 1802) were printed as "by the author of Gehir." A few years before the appearance of his great poem Landor had printed without his name A Moral Epistle to Earl Stanhope, but I cannot find any copy of it in the British Museum. Landor's clerical brother, Robert Eyres Landor, dabbled in tragedy. His play, " The Count Arezzi," was brought out by Booth of Duke Street in 1824. Both author and publisher were surprised at the rapidity of the sale, and the author was told that if he meditated any change or corrections in the text a second edition must be got ready for the press. He learnt at the same time that the play was supposed to have been an anonymous production of Lord Byron. At once he gave orders that the piece should be advertised as his own, and that a new title-page with his name should be prefixed to all the unsold copies. The fountain of popularity dried up. After that not a copy a year was disposed of. Harrison Ainsworth published, under the pen-name of " Cheviot Tichburn " — a name no doubt suggested by the recollection of " Chidiock Tichborne," the poetical con- spirator against Queen Elizabeth — a slender volume of verse (1822) which he dedicated to Charles Lamb. Lamb's great work was in prose, but he did publish anonymously one or two pieces in poetry. Beauty and the Beast, or a Rough Outside ivith Gentle Heart " [181 1], a little duodecimo K 130 SECRETS OE OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of thirty-two pages which was printed for M. J. God\vin at the Juvenile Library, 41, Skinner Street, "price 5s. 6d. coloured, or 3s. 6d. plain," a price which must have ensured an enormous profit for the publisher, is attributed to him. His too, was Satan in Search of a Wife, with the whole Pro- cess of his Courtship and Marriage, and who Danced at the Wedding, by an Eye-witness, which came from Moxon's press in 1831 at the modest price of a shilling. This quaint little poem has now become very rare. It was reprinted by William Bates in his Maclise Portrait Gallery, 1833, PP- 495-502. When Shelley purposed about 1812 to publish his shorter poems he " thought it wrong to publish anything anony- mously." These views had not long been his. He had become an atheist, and had printed in 1811 a pamphlet (" The Necessity of Atheism ") setting out his opinions. It was distributed anonymously to " men of thought and learn- ing," Copleston amongst others, and it was brought under the notice of the master and fellows of University College. Shelley was sent for, refused to acknowledge the publication, and expelled. No other university was ever so harsh to men of genius as that of Oxford. His ironical Refutation of Deism, a Dialogue, is dated in 1814. The title-page announced in the veil of a Greek word that the tract was meant for the understanding few, and the preface expressly stated in plain English that " it has been printed in costly form in order that it might be kept from the gaze of the vulgar." Mr. Dowden doubts whether it was ever offered for sale. Probably not a single copy of this anonymous skit was purchased ! The trial of Queen Caroline stirred Shelley to fierce in- dignation. He satirised this extraordinary proceeding in (Edipus Tyrannus, or Sivellfoot the Tyrant, a Tragedy in two Acts translated from the original Doric. With Horace Smith acting as intermediary it was " published for the author by J. Johnston, London, 1820." The Wardmote THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 131 of Cheap in the City of London passed resolutions for in- stituting a prosecution, whereupon a long forgotten alder- man induced the publisher to suppress it. No less than seven copies had been sold ! John Keble's poetry was mtjre after Oxford's heart. In 1827, when the two volumes of The Christian Year were pub- lished anonymously, eight years had passed away since he entered upon their composition. Even then it was only in obedience to his father's wishes that they were published. Keble prophesied to his fellow Tractarian and poet, Isaac Williams, as the}^ were coming out of Baxter's printing press at Oxford, that the book would be still-born. W'ilHams took it with him to Llandrindod Wells, and found to his great surprise' that his acquaintances in the boarding-house were delighted with it. Not one of his Oxford friends had anticipated success, still less such an astounding success. The editions] have been well over a hundred, and the number of copies in each edition amounted fre- quently to thousands. Of Matthew Arnold's first venture. The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, by A. (1849), only 100 copies were printed, and it was withdrawn from circulation after a few of them had been sold. It was a tiny volume, the contents of which were confined to 128 pages. His next and better- known work, Empedocles on Etna, and other Poems (1852), was also " by A." When Coleridge, the first peer, met him a few weeks later and said that he had received the first of these collections, " Ah, yes," said Arnold, " by an Ameri- can I presume." Ellis Yarnall, who heard this anecdote from Coleridge, reminded the poet of it at a dinner given in his honour at Philadelphia as a proof of his eagerness to connect himself with their great country. R. D. Blackmore's father was a fellow, and he himself a scholar, of Exeter College, Oxford. His first three works were in poetry. " Melanter " was his pseudonym, and the first two syllables were no doubt suggested by the Greek 132 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE word for black. The titles of them were (i) Poems by Melanter (1854), ^ copy of which I saw recently priced at ten pounds ; (2) Epullia (1854) ; (3) The Bugle of the Black Sea, OY the British in the East (1855), the last two appearing as "by the author of poems by Melanter," None of these had much sale, and the poet for a time abandoned literature for the cultivation in his garden at Teddington of fruit for sale in Co vent Garden. He was strong in horticulture, and to refresh himself in rural life read the Georgics of Virgil. In 1862 he published a translation of the first two books [The Farm and Fruit of Old) as "by a Market Gar- dener." It is now a very rare book, and any one buying it for less than 35s. may bless his stars. I add a line to say that Blackmore's first novel, Clara Vaughan (1864), was anonymous. George Cox, son of the amiable old gentleman George Valentine Cox, an esquire bedel, who emulated Gunning of Cambridge in publishing recollections of the " Characters ' ' of his university, was a fellow of New College, Oxford, and the author of an anonymous satire which caused a great sensation in the academic groves by the Isis. The name was Black Goi&ns and Red Coats, or Oxford in 1834, the title being an allusion to the sombre garb of the university and the red coat of its new chancellor, the duke, and it con- tained some passages of great beauty, in the metre which Pope brought to perfection. Its author was ardent for reform, but he turned aside from the expression of his aspirations for a moment to deliver a warm eulogy on Gladstone, for — " A friendly Whig may chant a Tory's praise." Tennyson began his poetic career under the veil of anony- mity. His earliest productions were contained in a volume born into the world in 1827, ^^'^^ ushered in as Poems by Two Brothers, although three of them, Alfred, Charles and Frederick, had contributed to its completion. It was THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 133 printed by J. & J. Jackson, of the Market Place, Louth. ^ After this hesitating appearance in print, most of his pub- lications bore his name. There was, however, one notable exception. Arthur Henry Hallam died in 1833, but it was not until long years afterwards that Tennyson's dirge on the loss of his friend was printed. In Memoriam was distributed among a few friends in May, 1850. Shortly afterwards it was published anonymously by Edward Moxon of Dover Street, but the secret of its authorship quickly leaked out. Tennyson's friend " Fitz " began authorship in more discouraging circumstances. His translation of Omar Khayyam lay neglected for a year with the rulers of Frasc/s Magazine. It was then rescued from the dust of a pub- lisher's office and printed at Fitz Gerald's expense by Bernard Quaritch at Castle Street, Leicester Square (February 15, 1859). The author sent it to a few friends, but the neg- lected lines found no favour in the eyes of the public. The remainder was given to Quaritch, who tried in vain to sell the copies, first at 2s. (jci. and then at is. Most of them reached the penny box outside liis door, and were gradually disposed of to more appreciative minds. By slow degrees it was absorbed. Nine years elapsed before the issue of the second edition, and nearly twenty before that of tlie fourth. Now his description in tlie Catalogue of the British Museum Library is " translator of Omar Khayyam," and some pages of the Catalogue are filled with theissuesof the work. Fitz Gerald's first venture was his ■^wonym.owi Eupliranor, a dialogue on youth (1851), which has the glow of youthful years in every page. His next wc^rk was Polonius, a col- lection of wise saws and modern itistanccs (1852). Tliis also was anonymous, and its preface bubbled over with good nature. In 1862 he amused himself by a free translation of tlie ^ Guesses at Truth by Julius Charles and Augustus William Hare was the work of " two brothers." Poems by three Sisters, 1S64, were the creation of three sisters of the house of Tuppcr. 134 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Agamemnon of ^Eschylus for the use of some of his friends who were unacquainted with Greek. As a long manuscript would be inconvenient reading, it was printed " by a cheap friend, and issued without name of author, title-page or imprint, in a staring ultramarine paper cover." It was published in 1865, and republished in 1876. Dante Rossetti came across in the British Museum Library an anonymous poem entitled Pauline, and was so much struck with its beauty that he copied it from beginning to end. He recognised one or two verses which he had read in the acknowledged poems of Robert Browning, and from this fact, as well as from the internal evidence in other respects, he realised that it must be Browning's composi- tion. Rossetti in the summer of 1850 wrote to the poet, who was then at Venice, and received the welcome assurance that his surmise was correct. By this time Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession, had been published for seventeen years. lonica was published anonymously in 1858, but was soon known to be the work of William Johnson, then a master at Eton and fellow of King's College, Cambridge. After- wards, on the acquisition of some property, he took the name of Cory, and as William Cory he is known to us. The book became extremely rare, and was reprinted in 1 891 and again in 1905. The Bon Gualtier ballads of Wil- liam Edmondstoune Aytoun and Theodore Martin have dehghted myriads of readers since their first publication in 1845. Sir Theodore Martin, happily still alive and vigorous enough to fight against his pet aversions of motor cars and motor omnibuses, found the name in the prologue to the first book of Rabelais. Songs and Verses, Social and Scientific, by an old Con- tributor to Maga, was pubhshed in 1868, and a fourth edition, enlarged, appeared in 1875. Some of them had afforded amusement to private friends, and the volume spread enjoyment among thousands. One of the best pieces was THE POET SHRINKING IN ANONYMITY 135 " I'm very fond of water," and each verse ended with the way in which the author liked the hquid mixed. At breakfast it was with " good mocha or bohea " ; at lun- cheon with beer ; at dinner with Sherry wdne ; after dinner with " Glenlivet or Cognac " ; before bed with gin. The author was Lord Neaves. With the doleful Ballad of Reading Gaol, published early in i8g8 as by C. 33, the tragic career in literature of a bril- liant writer came to a sad end. Many editions of it were sold in England, and it was translated into French, German and Spanish. VII The Concealed Theologian In the days of the Tudors the theological controversialist, whether on the side of the Cathohcs in obedience to the Church of Rome, or on that of the Puritans introducing evangelical dissent from the estabhshed Church, was driven into anony- mity. He wrote with his life in his hand. He knew that were the writing of the condemned treatise brought home to him, his hberty, if not his existence, would be in danger. The writers in the Marprelate controversy printed in secret and launched into the world in quietness a long string of stinging pamphlets unacknowledged by their authors. The details of these tracts may be read in the History of the Martin Marprelate controversy in the reign of Queen Eliza- beth, by the Rev. William Maskell, 1845, or in the Intro- ductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate controversy , which Mr. Edward Arber included in his English Scholars' Library, 1880, No. 8. The first is written from the standpoint of the episcopal bench, the second favours the views of their antagonists. Mr. Arber added to his work " a provisional chronological list of the works comprising the controversy." The chief author of these tracts was John Penry, a Welsh zealot, who graduated at both Cambridge and Oxford. He opened his attack on the Church of England in 1587 by publishing anonymously A Treatise Addressed to the Queen and Parliament on its defects in the Principality, and the consequent ignorance which prevailed among his fellow- countrymen. For this offence Archbishop Whitgift issued 136 THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 137 a warrant, calling in the printed books and ordering the arrest of the author, who was promptly sent to gaol by the Court of High Commission. On his liberation Penry and his friends set to work with renewed vigour. The iirst of the Marprelate tracts was struck off by compositors supplied by Robert Waldegrave, a well-known printer in London, at a secret printing-press at East Moulsey. This plan did not last long. The woman in whose house the press was set up soon took fright, and it was removed to Fawsley in Northamptonshire, then, as now, the seat of the powerful family of Knightley, whose head sympathized with the schemes of the Puritans. From this place of concealment and from otliers — some, like Coventry, among the busy haunts of men, others in the rural retreats of Haseley or Wolston, another in the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle in France — tract after tract was scattered broadcast throughout England, and provoked many rejoinders fcom the cliampi(jns of episcopacy. The scent became too hot, and to escape fresh incarceration Penry fled to Scotland, whose monarch, on the Queen of England's appli- cation, ordered his banishment from the realm, but through the influence of the Scotch clergy the decree remained a dead letter. For more than two years he remained there in seclusion. He then returned to England, was arrested on March 22, 1592-3, by the vicar of Stepney, and on the follow- ing May 29 was hanged at St. Thomas a Watering, the legal place of execution fcjr Surrey, fixed near the second milestone on the Old Kent Road from London. Robert Parsons, the Jesuit rector of the luiglish College at Rome in 1588, and again from 1597 until his death in 1610, was the English champion in literature of the Roman Cathohcs. His industry was immense. On one of his visits to England he set up a secret printing-press at a hired lodg- ing in East Ham in Essex. When safety w^as no longer possible in England, he crossed the channel to Rouen and continued writing there. In Halkett and Laing's Dictionary 138 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature there can be found under his name no less than twenty-two entries. His famous Conference ahovt the next Svccession to the Crowne of Ingland (1594) was pubUshed under the disguise of R. Doleman, and with the approval, if not with the assistance, of Cardinal Allen and Sir Francis Englefield. A volume of this meddlesome and dangerous character asserting the power of the people to alter the line of succession and pointing out the Infanta of Spain as the proper successor to queen Elizabeth, aroused condemnation within his own religious body, as well as among the nation at large. Parliament promptly made it high treason for any one to have a copy in his possession. A curious popularity attended his First Booke of the Christian Exercise, Appcrtayninge to Resolution, which was printed for Parsons at Rouen in 1582. It was brought out under his initials of R. P., and the secret of the authorship was not generally known. An Oxford graduate, Edmund Bunney, at one time a probationary fellow at Magdalen, afterwards a full fellow of Merton, was ignorant of its origin. He re-issued it with alterations at London in 1584 and at Oxford in 1585 ; and seven later editions were printed at London between 1586 and 1630. To one of these issues Richard Baxter was indebted for his first religious impressions. Parsons did not approve of these changes in his treatise. He brought out in 1585 a new edition of it, calhng it A Christian Directory with Rcprofe of the Falsified Edition published by E. Buny, and the Oxford don retahated with A Brief e Answer unto those Idle and Frivolous Quarrels of R. P. When Bishop Hall, the champion of tlie Evangelical faith on the bench of bishops, published in An Humble Remon- strance to the High Court of Parliament, 1640, his vindication of liturgies and episcopacy he was promptly answered by five divines among ^the Puritans, who coined for them- selves the appalhng name of Smectymnuus. It was com- posed of the initials of their names, which were Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew New- THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 139 comen, and William Spurstowe. The Puritan answer pro- voked an episcopal rejoinder, and this in its turn was the cause of another answer and another reply. Ussher inter- posed in aid of his episcopal friend, and Milton lent his mighty pen to the cause of the divines. Many of his prose pieces were published as by J. M. and the third set (1668) of the first edition of Paradise Lost was so issued. Who wrote the Eikon Basilike ? Was it a genuine com- position of King Charles I, or did it proceed from the prefer- ment-hunting talent of Dr. Gauden ? This is a subject on which many an ink-pot has been shed. The claim of Gauden seems to have been admitted by some of the leading royalists after the Restoration, and it was supported by Anthony Walker, who had been his curate at Bocking. Many acute minds, including men of such varying views and talents as Toland, Lingard and LLdlam, have taken this view, and in May and June, 1883, it was warmly supported in the pages of The Academy by Mr. Charles Edward Doblc, a very patient investigator in such matters. The supporters of Charles are no less important in position or talent. Wag- staffe, a nonjuring divine, maintained in 1697 that it was the King's composition. Christopher Wordsworth, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, took the same line in three publications (1824, 1825, and 1828), and in our own day Mr. Edward Almack has argued warmly for the king in his Bibliography of the Kings Book, or Eikon Basilike (1896). The arguments of these disputants will never cease. The Latin tract Fur Pra^destinatus, sive dialogismns inter quendam ordinis Prccdicaniium Calvinistam ct Fnrcm- ad Laqucum damnatuvi habitus, which was printed anony- mously at London in 1651, is usually attributed to the pen of Archbishop Bancroft, and the latinity may have been his. It attacked Calvinism " as subversive of morality," and its opponents hailed the work as a signal refutation of that " dismal creed." One English translation came out in 1658 and another in 1814. The merits of the rival creeds of 140 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Calvinism and Arminianism proved a subject of keen debate during the first half of the seventeenth century among the fierce theologians of the United Provinces, and this tract was the composition of one of their number. Tlie original work was Den Gheprcdcstinecrden Dief, 1619-22, 3 parts, and its authorship is usually attributed to Henry Slatius, one of the leaders of the party called Remonstrants. Thomas Jack- son, the learned Wesleyan minister of Richmond, in Surrey, about i860 privately printed eight pages of argument to prove that Archbishop Sancroft was " not the author of the predestinated thief." The authorship of the tract formed the subject of a communication to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1830, pt. II, p. 595. The begetting of The Whole Duty of Man, the first edition of which was published anonymously in 1658, has stirred the curiosity of many an antiquary. It formed the subject of conversation among the devotees of Dr. Johnson in 1773 at a dinner given by Topham Beauclerk. Some of the set wondered " why the author of so excellent a book should conceal himself." The sage, whose mother confined him, when he was a boy, at home on Sundays so that he might improve himself by a study of its pages, gave three reasons, anyone of which might set their doubts at rest. "He may have been a clergyman, and may have thought that his reli- gious counsels would have less weight when known to come from a man whose profession was theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not suitable to his principles, so that his character might injure the effect of his book, which he had written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all to a future state." This treatise dominated the religious hfe of the Enghsh race for several generations. Throughout that period speculation was rife as to the authorship. Malone thought that Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York, was the THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 141 author. Beaupre Bell suggested, and Dr. Barrett, of Trinity College, Dublin, supported the suggestion that it was the work of Bishop Chappcll of Cork. It was assigned in turns to several other occupants of the episcopal bench, such as Sterne, Archbishop of York, Fell, Bishop of Oxford, and Henchman, Bishop of London. Among clergymen of lower rank Abraham Woodhead, Obadiah Walker, William Fulman and Richard AHestree, had their respective supporters. But the favourite supposi- tion gave it to Dorothy Lady Pakington. During the Protectorate her house of Westwood, near Droit wich, afforded hospitality to the leading divines of the Caroline church. Henry Hammond was one of them, and to this great treatise there was prefixed a letter from Hammond to the publisher. Now, however, current opinion attributes its ccjmposition to Richard AHestree, the regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and the provost of Eton, assisted by the supervising care of Bisbop Fell. This was the view put forward by Mr. C. E. Doble in three articles in The Academy during Novem- ber, 1882. Scores of editions of The Whole Duty of Man were ab- sorbed after the year of its first jniblication, and the title gave rise to a score of imitators. The New Whole Duty of Man came out about 1744, and passed through many issues. Then followed The Whole Duty of Prayer, The Whole Duty of Mourning, and The Whole Duty of Woman. The Gentle- man's Calling (1660) was put forward as " written by the author of The Whole Duty of Man." So was The Government of the Tongue, which reached a fifth impression in 1677. Henry Hammond, a great name in the records of Anghcan Churchmanship, comes again before us in connexion with an anonymous work of wide celebrity. The Puritans were conspicuous for their zeal in preaching ; the High Church section of the established Church dwelt much on the virtue of catechising. Hammond compiled a Practicall Catechisme, drawn up " for his own private convenience out 142 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of those materials which he had made use of in the catechetic institution of the youth of his parish," and Dr. Potter, the Provost of Queen's College at Oxford, having seen the manu- script, offered to bear the care and charge of its pubUcation. It was pubhshed anonymously at Oxford in 1644, and was often reprinted, particularly after the Restoration. The six- teenth edition is dated in 1847. During his hfetime theology divided with chemistry the affections of the Hon. Robert Boyle, but his fame as a chemist is all that survives now. Many of his works were published with initials only, although their authorship must at once have become a matter of general knowledge. The initials T. H. R. B. E. appeared on his Excellence of Theology, 1674, and these were the first letters of The honourable i?obert Boyle, Esq. Some Considerations ahout the reconcileahle- ness of reason and religion, 1675, was professedly by " T. E., a Layman," and these were the last letters of Robert Boyk. His Sceptical Chymist, 1680, was without name or initials. Another of his works, Reasons why a Protestant should not turn Papist, 1687, was by " a person of quality," and he was probably the " person of quality," for whom the " case of the lawfulness of the Toleration of the Jews," was written in 1655 [Jeimsh Hist. Soc, Trans, ii. 151-4). His Curiosi- ties in Chymistry, 1691, were heralded to the world as " written by a person of honour." The first part of Divine Breathings ; or A Pious Soul Thirsting after Christ, was published without any clue as to the authorship in 1672. Often has it been reprinted, and it was edited by Mr. W. J. Loftie in 1879. The second part came out as by T. S. in 1680, and these initials are said to stand for Thomas Sherman, but I have failed in my attempt to recover any biographical details about him. This too was many times reissued, and it appeared so recently as 1885. Strangely enough the separate parts seem never to have been united in one volume. A small tract stole into the world at Dublin in 1750. It THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 143 was entitled Maxims Concerning Patnotism, forty in all, spread over four pages. The brochure is to be found in every edition of Bishop Berkeley's works and is much in the manner of his acknowledged pamphlets. But the first edition of it bears on the title-page the words, by " a lady." Was this a disguise of the good bishop, or had his wife imbibed the spirit of his style ? At all events the tract was included two years later in his Miscellany. Part I of The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared, the anonymous diatribe of George Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, came out in 1749. Within a year there appeared a second part, and a third came out in 1752. John Wesley himself, George Whitefield and Vincent Perronet, with several others among the Methodists, defended their religious body from his censures, and the bishop replied to their attacks. Richard Polwhele, who from his youth up was ever ready to take up the pen, and perhaps somewhat provoked by -the Methodists among his parishioners, brought out the three parts together in 1820, and added " notes, introduction, and appendix " of a length portentous enough to vie with the notes of Samuel Parr. In 1750 the coarse criticisms of the bishop represented the views of a majority of his countrymen. That was a period in our history when enthusiasm in religion was discouraged. By 1820 a new spirit had arisen. A concerted movement for the abolition of tests in the English Church was organized about 1770. The anonymous work, entitled The Confessional, 1766, by Archdeacon Blackburne, gave life to it. He argued that a profession of belief in the Scriptures as the word of God and an assurance to teach therefrom was the only pledge that should be required from a Protestant minister. A list of the writers on this subject is in the Gentleman' s Magazine for 1780, pp. 225-6, and the controversy was summarised by Dr. Disney in 3. Short View. At a meeting held at the Feathers' Tavern in 1772 a petition was signed by 200 very influontial persons 144 SECRETS OE OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE expressing their desire that Blackburne's views should receive the sanction of Parhament. The debate in the Commons took place on February 6, 1772, but the proposi- tion was rejected by 217 votes to 71. Edmund Burke was vehemently opposed to it. The anonymous Essay on the Revenues of the Church of England, 1795, the composition of the Rev. Morgan Cove, then a curate at the stannary town of Helston in Cornwall, dealt with a subject always of interest to the clergy. This pamphlet at once brought preferment to its author. The then Bishop of Exeter bestowed on him, ere the year was out, the adjoining vicarage of Sithney. Four years later Cove was drawn by the Bishop of Hereford into his diocese with the gift of the rectory of Eaton Bishop, and he was further rewarded by a prebendal stall in that cathedral and by its chancellorship. The pamphlet, which drew atten- tion to his knowledge and shrewdness, passed into a second edition in 1797 and a third in 1816. Next year it was re- issued in the same volume with his Inquiry into the Necessity, Justice and Policy of a Commutation of Tithes. About 1814, Jeremy Bentham moved from London to the stately mansion of Ford Abbey, placed amid that riant landscape — as John Stuart Mill styles it — on the borders of Dorset and Devon and by the side of one of their loveliest streams. To this sweet seclusion he attracted many kindred minds, and in its freedom from active abstraction, the ideas of theology, which had been seetliing in his mind since his admission in 1760 at Queen's College, Oxford, took definite shape. Here he wrote Church of Englandism and its Catechis7n Examined, and Not Paul, hut Jesus. A copy of the first of them, which is preserved at the British Museum, contains some letters and notes of Bentham, chiefly on the danger of a State prosecution of the book. Sir Samuel Romilly and others endeavoured to restrain him from publishing it. " For a time," says Sir John Macdonell in the D.N.B., " the book was sold privately [in 1817]. Subsequently it was THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 145 advertised as by an " Oxford graduate " [1817], and no prosecution having been instituted it was published [in 1818] with Bentham's name." Extracts from it were published in 1823 and 1831, the first with the fantastic title of Mother Church Relieved by Bleeding, the second as The Book of Church Reform, and it was said to be edited by one of his disciples. Not Paul, but Jesus, purported to be by Gamaliel Smith It was published in 1823, and in the next few months there appeared several replies to it. Francis Place was at one time led to claim the authorship, and he probably assisted in the composition. But Sir John Bowring had no hesitation in inserting it among the works of Bentham. A contributor to Notes and Queries (4th ser. iv. 550), signing himself an * Inner Templar," asserted that his friend Richard Doane, a barrister-at-law, was when a youth an inmate of Bent- ham's house, and that he used to help the old man in putting together and^pasfing on cartridge-paper the various slips of paper that made up the complete treatise. Its object was to show that the apostle had varied the teachings of his Master. Joseph Blanco White, whose family went from Ireland to Spain and changed their name to Blanco, a translation of that of White, after liis flight to England made many friends in London and at Oxford, where he played the violin with Newman and explained the breviary to Hurrell Fronde. But his chief and most permanent friendship in England was with Whately, afterwards the Archbishop of Dublin, whose theological tenets he much influenced. While a member of the National Church he shared the religious views of the archbishop, but in later years he passed into the realm of Unitarianism. The first book which made his name gener- ally known in his adopted country was the Letters from Spain, by Don Leucadio Doblado ("a GriEco-Spanish appellation — White doubled "), which Ticknor, a competent judge, pro- nounced " full of the most faithful sketches of Spanish L 146 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE character and manners." Blanco White's changes of religious view were set out in his Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion, 1833. To this were added notes and illustrations, which the title-page playfully said were " not by the editor of Captain Rock's ' Memoirs,' " a state- ment which at once invested his work with some of the interest which attached to Tom Moore's volume. This work was written " with the sanction and under the superintendence of Archbishop Whately." Whately himself had often taken shelter in anonymity. The anonymous Letters on the Church by an Episcopalian, 1826, the main contention of which was that " Church and State should be independent of each other," created a great stir in the cloister and the parsonage. Hurrell Froude remarked to Newman that they would make his blood boil, and they certainly had a great effect on his mind. He eagerly combated the current belief at Oxford that they had been written by Whately, but the contrary opinion was too strong for him, and he reluctantly acquiesced in the general view. They were reviewed in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xliv., by Dr. Arnold. Whately's most amusing effort was his Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. This was published with- out his name in 1819 during his days as a don at Oriel College. His object was to show that the same doubts which had been brought against the credibility of our Lord's career might be applied to one whose acts, as a living man in that generation, had attracted the world's attention. The references throughout this brochure were to the arguments raised in Hume's Essay on Miracles. The little pamphlet passed through many editions, ten in thirty-one years, and its popularity was not exhausted even then. One facetious writer is said to have been prompted by its success to contri- bute to a popular magazine an article entitled, "Historic Doubts Relative to Archbishop Whately." Whewell attached in his own mind the highest interest to THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 147 his anonymous treatise 0/ the Plurality of Worlds, An Essay, 1853. His argument was against their existence. He set out his views with much care, consulted his friends on the pubhcation and acted upon their suggestions, adopting the recommendation of Sir James Stephen, that he should cancel about seventy pages of print. He sent Sir Henry Holland a copy and asked for his opinion on the hypothesis in order that it might be transmitted to the author. A very " free criticism " was returned, and Sir Henry some years later added his belief that the author had not been convinced by his own arguments. The essay attracted the greatest atten- tion among scientific men, and wasnoticed in the chief reviews in England by several persons conspicuous in our national literature. Humboldt sent the author a letter from Berlin. A sort of supplement to the essay was issued in 1854, and a fifth edition came out in 1859. Very few persons are now alive who can remember the torrent of Excitement which burst over the land on the appearance of the Vestiges of the Natural History of the Creation, 1844. Extraordinary measures were taken to maintain the secrecy of the authorship, and for forty years the mystery was unrevealed. " Nobody knows who wrote it," was the expression of the twelfth Duke of Somerset in 1845. It was ascribed to Thackeray, Lady Lovelace, Edward Bunbury, Sir Charles Lyell, George Combe, Sir Richard Vyvyan, and with especial vehemency and frequency to Sir Charles Lyell and Prince Albert. Some fancied it written by Brougham. Owen was not surprised at its anony- mity, as it was against the adopted views of "men of science," and agreed with the multitude that it was by Vyvyan, a man then conspicuous as a poHtician and a dabbler in science. Sir Charles Wheatstone thought that in that case the con- clusions " must have been modified by some one else, other- wise it would have been milder." All of them united in the belief that it was " well written and ingeniously reasoned." .Charles Darwin, as was natural, often referred to it in his 148 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE letters. " The writing and arrangement are certainly admir- able," was his phrase in 1844. Next year he records that it " has been by some attributed to me — at which I ought to be much flattered and unflattered." In that year he wrote that Forbes was convinced, " from a similarity in error, that Chambers must be the author." In December, 1846, Hooker said that it was by Robert Chambers, and Leonard Horner at once remarked that this supposition would explain the Scotticisms in the style. " Darwin made the acquaint- ance of Chambers in 1847, ^^d thereupon received a presen- tation copy of the work. " Somehow I now feel perfectly convinced he is the author." When Huxley reviewed the volume in 1854 [British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, xiii. 425) Darwin acknowledged his ability, but thought him " rather hard on the poor author." Huxley himself in after days had qualms of conscience on its " need- less savagery." Whewell condemned the work. Murchison urged Owen to review it, and Adam Sedgwick dubbed it " that beastly book." Sedgwick was asked to review it in the Edinburgh Review, and at first declined. Later on he wrote to Macvey Napier that he would review it, though he detested the book, and review it he did with a vengeance (July, 1845). Although Chambers became more and more identified with it in general opinion, and the suspicion of its paternity caused his exclusion in 1848 from the office of Lord Provost of Edinburgh, he was not officially acknowledged as the author until 1884. It ran through at least twelve editions, and a sequel was published in 1845. In this country replies to it teemed from the press. It was translated into German by Carl Vogt in 1851. Mr. Gladstone wrote in 1866 that Ecce Homo, a Survey of the Life and Work of Christ, had created more stir in the social life of England than any theological publication since The Vestiges. It divided the thoughtful into two camps. One section deemed it wanting in " orthodox " belief. An- THE CONCEALED THEOLOGIAN 149 other thought that it dealt too kmdly with the " super- stition " that crusted over the great churches of Europe. There were many and wild suggestions as to the authorship. Some attributed the volume to George Eliot, others to Goldwin Smith. Rogers, afterwards Lord Blachford, thought that Newman was the author. He impressed this conviction upon Mr. Gladstone and Dean Church. " If he be not Bran, he is Bran's brother " was his exclamation. The effect of the book on many minds was but transient. Chief Baron Pollock in March, 1866, pronounced the book " wonderful and extraordinary . . . startling at first by novelty and boldness, but beyond measure attractive " ; but two months later some of the glamour had vanislied, " some of it is fanciful, some feeble." Though Henry Sidgwick in February, 1866, spoke of it as a great book, profoundly stirring the younger minds, a different conclu- sion was forced upon him by the following May. Mr. Gladstone was impressed by it from the first, and from January to March, 1868, he contributed to Good Words a series of articles setting out its views and conclusions, and was reproached by Dean Milman for having brought back to life a volume " falling swiftly into oblivion." Lord Shaftesbury denounced it from the platform of Exeter Hall, and the accustomed condemnation of originality appeared in the Quarterly Review. The veil covering its authorship was soon thrown aside. Macmillan declined to reveal the name, but by May, 1866, the paternity was acknowledged by (Sir) John Robert Seeley. It ran through five issues in 1866, and tlie eleventh edition is dated 1873. Another learned work in theology came out in 1874, and attracted wide attention, partly arising from the anonymity of the author. This was a treatise in two volumes entitled Supernatural Religion, an Enquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation, to which a third volume was added in 1876, and in them the author summarised and criticised the teachings of the four Gospels. It was attacked by Light- 150 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE foot, afterwards the Bishop of Durham, and defended by the author in a reply (1889). It was assigned to a variety of people prominent in the religious world. First came Dr. Thirlwall, but this was promptly denied. Then came Muir, the Sanscrit scholar. Last of all it was fathered on Dr. Vance Smith, but he refused to accept the parentage. For a time even the publishers were unaware of the name of the writer whose theological convictions they had given to the world. But at last the enquiry was acknowledged by Walter Richard Cassels, a merchant of Bombay, who at the age of forty-nine returned to England to devote himself to theology and literature. A still larger sale, although with circles of life not so conspicuous in public estimation, awaited the anonymous publications in theology of the Rev. William Branks, minister of the Parish of Torpichen. Of one of them, Heaven our Home, printed at Edinburgh in 1861, consider- ably more than 100,000 copies were sold. VIII The Politician in the Dark The popularity of the political pamphlet lias passed away. It has been killed by the daily newspaper and tlie monthly review. In these ephemeral publications the party-man or the constitution-monger is sure of a reading pubhc. With the pamphlet he has to trust to chance, with the result that in previous generations a brochure of merit has often died unknown and unlamented. For good or for evil this class of literature is now a thing of the past. A swarm of political pamphlets buzzed through the streets of London during the Civil War and the Protectorate. They had titles of enormous length, mixed with lengthy quotations from the Scriptures. Thousands of them were collected by Thomason, the bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard, annotated always on the title-page with the date of purchase, and sometimes with the author's name, and after many vicissitudes his collection passed to the British Museum. Acatalogueof the tracts has just been compiled by Mr. Fortescue, the keeper of printed books. Lilburne and Hugh Peters are conspicuous among the names opposed to the cause of the Royalists, and their diatribes met with answers equally hot on the side of the church and the king. Perhaps the most famous of all these pro- ductions, Royalist or Roundhead, was the tract entitled Killing noc murder, hricfiy discourst in three questions by William Allen [June, 1657], and dedicated to Cromwell, in which a pseudo- William- Allen justified tyrannicide It 151 152 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE was printed in Holland and sent over to England in the summer of 1657. Its chief author was Edward Sexby, long an ardent supporter of the Protector and his cause, but by 1655 a zealous plotter against his government, although there was probably in it a dash of Captain Silas Titus. Sexby died a prisoner in the Tower in January, 1658, a victim to a distracted mind and a decayed body. Titus, who by the end of 1647 had passed from the Parliamentarians to the side of the king, lived long in court favour after the Restoration. This celebrated pamphlet was often reprinted down to 1743 and 1749, was translated into French in 1658, and was included in the Harlcian Miscellany and in Henry Morley's Famous Pamphlets, 1886. When the Tory party was forcing through Parliament in the year 1702 a bill for the suppression of occasional con- formity, Defoe, as a " high-flyer," brought out his anony- mous Shortest Way with the Dissenters, in which he pleaded for their extirpation. Some of the more ardent supporters of the Church of England took the pamphlet gravely, and their anger burned the more furiously at their self-deception. When their eyes were opened they saw that the arguments of the writer were a burlesque on their opinions. The exaggerated churchman turned out to be an execrable schismatic. It was burnt by order of the House of Com- mons, and the author was indicted at the Old Bailey on February 24, 1703. His trial took place at the sessions of the following July. The authorship wasq acknowledged, and Defoe was sentenced to a fine of 200 marks, to stand in the pihory three times, to be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure, and to find sureties for good behaviour during seven years. On the last three days of July, 1703^ Defoe stood in the pillory, first before the Royal Exchange, then against the ancient conduit in Cheapside, and on the last day under the shade of Temple Bar. Many of the citizens stood around him, the pillory was covered with garlands, and his health was drunk and re-drunk. Tlie THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 153 victim published A Hymn to the Pillory, great numbers of which were openly sold to the bystanders. The scene lives again in Mr. Eyre Crowe's popular picture. Swift's political writings dominated the age in which he lived. At the instance of Lord Berkeley he fleshed his sword in politics with the anonymous A Discourse of the Contests and the Dissensions between the Nobles and the Com- mons in Athens and Rome, 1701, in which he applied the incidents of ancient history to those of his own day, identi- fying the Whig peers attacked by the impeachments of the House of Commons with those prominent names in Athenian history that fell victims to the rage of the people. The pamplilet was much praised and circulated by the Whigs, on whose behalf vSwift wrote, and was fathered on Somers and Burnet. The authorship is said to have been first acknowledged at the dinner table of Bishop Sheridan, when Swift, for expressing doubts of its having been written by Burnet, was accused of being a " positive young man." His Conduct of the Allies was published anonymously on November 27, 1711, with the printed date of 1712, and the seventh edition was published in the same year. It was followed by Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty. Tlie first of them was translated in the same year^into French and Spanish, the second into Spanish, and both of them were attacked in several anonymous diatribes. Swift's Irish pamphlets are inspired by Sceva indignatio. It is, says Sir Henry Craik, the " deliberate incisiveness of their irony, the despairing bitterness that give them finish and completeness." In one [Maxims Controlled in Ireland, 1724] he shows how the ordinary rules governing other nations break down when applied to Ireland. In another [A Short View of the State of Ireland, 1727] he points out that the very opposite of the ordinary conditions of prosperity exists in that country. The third [A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People [in Ire- land] from being a Burthen to their Parents or the Country, 154 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE 1729] was published at a time when hundreds of persons starved to death through the famine were left unburied in the streets. Some have condemned the last of these anonymous pamphlets as the callous sport of a cynic over misery. Others speak of its grave bitterness. Greatest of all Swift's efforts was the series of Drapier's Letters (1724). The occasion was very simple. One William Wood had secured a patent for supplying Ireland with -^108,000 in copper coinage. His antecedents were against him. He was described as " hardwareman and bankrupt," and one of the royal ladies, of undoubted unvirtue, was known to have a share in the plunder. The Irish Houses of Parliament appealed against the scheme, but Walpole was inflexible. Out came Swift in July, 1724, with an anonymous letter addressed to " the shopkeepers, tradesmen, farmers and common people of Ireland," and signed " M. B., drapier," in which the Dublin draper anti- cipated ruin if fraudulent Englishmen were allowed to buy his wares across the counter, and foist on him in exchange a sackful of Wood's counterfeits. Next month he pro- duced a second letter to " Mr. Harding, the printer," and a third to the " nobility and gentry of Ireland." Six weeks later in October came the Drapier's fourth letter " to the whole people of Ireland," for the discovery of the author of which Lord Carteret, the new Lord-Lieutenant, offered a reward of £300. Harding the printer was indicted, but nothing came from money offer or from legal action. A fifth letter was circulated in December, 1724, and a sixth, though written in that year, was not printed until 1735. The popular ferment got the mastery over Walpole's resolute- ness. Wood's patent was withdrawn, and Swift, known everywhere as the author of the letters, was the hero of Ireland. When Swift published anonymously in 1733 his On Poetry, a Rhapsody, Pope wrote him, " Your method of concealing yourself puts me in mind of the Indian bird I THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 155 have read of who hides his head in a hole while all his feathers and tail stick out." During the administration of Sir Robert Walpole the leading politicians set out their views in rival pamphlets. Early in 173 1 there appeared an anonymous pamphlet with the pleasant title of Sedition and Defamation Dis- played and with a dedication " to the Patrons of the Craftsman." This was rumoured among his opponents in Parliament to be the work of John, Lord Hervey, the "Sporus " of Pope's verse, and the dedication is now accepted as his, although the main body of the pamphlet is assigned to Sir William Yonge, a forgotten placeman of the period. Pulteney was severely denounced in the dedication, and fiercely retorted in the anonymous diatribe A Proper Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel, in which Hervey was censured in no measured terms. A duel took place in the Green Park, and but fof a slip of Ids foot Pulteney would have run his antagonist through the body. Greater scandal was prevented by the interposition of the seconds. At the close of her life the imperious Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, thought it desirable that posterity should learn from herself the reasons for her conduct in court politics. She sent for Nathaniel Hooke, a man of talent among the Roman Catholics and a man of good style among English writers. With indomitable energy she caused her- self to be lifted from her bed, and for six hours she spoke on her past life without the aid of any notes. The result was seen in the anonymous Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough from Her first Coming to Court in the year 1710 (1742), and for his labours Hooke was paid the handsome sum of £5,000. Thomas Winnington passed from the circles of Toryism, in which he was bred, to a conspicuous place among the Whig followers of Walpole. His wit was unpremeditated, his parts were quick, and the success of his career in Par- liament marked him out as the future Prime Minister of 156 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE England. But he died when but fifty years old, under the hands of an incompetent physician. Very soon after- wards there shot from the press An Apology for the conduct of a late celebrated Second-rate Minister, from the year 1729, at which time he commenced Courtier, till within a few Weeks of his death in 1746. . . . Written by himself, and found among his Papers [1747], which professed to set out his genuine convictions and to contain " many curious and interesting particulars relative to the times and persons in the highest stations." Winnington's executors at once advertised the world in the Gentleman's Magazine that it was " an impudent, false, scurrilous pamphlet," and that " no part, nor the least line or trace of the said libel " had been found among his papers. They offered the sum of /50 as a reward for the discovery of the author, but he lay quiet. Several other tracts arose out of it, and among them was A Proper Answer to a late Scurrilous Libel, which was the work of Henry Fielding. Faction Detected by the Evidence of Facts, 1743, seventh edition 1744, ranks among the most popular pamphlets ever published and created as much noise in the political world as the vainest of authors could have desired. It was, says Horace Walpole, " a vast pamphlet in defence of the new administration," and popular rumour assigned its composition to Zachary Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, and the materials to Lord Bath, whose conduct it defended. Rumour was wrong ; it was the work of John Perceval, the second Earl of Egmont, a politician equally successful in speech and in print. The part an- swering the Hanoverian pamphlets was especially admired by Horace Walpole. The chief of these productions. The Case of the Hanover Forces in the Pay of Great Britain exam- ined (1743), was written by the great Earl of Chesterfield and Edmund Waller, M.P., of whom Chesterfield said that he could " not say the commonest thing without laughing," It passed through three editions, and called forth an anony- THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 157 mous answer, The Interest of Great Britain steadily Pur- sued, from the old Horace Walpole, which in three weeks appeared in the same number of issues. The diatribe of Chesterfield and Waller was vindicated by them both in a production, also passing tlirough tliree editions, and by Chesterfield alone in another pamplilct, which enjoyed only one life. Flushed by the fame of his political invective Perceval went on pamphleteering all his life, but never achieved such a prodigious success. The question of the naturalisation of the Jews shook the fabric of English life from the foundations to the roof. With the approval of Henry Pelham, the Prime Minister, a bill [26 George II, cap. 26] was passed in their favour, in 1753, but the mob with the encouragement of those occupying the leading positions in commerce and agriculture rose in fury against it. Innumerable articles and speeches for and against their claims, pamphlets of all kinds and by all manners of persons, roused the passions of the people. The measure was " unchristian " ; that lie always drops from the mouths of bigots, and under its influence with the foolish, the bill was repealed in the following year. A score or so of pamphlets dealing witli it, all of which are anonymous, will be found in the Catalogue of the British Museum under the heading of " Jews." Among their oppon- ents was Jonas Hanway, who subscribed the petition against them, and attacked them with vigour in three pamphlets. Strange indeed was it that a man who devoted the best energies of his life to social reforms in spite of persistent obloquy should begin what proved an active career of bene- volence by a determined effort on the side of intolerance. This time he was on the popular side. When he introduced the practice of carrying umbrellas, the populace threw mud or stones at him. Another of this score of pamphlets was by William Romainc, the favourite advocate of Cal- vinistic evangelicalism. Its name was An Answer to a 158 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Pamphlet [subscribed philo-patricB and] entitled Considera- tions on the Bill to permit persons professing the Jewish religion to be Naturalized, and it too had three editions. Dr. Thomas Birch's annotated copy is in the British Museum library, and he, when ascribing it to Romaine, such is the language of one parson writing of another, saw in it " all the distinguishing characters of that writer — impudence, buffoonery, virulence and insincerity." With the accession in 1760 of an English-born king, new ideas spread through the national life. Englishmen had long chafed at the burdens cast upon them through the connexion of their monarchy with the Electorate of Hanover, But dur- ing the lifetime of the second George they had not the power of weakening the chain which bound them to this petty Ger- man state. An anonymous pamphlet. Considerations on the Present German War, which appeared in 1760, had six editions within the space of twelve months, and at least four answers had appeared in that time. It was foHowed by Occasional Thoughts on the Present German War (1761), of which four editions came out ; and this in turn was succeeded by The Plain Rcasoncr, or Farther Considerations on the Present German War. All of them were written by Israel Mauduit, a descendant of a French Protestant refugee and a man who, passing from preaching to commerce, acquired an ample fortune. The first and most famous of them was published with the encouragement of the first Lord Hardwicke, whose politics were then variable. Mr. Lecky says that its influence " was probably greater than that of any other English pamphlet since Swift's Conduct of the Allies." The views which it gave currency to were those in the mind of the new Ministry, and the author is said to have been rewarded by place or pension. Mauduit was busy with his pamphleteering pen for many years after this date, but never again accomplished such a success. John Douglas, successively Bishop of Carlisle and Salis- bury, sunned himself while a young man in the influence THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 159 of Pulteney, Lord Bath. His life was for many years a life of literary conflict. He exposed the forgeries of Lauder, the detractor of Milton, and engaged in a war of pamplilets on the imposture of Archibald Bower, the ex-Jesuit. After 1756 he entered upon anonymous pamphleteering. His was the pen that put into language the views of his patron, who became after 1760 in political sympathy with the opinions of the new Ministry. The Letter Addressed to Two Great Men [Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle] o« ^Ag Approach of Peace, 1760, which Douglas wrote and Bath inspired, was widely circulated and exercised much influence over the public mind. He argued for the retention of Canada ; others preferred that " Guadaloupe, with perhaps Martinico and St. Lucia " should be kept. The latter view was put forward " with distinguished talent " in a pamphlet {Re- marks on the Letter Addressed to Two great Men) which is sometimes assigned to Charles Townshend and sometimes to William Burke. Next year Douglas produced a second remarkable pam- phlet called Seasonable hints from an honest man on tJic new Reign and the neio Parliament, in which the " honest man " once more set out the views of Bath. It was in these pages, which contained a defence of the Bute Ministry, that there first appeared the germs of the idea of establish- ing a system of " friends of the King " which might influence or even dictate the policy of the Ministry for tlie time being. Edmund Burke in his Thoughts on the Present Discontents referred to this pamplilct as almost a manifesto written with no small art and address. Douglas was a prolific writer of anonymous pamphlets and of anonymous letters in the newspapers. William Burke was allied by blood and by friendship with the more illustrious Edmund Burke. They travelled together in 1752, and Edmund revised An Account of the European Settlements in America, which his kinsman pub- lished anonymously in 1757 in two volumes. This proved i6o SFXRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE very popular, and in the lapse of twenty years six editions appeared. Edmund Burke depended at this time for his Hving on his pen, and for many years he wrote anonymously the " survey of events " which formed the chief attraction of the Annual Register. In this year (1757) he brought out without his name his Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Suhlime and the Beautiful, which was often reprinted and was translated into German (1773) and French (1803). His association in 1765 with Lord Rockingham, the Prime Minister, seemed to open an avenue to fortune ; but next June the Ministry was ejected, and Burke had to retire into private life. In his indignation he issued without his name A Short Account of a Late Short Administration. Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (published anonymously April 23, 1770) ran through four editions ere that year was out, and by 1784 had reached a sixth edition. It was twice reprinted, with annotations, in 1904. In it he justified the discontent which then raged through England, but by his trust in the wisdom of the people increased the suspicion with which the leading Whig families regarded his conduct. " In all disputes between the people and their rulers the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people." He advocated the con- tinuance of party government as the best means of enforc- ing the views of the nation at large, and he argued at great length and with much vehemence for lowering the " influ- ence " of the court, by which an interior cabinet controlled or over-ruled the policy of the existing administration. His views were censured by Lord Chatham, and he was violently attacked by Catharine Macaulay in one of her anonymous diatribes. Volumes have been written on the question of the authorship of the letters of Junius. It has taxed the ingenuity of many a distinguished man of letters, but the mystery is still unsolved. The greatest body of opinion THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK i6i remains in favour of the claims of Sir Philip Francis, but against his name stands the critical acumen of Mr. Charles Wentworth Dilke, supplemented by the patient researches of my late friend, Mr. Fraser Rae. In the second volume of Halkett and Laing is printed a list of forty-six claimants for the authorship, with the names of their backers, and seven other names — including such names four rire as George III and Suett the comedian — are mentioned in a note. Mr. John Edmands contributed to the bulletin of the mercantile library of Philadelphia (vol. ii, 1890), a Junius bibliography of 297 articles, in which he set out the editions of the letters which had been published in England and in America, as well as the various works on their history and authorship. Almost every celebrity in the annals of this period, and many others that were not famous, have been suggested as the author, but over the letters still remains in its full significancy the author's Latin quotation, stat nominis '^unibra. Among the manuscripts at Trinity College, Cambridge, is one, No. 499, containing a mass of papers written by J. G. Powell to Dr. W. H. Thompson in and about i860, maintaining the view that Bishop Hinch- liffe was their author. Names more and less credible have been suggested. All Dr. Johnson's political tracts were published without his name, although their authorship was not a secret even for a moment. The False Alarm, 1770 (2 eds.), was answered by Wilkes £uid John Scott of Amwell. Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting the Falkland Islands was printed at London in 1771, and pirated at Dublin in the same year. The Patriot, printed in 1774, reached a third edition in 1775, and was also answered by Scott of Amwell. By far the most famous of them was Taxation no Tyranny, which passed through four editions in the year of pub- lication (1775), and produced at least six replies. Next year they were all published in one volume entitled Political Tracts, but here again they were unfathered. During his M i62 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE lifetime his full name did not appear on any one of them. Of Bentham's anonymous Fragment on Government five hundred copies were printed, and the authorship was kept a strict secret. It was ascribed to Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden and Dunning, Lord Ashburton. Shelbume was so much struck by it that he sought out Bentham and made him an inmate of his house of Bowood. The Fragment was more than an attack on his bete noire, Sir William Blackstone ; it developed a new system of jurisprudence. Poetical satire in politics flourished in the early decades of the third George. The success of Richard Tickell's anonymous Anticipation was enormous. He gave in it a satirical forecast of the chief speeches on the opening day of Parliament. The leaders in the House of Commons were pleased with the imitations of their style, but " serious patriots," wrote Gibbon, " groan that such things should be turned to farce." Tickell was afterwards numbered among the principal inspirers of the famous Whig satire, the Criticisms on the Rolliad. This composite production of the wits of the day had an amazing popularity, and the laughter at the forwardness of Pitt and the dulness of RoUe was universal. The first part was produced in 1784, and reached an eighth edition in 1788. The names of the contributors were set out in communications to Notes and Queries, ist S., II and III, by C. [Croker], Lord Braybrooke, J. H. M. [Markland] of Bath, Sir W. C. Trevelyan, W. A., and Dawson Turner, and in the publication of a manuscript note by Sir James Mackintosh. Several celebrated satires by the wits on the other side were published in later years. The poetry of the Anti- Jacobin survives in the effusions of Canning. Lord Palmerston's name is associated with the unfathered New Whig Guide. William Knox, for many years a leading official in London, promulgated a long series of anonymous pamphlets. For two of them, in which he defended the Stamp Act, he was dismissed by the Georgia Assembly from the post of its agent THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 163 in Great Britain. His Tracts on The Conversion and Tn- slruction of the Free hidians and Negroe Slaves [1768] were suggested by Archbishop Seeker. In The Present State of the Nation, 1768 (4th ed. 1769), he was assisted by George Grenville, and for it he was assailed by Burke in a pamphlet of Observations on the Present State of the Nation, which sold in several editions. His next production, The Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonics reviewed, also owed some of its reputation to the assistance of Grenville. It was considered by Mr. Lecky as " perhaps the ablest statement of the case against the colonies." The action of some of the judges, notably of Lord Mans- field and Sir Francis Buller, in endeavouring to reduce the functions of the jury in trials for libel, provoked much indignation from the Whig lawyers. It burned with in- creased intensity through the trial in 1784 of William Davies Shipley, th(? Dean of St. Asaph, for reprinting a political tract by Sir William Jones entitled The Principles of Govern- ment, on which occasion Buller limited the finding of the jury " tothepubhcation and the truth of the innuendoes." The tract had been printed in English by the Constitutional Society, and Sir Samuel Romilly thereupon sent to it anony- mously A Fragment on the Constitutional Power and Duty of Juries upon Trials for Libels, and 1,500 copies were printed by the society for circulation. A few of Romilly 's friends knew of the authorship, and one of them mentioned it to Lord Lansdowne ; this laid the foundation of their warm friendship. The tract bore fruit very slowly. It was not until 1792 that Fox's libel Act established without demur the power of the jury, and not of the judge, to decide what was libellous. The Rev. Martin Madan is best known now by the con- troversy over the advocacy of polygamy in his volume of Thclyplithora, but his anonymous Thoughts on Fxccutive Justice with Respect to our Criminal Laws, Particularly on the Circuits, by a sincere Well-wisher to the Public (1785, i64 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE second ed. 1785) provoked much admiration and condemna- tion among his contemporaries. Lord Lansdowne came in the first hst ; he was " dazzled and imposed upon," and even recommended Romilly to print something on the same theme. Romilly took up the book, but was " so much shocked at the folly and inhumanity of it " — Madan argued for severe sentences — that he brought out an anonymous refutation entitled Ohscrvations on a Late Publication entituled ' Thoughts on Executive Justice,' 1786, and added to it an unsigned letter from Benjamin Franklin. His chief friends highly approved of it, but he never publicly owned the authorship. It was much commended in the public prints, but the public ignored it. " Not more than a hundred copies were sold." Wonderful popularity attended an anonymous pamphlet {A Short Review of the Political State of Great Britain) which was written by Sir Nathaniel Wraxall and published on January 22, 1787. Eight editions of it came out in London in that year, and it was also issued at Dublin. A translation in French was on sale in Paris before the end of February, 1787. Several answers were rushed through the Press, one is said to have been the work of Erskine, another of Sir Philip Francis. That entitled A Reply to a Short Review sold almost as well as the original tract. Six editions of it are dated in 1787. The character and conduct of the Prince of Wales were contrasted by Wraxall, with those of his father, who, in spite of the loss of his colonies, the surren- der of whole armies and the vast expenditure of " a hundred and thirty millions of pounds," had retained the affection of his people, and the prince is said to have threatened the publisher with a prosecution for libel. Such a step would only have increased the sale of the tract, and the prosecution, if ever contemplated, was as speedily abandoned. The secret of the authorship may have been well kept, the author boasted that he was " neither to be found on the terrace at Windsor nor at the suppers of Carlton House," or it may 4 THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 165 have been deemed prudent to soften so powerful an oppo- nent. Wraxall became a great favourite at Carlton House at suppers and on otlier occasions, and in 1799 the Prince " designated him under official seal his future historio- grapher." James Curric, M.D., of Liverpool, is still remembered as the biographer of Burns. That slight sketch of the poet's career, which he drew up for charity's sake, has been re- printed a score of times, and it secured for the widow much- needed assistance. In his lifetime he was best known as a political pamphleteer, and suffered for his opinions. In June, 1793, when war with France had been resolved upon, he pubhshed, under the disguise of Jasper Wilson, A Letter, Commercial and Political, addressed to Mr. Pitt, in which he argued that such a step was against the true interests of his country. The pamphlet secured attention at once. It ran through three editions, and ten thousand copies were sold. The minister's friends were not backward in defend- ing his policy. Various pamphlets were issued on his side, and one of them was by Vansittart, afterwards the Chancellor of the Exchequer, written, says Currie's son and biographer, " in the spirit [and manner ofi a gentleman." In a town like Liverpool, then, as now, saturated with the jjohtics of Toryism, this difference from the views of the majority of his fellow-citizens led to his suffering in practice for the courage of his opinions. The sympathies of John Reeves were cast witli the other side in politics. The main tenet of his Thoughts on the English Government addressed to the quiet, good sense of the People of England, Letter i [October 29, 1795], to which he did not put his name, was that the (xovernment depended " wholly and solely on the King," and that the Houses of Parliament and juries were but adjuncts to him and depend- ent on his power. The House of Commons resented this depreciation of their powers, and on the complaint of one of their number a committee was appointed to inquire into the i66 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE authorship. John Reeves was reported as the author, and on May 20, 1796, on the prosecution of the crown, he was tried for libeh The verdict of the jury was that the letter was " a very improper pubhcation, but being of opinion that his motives were not such as laid in the information they found him not guilty." With this immunity from punish- ment Reeves continued his purpose. The second and third letter came out in 1799, the fourth in 1800. All of them were anonymous, but they were universally accepted as by Reeves. Opinions of this kind naturally provoked comment. They had both answers and defences. At the beginning of 1803 Pitt and Addington were on terms of friendship. By the end of that year they were es- tranged and their friends were engaged in a war of pamphlets. A clever production, entitled A Few Cursory remarks upon the state of Parties during the Administration of the Right Hon. Henry Addington, by a near Observer," came out in the autumn of 1803. It took a very unfavourable view of the state of affairs when that minister assumed the government, and severely commented on Mr. Pitt's with- drawal of assistance from an administration to which he had pledged himself to render his " constant, active and zealous support." The facts are said to have been supplied by " brother Bragge " and the venom to have been inserted by a disappointed applicant to Pitt for place. Erskine wrote to Nathaniel Bond, then a Lord of the Treasury, sitting for the family borough of Corfe Castle, that he was suspected of being the author. Although " there is a great deal of truth and a great deal of good writing in it," Erskine could not accept this current belief, for it was not consonant with Bond's character to have written the passages which must " wound the personal feelings of so very great and so very good-natured a man " as Mr. Fox. Lord Auckland wrote to the Right Hon. John Beresford on August 11, 1803, that the pamphlet, though severe " on some old friends and connexions of ours," could not but raise a smile from " its THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 167 acuteness and wit." A month later Beresford was informed that it had given extreme displeasure and must " influence the temper and turn of debates in the next session." Another month passed away and he was told that the diatribe was attributed^to Hobhouse. " Mr. Addington swears he knows not the author, though Hatchard, his bookseller, does." These guesses were wrong. The author of this terrible tract was Thomas Richard Bentley, a grandson of the old Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Little seems to be known of him. He was at Westminster School and Lincoln's Inn {Westminster Register, ed. Barker and Stenning), and he died at Calais in 1831, aged 72 {Gentleman s Magazine, 1831, part II, 382). Canning, not always discreet, was stung to fury by this effusion. Pitt himself was much enraged. In a conversa- tion with old George Rose, he dubbed it " one of the most malignant,-- false and artful statements he ever saw," and declared that he had refused to hold any political conununi- cation with any member of the Government until Addington should have disowned it. Canning hoped that he would be chosen to answer it, but Pitt was too judicious fortius, and Canning's irritation broke out in abuse of " the most atrocious instance of private ingratitude and personal injustice that ever was published." Tlie choice of defender fell on Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, then a young man, but afterwards known as an official and a lover of letters. His production, "written from Long's notes under Pitt's superintendence," was entitled .■^l Plain Answer to the misrepresentations and calumnies contained in the " Cursory Remarks oj a near Observer," by a More Accurate Observer, 1803. It was said to have " none of Canning's sparkling wit, none of his keen lashes," but to be conspicuous for " the dignified self- restraint of its tone." This reply widened the breach. The late friends now stood aloof, " hke cliffs that had been rent asunder," and more angry pamphlets issued from the Press. Robert Bissot, i68 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE LL.D., an unfortunate author of some talent, rushed into the fray with A Plain Reply to a Plain Answer, and Bentley, the original stirrer-up of strife, again threw down the gaunt- let in Reply to a Plain Answer, and The Reply of a Near Observer. These were all on the side of Addington. But Pitt found an advocate in " a member of parliament," Robert [Plumer] Ward, who published A View of the Rela- tive Situations of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington on the Night of Mr. Patten s Motion. This was answered in A Letter to Robert Ward, Esq., M.P., occasioned by his Pamphlet. Two other pamphlets on Pitt's side were A Brief Answer to a Few Cursory Remarks, and Fitz- Albion s Letters, which, were first published in The True Briton. Out of this turmoil must have been born the Sketch of the state of Parties, by an M.P. [1803], which I have not been able to find. It is stated by Dean Pellew, in his Life of Lord Sidmouth, to have been prepared by Sir Hugh Inglis, Bart, M.P., an East Indian Director and a father of Sir Harry Inglis, who ousted Peel from the representation of the University of Oxford. As Sir Hugh was an old friend of Sidmouth, and his son acted for some time as that minister's secretary, his information is probably correct. When the " Ministry of All the Talents " was ejected from office through the bigotry of the English nation over the claims of the Roman Catholics to emancipation, " Harry Bennet " — this familiar designation refers to the Hon. Henry Grey Bennet, son of the Earl of Tankerville, who for some years was one of the leading Whigs in the House of Commons — drew up in the month of April, 1807, on the model of Burke's pamphlet, A Short Account of a Late Administration. This he handed to Francis Horner for amendment. Bit by bit it was altered, until nearly all of the original had disappeared, and Horner wished that he had written it all himself in his own way, when it " would have been more uniform, the only merit such a thing can have." THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 169 The success of this joint production was dimmed by the satirical letter which appeared in the autumn of the same year. This was the hrst of a series of Letters on the Subject of the Catholics, which Peter Plymley^ addressed from town to his " brother Abraham who lives in the country." Its wit and its reasoning attracted the attention of the many, and the interest was heightened by those that followed. Five of them appeared in that year, five more in the opening weeks of 1808, and twenty thousand copies were issued in twelve months. The whole ten of them were then reissued in a volume sold at the popular price of a shilling. All the world knows now that these fly-sheets were the composition of Sydney Smith, and his chief friends knew it at the time. But Sydney at the time desired secrecy, and he wrote jestingly that having obtained the first of the letters " from the adjacent market town and read them with some enter- tainment," his conjecture of the authorship lay between " Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir Arthur Pigott and Mr. Horner, for the name is evidently fictitious." His fourth selection was even more whimsical. He threw, or asserted tliat he had thrown, poor Dugald Stewart into fits oi apprehension through repeated assurances that he " was the author of Plymley's letters, or generally considered so to be." A second production by Sydney Smith is little heard of now. This was Mr. Dyson's Speech to the Freeholders on Reform, 1831, which passed into a thirty-fifth edition. John Wilson Croker was the author in this year of a remarkable pamphlet on the burning question of the dis- abilities of the Roman Catholics. This was the anonymi^us A Sketch of the State of Ireland, Past and Present [1808], which reached a twentieth edition and was reprinted so late as 1885. In this he argued that " the Catholic lawyer, ^ Peter is a favourite Christian name in pseudonymity. We need only mention Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot), Peter Porcupine (Cobbett), Peter Parley (several claimants, the best-known being S. G. Goodrich) and Peter Positive (James Montgomery). 170 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE soldier, sailor, gentry, priesthood and nobility should be admitted to all the honours of their professions and ranks." His further view that " the priesthood should be independ- ent of foreign control and paid by the state," found expres- sion in many speeches and articles at the time of the dis- establishment of the Irish branch of the AngHcan Church, but has never obtained favour with the masses of the people or their leaders. Croker's pamphlet attracted the attention of Spencer Perceval. Copleston, the Bishop of Llandaff, was a man of varied knowledge and a fighter by nature. His was the keen pen that defended the system of education at Oxford against the sneers of the Edinburgh reviewer. Throughout life he passed among men as a classical student of past ages and as an expert in the pohtical questions of the day. His skill in Latin composition was equal to that of Gray ; his knowledge of political economy was superior to that of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He published in 1819 two letters to Sir Robert Peel " by one of his constituents." The first set out The Pernicious Effects of a Variable Standard of Value ; the second described The Causes of the Increase of Pauperism. Wellesley Pole, in a debate in the House of Commons, remarked " that he had read pamphlet after pamphlet about bullion and cash payments, but was never the wiser." Tierney sarcastically, more suo, advised him to read one more, that of Copleston, which did honour to the University. Mackintosh declared in a later debate that " although the author concealed his name, he could not conceal his talents." A third edition of the first letter was soon called for, and it evoked several replies. In the darkest days of Tory supremacy in politics. Lord John Russell turned aside to the bypaths of hterature. An anonymous volume of Letters, Written for the Post and not for the Press, 1820, letters descriptive of Scotland and Wales, and of the duties of a wife towards her husband, has often been attributed to him. The question is still at issue, THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 171 but the balance of probability seems against his authorship. The places described in it do not correspond with those which he is known to have visited. It is not to be found among the Russell literature at Minto or Woburn and it was not at Pembroke Lodge. The statement made by the late Sir Spencer Walpole that the volume is not at the British Museum is erroneous. There is no mention of it in the Catalogue under Lord John's name, but a copy acquired soon after, if not at the time of issue, of the second edition is entered under the w^ord " letters." It seems to have been printed at first for private readiiig. An undoubted production from Lord John's pen was the slender and anonymous tale of The Nun of Arrouca (1822) which he composed during a visit to Paris. A second was entitled Essays and sketches of life and character, and was first published in 1820 on the sug- gestion of Tc)m Moore. They were fathered by " a gentle- man who has left his lodgings " and the editing of them was assigned to his landlord, one Joseph Skillett, " in the hope that he might through it recover some portion of his rent." These essays attracted some attention. A second edition came out from which Skillett's preface was banished and a dedication to Moore took its place. Poor Moore ! When his deputy at Bermuda in 1819 committed defalcations to the extent of thousands of pounds, an anonymous Epistle to Thomas Moore, Esq., in imitation of the Thirteenth Satire of Juvenal, was struck off in fifty impressions for distribu- tion amcjug his friends. It was by Lord John Russell, and it must have proved but a sorry consolation, although the language of reproach in the original was altered into praise. Even after the triumph of Whig principles had ensured for Lord John a prominent place in politics, he dabbled in anonymous literature. In the Causes of the French Revolu- tion (1822) he depicted French Society in the eighteenth century both in the centres of profligate fashion and in tiie salons of philosophical literature, but laid himself open to 172 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE the censures of the Quarterly Reviewer through omitting to show the connexion between these sections of Hfe and the revolution which followed after. His reviewer chaffed him on the length, " thirtieth or thirty-fifth quarto " to which his Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe since the Peace of Utrecht, would have run, and dubbed this last product of his pen " an impudent catch-penny." This attack was from the pen of the fifth Earl Stanhope, and it was at once printed separately. When Huskisson proposed to stop the circulation of one pound notes in Scotland, the patriotic spirit of Sir Walter Scott was stirred throughout its depths. Under the name of Malachi Malagrowther, Esq.,i he contributed three letters in succession to the pages of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal in February and March, 1826. In them he exposed the dangers of the proposition of the Tory Ministry and pre- dicted an attack by it on Scotch currency. He protested that it was a deliberate design to affront their country. The substitution, he cried, of sovereigns for notes would fill Scotland with a new breed of highwaymen. Such views could not have any weight with the acute or the impartial, but his wit and his Scotch independence appealed to every living person across the Tweed. Croker, adopting the signa- ture of Edward Bradwardine Waverley replied in two letters to the Courier which were afterwards published in book-form, and it was rumoured that Canning was ready to answer Malagrowther on the floor of the House of Commons. Reply and rumour proved ineffectual. The measure was dropped. Scott noted in his journal that his opponents might call him " ungrateful, unkind, and all sorts of names," but he cared httle provided that the plan was drop])ed. " It is very curious that each of these angry friends, Melville, ^ Malachi Malagrowther may pair off with Mordecai Mullion, the pcn-namc of John Wilson (Christopher North) in his attack on J. R. MacCulIoch. THE POTJTTfTAN TN THE DARK 173 Canning, Croker, has in former days appealed to me in con- fidence against each other." Early in March, 1830, a little pamphlet on the Portuguese question appeared without any author's name on the title- page. A copy was sent to Ward, the first Earl Dudley, but he let it lie unheeded on his table. No sooner had he left his house to pay his accustomed calls than he was " assailed on all sides with the question, have you read Lady Canning's pamphlet ? " He had to liurry home and pass half an hour in its perusal. It took the world by storm. Ward wrote to Ivy, that "it is written with great spirit and in a clear, natural, vigorous style, 'and \\\i\\ a force of reasoning which Brougham (who is very much struck by it) has the impertinence to say is by no means frequent in a woman." Lord Holland w^ent about saying that " there must be another debate in the House of Lords on the strength of it." Brougham wrote to Macvey Napier that he must say something in the Edinburgh Review) on the Portuguese question, and that the text would be " Lady Canning's very remarkable pamphlet (it is not known to be hers publicly)." In November, 1833, Charles Greville heard Sydney Smith say at dinner that not a word of it had been written by her. It was the work of Staplcton, her dead husband's private secretary. Greville was able to contradict this. He " had been privy to the composition of it, had seen the manuscript, and had at her request undertaken the task of revising and correcting it." Lady Canning's pamphlet was entitled, An Aulheiilic Ac- count of Mr. Canning s Policy ivith respect to the Constitutional Charter of Portugal, in reply to " Observations on the Papers lately submitted to Parliament, upon the subject of the Affairs of Portugal," and Brougham's eulogy was justified. The anonymous author of Observations was Frederick Jame?. Lamb, who had been sent to Lisbon as English ambassador in December, 1827. I" ^^3^) J'C was raised to the peerage as Baron. Beauvale, and he succeeded to the title of Lord Melbourne in 1848. 174 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Lord Brougham's superabundant energies found vent in composing anonymous pamplilet after pamphlet. While the Duke of Wellington was in office he burst in with two flashes of lightning, The Country without a Government, or Plain Questions upon the unhappy state of the Present Administration (1830), and The Result of the General Election, or what has the Duke of Wellington gained by the Dissolu- tion ? (1830). In the summer of 1831, when sitting upon the woolsack and meditating on the probable rejection by those sitting around him of the ministerial Reform Bill, he startled them with a third production, Friendly Advice most Respectfully Submitted to the Lords on the Reform Bill, which rapidly spread through three editions. It was " very well done, moderate and even courteous in its tone," says one of their number, but in unmistakable language it warned them, that should they exercise their undoubted right of rejecting the Bill, their days would be numbered in a very small total. A composite pamphlet. The Reform Ministry and the Reformed Parliament, excited much curiosity at the time. Seven editions of it were issued in 1833, and a cheap edition followed with the same date. Next year a German trans- lation of it appeared at Carlsruhe. Its object was to show that the prophecies of the Tories over the direful results which would follow on the passing of the Reform Bill had been falsified by events. There was no difficulty in proving this, although the Tory leaders, Wellington and Peel, did supply Croker with some materials for an article in the Quarterly in refutation of the claim. It was a joint-stock pamphlet in which Althorp, Stanley, Palmerston, and Sir James Graham took part, and it was edited by Denis Le Marchant, the Principal Secretary to Brougham as Lord Chancellor. Numerous quotations from its pages appeared in the public prints, and the ministry " practically adopted the brochure as their own." In 1835 in the absence of Sir Robert Peel in Italy the Duke THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 175 of Wellington assumed for the moment all the offices of the ministry. The country -was in the throes of excitement over the possible formation of a Tory Ministry. Out came Lord Brougham with another diatribe. This time he assumed the disguise of " Isaac Tomkins, Gent," and his pamphlet, entitled Thoughts upon the Aristocracy of England, dealt with hereditary privileges and the virus which they infused into the national life. This was the most successful of his efforts. It ran within the year into an eighth edition, was followed by a second'part, which also within the year was sufficiently popular to justify the printing of three editions, and ehcited numerous replies. The Tory Ministry was duly formed, but its life flickered out in the cradle. At this date Cobden opened his public career with two pamphlets in which he concealed his name under the cloak of " a Manchester Manufacturer." The first of them. England, Ireland and America (1835), expounded the view that England's policy should be one of free trade. The second of them, Russia (1836), laid down the doctrine that there was no necessity for us to enter into an armed struggle with that Power. Lord Durham, then on a mission to St. Peters- burgh, read it and subsequently noticed in Tait's Magazine that it was the work of a Mr. Cobden. His views were warm in eulogy. " If he is a political writer and not really engaged in trade, he should be encouraged, for his powers are great. If he really is a silk manufacturer, all I can say is — he has more of the statesman in him than most Cabinet Ministers." They met in 1837 i" ^ ^^^"g evening's discussion of public affairs, and Durham, when they parted, had no hesitation in predicting, " Mark my words, Cobden will one day be one of the chief men in England." The first of these treatises reached a sixth edition in 1836 ; the second passed through two issues and provoked some answers. The Letters of Runnymedc which appeared in the first five months of 1836 and were issued collectively in that year were never acknowledged by Disraeli, but were never dis- 176 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE avowed. In them the author, with his accustomed grandilo- quence, refers to his letter to Peel as " written by one whose name, in spite of the audacious licence of frantic conjecture, has never yet been even intimated, can never be discovered, and will never be revealed." Charles Greville, familiar now to all readers as the political diarist, produced three anonymous pamphlets of some note. One of them dealt with " the precedence question " as affect- ing the position in 1840 of Prince Albert. This was a burn- ing question at that time, and Greville's pamphlet, which was the result of his investigation into the authorities, was sent by Lord Melbourne to the Queen. The curious in such matters can read it in the appendix to the first volume of the second series of The Greville Memoirs. The second, entitled Past and Present Policy of England towards Ireland, which came out in March, 1845, was partly inspired by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Greville wished for his name to appear on the title-page, but the Government hesitated in giving their sanction to such a step, and it was hinted that the Duke of Wellington would have been one of the warmest in expressing disapproval. In a few days after its publica- tion the effect of his tract was apparent. The Whigs were delighted. The Tories were furious. Lady Jersey dubbed it " a blackguard book." Early in 1846 he produced his third anonymous political tract. This was Sir Robert Peel and the Corn Law Crisis, (2nd ed. 1846), and it was a warm vindication of the Minister's pohcy as "in the main wise and just, because it was comprehensive and considerate," and a contemptuous depreciation of any ministry which might be formed by the protectionists. Sir Robert Peel wrote that he had " seldom seen within the same number of pages so much truth told with so much ability " {Life of Sir James Graham, ii, 32). Mr. William Edward Hartpole Lecky's first volume was veiled in anonymity. This was The Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (1861). It was then but a tiny volume, THE POLITICIAN IN THE DARK 177 but it grew with each issue. The edition of 1871, which was " revised and enlarged," appeared with his name. In the edition of 1903 the treatise had been expanded into two volumes. A German translation of the second edition was issued in 1873 at Posen. The revision which this work underwent was a change of opinion rather than of fact, and the author was often twitted by his compatriots in the House of Commons with this lapse from the doctrines of the majority of his countrymen. Leslie Stephen differed from most Englishmen in the politics of the 'sixties. He was an ardent sympathizer with the Northern States of America in their great struggle with the South, and many of his companions at Cambridge used to play upon his feelings. He was especially provoked by the action of The Times and poured out the vials of his wrath in a pamphlet, Tlie Times on the American War, an historical study by L. S., 1865. His name was suppressed through the anxiety of his friends lest at the outset of his career as a journalist he should incur the ire of a prominent journal. N IX Disguises in Miscellaneous Literature I DWELL with delight on the life and work of Democritus Junior, the appropriate disguise of Robert Burton. He lived " silent, sedentary, solitary," a scholar revelling in the libraries of his University of Oxford and " tumbhng over " piles of books, devoid of ambition for preferment. As " I am not poor, I am not rich, nihil est, nihil deest, I have little, I want nothing ; all my treasure is in Minerva's tower." Why, then, did he write on The Anatomy of Melancholy ? He chose his subject " by being busy to avoid melancholy," and so he dissected melancholy in every part of its frame, enlivening the subject with the infinite products of his reading. Still, he could not drive melancholy away for long, and, perhaps, if we probe deeper into his mind, he would not, if he could be gay. Burton's book brought a fortune to its pubhsher, and has passed through edition after edition. Dr. Johnson was drawn out of his bed to read it. Sterne's Tristram Shandy was steeped in plagiarism from its pages. Charles Lamb loved him, and imitated his peculiarities. No living man could track out all his quotations. Mr. A. R. Shilleto, son of the famous classical coach at Cambridge, spent years in seeking for them, and found more pleasure than profit in the pursuit. But even his labours proved ineffectual for the exhaustion of Burton's learning, and many valuable additions have been made in the columns 178 DISGUISES IN MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE 179 of Notes and Queries by Mr. Edward Bensly, formerly of the University, Adelaide, South Australia. Burton, when in company, was " merry, facete and juvenile." When despondent he hastened " to the bridge- foot at Oxford " to hear the bargees slanging one another, and would " set his hands to his sides and laugh most profusely." Still, he lived in melancholy, and his epitaph at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, which he composed for himself, records the facts " paucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, hie jacet Democritus Junior, cui vitam dedit et mortem Melancholia." One learned doctor may suspect another of cunning. The Religio Medici, of Sir Thomas Browne, composed in the first instance for his private gratification, appeared in an anonymous form in 1642. Dr. Johnson thought that it had been brought out in this manner with the connivance, if not at th? suggestion, of its author. He probably had in his mind the manoeuvres by which Pope had obtained the publication, by Curll, of his correspondence and had disowned the act afterwards. But in the case of Browne there seems no reason to doubt that the bookseller, one Andrew Crooke, had got into his possession one of the manuscript copies of the treatise which are known to have been in existence, and that the author's disclaimer of any knowledge of its publication was true. The anonymous volume at once attracted the notice of the learned and the curious, among whom were the Earl of Dorset and Sir Kenelm Digby, and it was speedily reprinted. Browne thereupon determined to publish his own treatise in his own way, but the impetuous Digby rushed into print with his observations upon Reli Si'ded. condensed, 1858), which dealt with this peer in no flattering terms. Cardigan, having ascertained that they were written by Somerset Calthorpe, a son of Lord Calthorpe and nephew and A.D.C. to Lord Raglan, endeavoured through a friend to obtain from him the withdrawal of the " misrepresentations." He declined. The injured peer then appealed to the House of Lords. What was he to do ? He could not challenge Calthorpe to a duel, and the commander-in-chief had refused to subject him to a court-martial. Lord Panmure told him cither to bring the matter before a civil tribunal or to rest on his military reputation. ^ The rage of the other despot was even greater and even more impotent. This outraged person was Sir Stratford Canning, l^ie great Eltche, who found himself held up to ridicule as Sir Hector Stubble in certain letters by a " roving Englishman," which appeared in Household Words from November 29, 1851, onwards. These were the composition of Eustace Clare Grenville-Murray, then vice-consul at Mitylene. The duties of this office were not serious, and the holder occupied his spare time in composing these letters, in which he repaid some old grievances against Sir Stratford. What could the victim do ? Though the letters were known everywhere as by Murray, they could not be suppressed, and their author could not be punished. Their victim could only endure as best he could, but those around him knew when another letter had given fresh cause for irritation. The name of Sir Stratford Canning, afterwards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, recalls the memory of the historian who chronicled his doings. The star of Kinglake rose with 1 Another volume of Letters jrom the Army in the Crimea, written by a Staff Officer who was tliere, was privately printed about 1857. The officer was Sir A. C. Sterling. 214 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE the publication of Eothcn, the records of his impressions during travel in the East. He made his tour in 1835, twice tried to describe it, but failed, and on the third attempt succeeded to his own satisfaction. Nine years, the nine years of Horace passed away before it came out quietly and anonymously in 1844. It at once mastered the intellectual side of English society and has often been reprinted, a new edition, with an introduction and notes by D. G. Hogarth, appearing in 1906. Leslie Stephen's quiet humour bubbled up in his Sketches from Cambridge, which were for some time concealed as " by a Don." They were welcomed in print nearly half a century ago in the columns of the old Pall Mall Gazette and were collected in a book in 1865. In after life he regretted the publication of some of them, for the sketches had been suggested by characters in real hfe at the University, and the victims must have recognized their own portraits. So late as 1900, more than a generation after their original publication, they were " denounced by a distinguished professor" from the University pulpit. Stephen made his defence in a paper of " some early impressions," which he contributed to the National Review in October, 1903. Ginx's Baby, his Birth and other Misfortunes, gave abun- dant popularity to a man long conspicuous in political life. Ginx is in Cornwall a playful abbreviation for Jenkins, a name widely spread in the duchy, and the author of the baby's being was John Edward Jenkins. His views on social matters were contained in this volume, which was first published in 1870, reached a 29th edition in 1873, and a 36th edition in 1876. From 1874 to 1880 Jenkins sat in Parliament in the Liberal interest for Dundee, and he was ranked among the most ardent opponents of the Beaconsfield policy. \Micn the proposal was brought forward for changing the title of the Queen into the Empress of India, he passionately resisted the alteration. His tract of The Blot on the Queen's Head ; or how Little Ben, the Head DISGUISES IN MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE 215 Waiter, changed the Sign, by aG7test,w^s written and printed in eleven liours, and at least 100,000 copies were issued. An attractive little volume of some eighty pages purporting to narrate 2'^hc Fall of Prince Florcstan of Monaco, by Himself, 1874, which was soon followed by a translation into French, fluttered the dovecotes of the readers from Mudie's in its time. Florestan, who had been educated in England and had become a republican, found himself unexpectedly, when an undergraduate, the ruler of the little state of Monaco. His sway lasted for three weeks. The reforms which he desired were unpopular ; the Jesuits demonstrated against him. Annexation to France was voted by i,iji to i, and the Prince — Florestan the second- — left as quickly as he ascended the throne. The piece was full of satirical allu- sions, such as " the return of Mr. Gladstone by a discerning people as^ junior colleague to a gin distiller," and much curiosity was shown to know the name of the author. Paragraph after paragraph went the round of the papers, but at last the authorship was settled. It is the work of Sir Charles Dilke. X Wholesale Thefts from Others The works of our leading English poets and novelists are indebted for many of their most striking passages to the imaginations of their predecessors. The idea of one writer is stolen by its successor, and again submitted to the pruning • and improving hand of the artificer. In the brains of Pope and Gray the phrases and thoughts of many an old English poet have been sharpened anew. The illustrations and quotations of Sterne have been borrowed from many an ancient tome reposing in the old libraries around York, and notably from the pages of the Anatomy of Melancholy. Such acts are allowable ; indeed they are to be expected. The only limitation imposed is that the expressions are not to be mangled by the thief. The robberies of inferior men have gone far beyond this. They have not been content to steal the occasional expression or to improve the solitary sentence. They have committed the crime of robbing the anonymous author of his entire volume. Like the cuckoo in bird life, they have ejected the framer of the fabric and made the complete structure their own. On them, however, retribution has come quickly. Unlike that prince of thieves, they have been made to return the stolen property and to withdraw dis- comfited and disgraced. A worthless and long-since-for- gotten scribbler was accused by Dr. Johnson of this wholesale theft. Richard Rolt, who dabbled in all kinds of literary composition from a poem on Cambria to a dictionary on 216 WHOLESALE THEFTS FROM OTHERS 21 7 Trade, a " wretched compilation," for which Johnson wrote the preface, as he " knew very well what such a dictionary should be," was the culprit charged with this base deed. He is said, while waiting in Dublin for patronage from his relative, the " namby-pamby" Ambrose Philips, which never came, to have printed with his own name the Pleasures of Imagination, which Akenside had written, and upon the fame of it to have been entertained, although a dullard beyond belief, at the best tables as " the ingenious Mr. Rolt." The assertion of Dr. Johnson was too broadly made, and Boswell when passing his great volumes through the press had strong misgivings as to printing the statement. No copy of the printed volume was ever to be found nor had any of the booksellers of Dublin ever met with a copy. John Couitenay, the Whig politician who penned the " poetical review " of Johnson's character, proposed that Boswell should communicate with Edmond Malone on the matter. He did so, but still the book could not be found. All that Malone could suggest was that some copies of the anonymous poem had reached Dublin and that Rolt had either originated the rumour, or had not contradicted the current belief that he was its author. Of the graver charge let him be absolved. More daring than Rolt was the young clergyman of Bath, his name was Eccles, who claimed the authorship of The Man of Feeling. This is well known now to have been the production of Henry Mackenzie of Edinburgh ; but it was published anonymously in 1771 and the mystery of the authorship was maintained for some time. Eccles was tempted into claiming the novel as his own and to support his pretensions produced, as he boasted, the original manu- script, " with an appropriate allowance of blottings, inter- lineations and corrections." His friends corroborated his assertions with such pertinacity that Cadell cS: Strahan, the publishers, felt themselves constrained in the interests 2i8 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of the real author to put forward an advertisement in flat contradiction of liis statements, mentioning that they had purchased the " copywright of Mr. Mackenzie." Even then Eccles did not lose all his backers. He died at Bath on August 15, 1777, and, according to the entry in the Gentleman's Magazine (p. 404), " in attempting to save a boy whom he saw sinking in the Avon," they were both drowned. It has, however, been suggested that he committed suicide. In the same magazine (p. 452) are printed " verses composed on viewing the turfless grave of the Rev. Mr. Eccles, by an Invalid," part of which consists of an epitaph beginning with the words Beneath this stone The Man of Feeling lies. These verses were also printed at Salisbury in a single sheet about the same time. A note to this poem says that " Mr. Eccles's friends live in Ireland," and Boswell in his Life of Dr. Johnson, under the date of 1761, calls him " a young Irish clergyman." He was probably the " Mr. Eccles, an Irish gentleman," who was one of Boswell's guests with Johnson and Goldsmith, at the Mitre tavern on July 6, 1763, when Boswell adds that for his " agreeable company " he was obliged to Tom Davies. From Mr. Emanuel Green's Bibliotheca Somer- setensis we derive more precise information. The peccant parson was the Rev. Charles Stewart Eccles, rector of Birts Norton, Worcestershire, and Nash, in his history of that county, records that he was instituted to it on June 19, 1771. A sermon preached by him at St. John's Chapel, Bath, on December 13, 1776, the day of the general fast and humiliation, was printed in that city in the next year. An elegiac ode to his memory, with a vignette of Widcombe old church and a memoir claiming the authorship of The Man of Feeling and the other works which were written by Mackenzie, was also printed at Bath in 1777. The WHOLESALE THEFTS FROM OTHERS 219 memoir says that he came from an ancient family in the North of Ireland, received a liberal education and was bred to the Church. He also possessed " an uncommon genius for painting ' shown in many examples,' chiefly in crayons." An epitaph for him is in the poems (1779) of the Rev. William Tasker, the eccentric poet whose peculiarities are described with such gusto in Boswell's Johnson. A very curious story attaches to a theological treatise on virtue. Archibald Campbell, a young Scotch clergyman, travelled to London in 1726, carrying in his kit a manuscript of his composition, with the title of an Enquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue. He entrusted the precious papers to a " countryman and acquaintance" the Rev. Mr. Innes. This scoundrel, the Rev. Alexander Innes, D.D., then preacher-assistant at St. Margaret's, W^estminster, was a past master in the arts of imposture, for he " was the clergyman who brought Psalmanazar to England and was an accomplice in his extraordinary fiction " {Boswell's Johnson, under date of 1761). He published the work as his own under the title of ApeTi]\oyia, or an Inquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue, 1728, with a dedication to King, the Lord Chancellor, won reputation by it, and on the score of it was appointed on the nomination of the Crown to the rectory of Wrabness in Essex in February, 1728-9. It took two years for Campbell to hear of the fraud, .when he came to London, confronted the culprit, " and made him tremble in his shoes." The Queen's physician, Stuart, was a kinsman of Innes and interceded for him. Campbell consented to limit his public action to an advertisement claiming his book and stating that " for some certain reasons " it had been published under the name of Innes. The treatise of Campbell appeared under his own name in 1733 with a preface in which he refers to the necessity which he had " to claim and vindicate the book from Dr. Innes," and to the " great noise " made in London over his exposuic 220 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE of the " imposture." Psalmanazar gives the thief the worst of characters, accuses him of " Malversation in sundry respects" in his parish at Westminster "still fresh in people's memory," and refers to his withdrawal to Essex, " where, I am told, he lived very private and I hope made the best use of his solitude." Boswell mentions another case of theft to which I am unable to add any additional facts. I therefore quote it in his " very words." He says that " the celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair and his cousin Mr. George Bannatine, when students in divinity, wrote a poem entitled The Resurrection, copies of which were handed about in manuscript. They were at length very much surprised to see a pompous edition of it in folio dedicated to the Princess Dowager of Wales by a Dr. Douglas as his own." To these instances the greatest of biographers adds some reflections " I can conceive this kind of fraud to be very easily practised with successful effrontery. The Filiation of a literary performance is difficult of proof. Seldom is there any wit- ness present at its birth. A man either in confidence or by improper means obtains possession of a copy of it in manuscript and boldly publishes it as his own. The true author in many cases may not be able to make his title clear." The publication to the world of Adam Bede without the accustomed notification on its title-page of the author's name gave Mary Ann Evans a spasm of anxiety for many months. It got buzzed about in Warwickshire early in April, 1859, so she was notified by an old friend, that a certain Joseph Liggins was the author. A deputation of dissenting parsons went over to ask him to write for the Eclectic, a dissenting review of happy memory, but then verging on extinction. They found the would-be author " washing his slop-basin at a pump," an office not very lofty, but necessary, as " he has no servant and does everything for himself." This menial duty did not carry with it any WHOLESALE THEFTS FROM OTHERS 221 degradation, for " one of the parsons said that he inspired them with a reverence that would have made any imperti- nent question impossible." He was the son of a baker in his town, Nuneaton, and called himself George Eliot. Rumour encouraged by Liggins ran that " he gets no profit out of Adam Bcde, and gives it freely to Blackwood, which is a shame." The real author remembered the claimant " as a vision of my childhood, a tall, black-coated genteel young clergyman-in-embryo." In Warwickshire the rumour found general credence, and The Times on April 15, 1859, printed a letter from the Rev. H. Anders, Rector of Kirkby la Thorpe, boldly stating the fact that Liggins was the " author of Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede." Next day Miss Evans sent a letter to The Times " denying that Mr. Liggins is the author." Even this did ncrt prove decisive and four days later she wrote to John Blackwood urging that the matter was proving serious. Money was being subscribed for Liggins on the faith of the rumour, and to prevent it the publisher should write a letter in corroboration of her statement. She was doubtful about the fellow's character, for " the last report I heard of him was that he spent his time in smoking and drinking." On May 27, Blackwood brought her his corre- spondence with '".various people about Liggins, beginning with Mr. Bracebridge, who will have it that Liggins is the author of Adam Bede in spite of all denials." The myth had now got, in modern phrase, on the nerves of Miss Evans. It annoyed and irritated her. On June 5 she and Blackwood concocted two letters for The Times to put a stop to the affair. Exactly a month later she wrote that Liggins was not greatly culpable and that only " some small sums " had been collected for him. But still the nuisance went on, and in October Lewes was worried by a correspondence with " a Warwickshire magistrate, the chief propagator and maintainer of the falsehood." After that date the belief gradually died away. A Mr. 222 SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE Quirk apologized to Blackwood, saying that he had been imposed on by Liggins and that worthy himself sank into fitting obscurity. No sooner had this trouble faded out than another arose. A publisher called Newby, now happily forgotten, advertised in November a book called Adam Bede, junior, a sequel. The fraud proved not without success. The public demanded the work and one librarian at least was forced to subscribe. Dickens promised to scarify the bookseller in Household Words, and there was to be an article in Punch on it. Such were the troubles of a sensitive woman who became famous, though personally unknown. A strange story has come down to us in connexion with two prominent nonjurors. One of them Hilkiah Bedford, a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, after refusing to take the oaths exacted after the Revolution of 1688, was deprived of his rectory in Northamptonshire. He there- upon kept a boarding house for the scholars of Westminster School and by it acquired a competency. In 1713 there was published a folio volume, The Hereditary Right of the Crown of England asserted, which seemed to the authorities of a treasonable character. Bedford was suspected of the authorship and being haled into the courts was found guilty of " writing, printing and publishing " the work. He was fined 1,000 marks and imprisoned for three years. The Jacobites and nonjurors of course sympathized with him, and their leading layman, Lord Weymouth, sent him £100 through George Harbin, his chaplain, who was also a non- juring divine. The strange part of the story is that Harbin afterwards claimed the treatise as his own, producing to a well-known antiquary of that time " the original copy of the same together with three large volumes of original documents, from whence the same was compiled." Whatever opinion we may form on the wisdom of the nonjurors, their consistency and courage are beyond all praise. Bedford WHOLESALE THEFTS FROM OTHERS 223 probably submitted to his incarceration rather than expose his brother in behef to his harsh fate. He was a voluntary sufferer for his cause, and strange to say never made a public boast of his heroism. INDEX A. [Matthew Arnold or Ann Taylor], 12 A., A. [Alfred Ainger], 12 A., C. [Christopher Anstey], 12 A., D. F. [Doctor Francis Atter- bury], 13 A., E. [Sir Edwin Arnold], 13 A., M. L. C. D. M. D. L. D. G. D. C. D. M. L. C. D. [Monsieur le Chevalier Duvernois], 13 A., T. K. [Thomas Kerchever Arnold], 13 A., W., 162 A.,W. H. D. [W. H. D.Adams], 13 A., major [C. B. Coles], 33 Abercrombie, John, 197 Absalom and Achitophel, iii Abyssinia, prince of, 194 Abyssinia, voyage to, 193 academy, the {newspaper), lyj, 141 academy, royal, concise review, 200 academy, royal, concise vindica- tion, 200 account, plain account of nature of the sacrament of the Lord's supper, 19 Acland, sir T. D., 67 Acton, lord, 64 actor, the, 1 1 8 Adams, W. H. D., 13 Addison, Joseph, 112 Addison, Lancelot, 183 address to young persons on con- firmation, 19 addresses with prayers, 16 Addy, S. O., 76 Adlerfeld, Giistavus, 78 Adolphus, J. L., 84 adulterism, 32 adventures of a pincushion, 21 adventures of a younger son, 2 1 , 89 adventures of an attorney, 21 advice, a satire, 21 advice to a nobleman, 22 advice to a son, 21 advice to a young reviewer, 21 advice to a young student, 21 advice to the devil, 22 Agamemnon, 134 Agathonia, 59 Aide, Hamilton, 36 Ainger, Alfred, 12, 108, 109 Ainsworth, Harrison, 129 Akenside, Mark, 1 15-16, 217 Albert, prince, 147, 176, 210 Alderson, Sir E. H., 18 Alegambe, Philippus, 2 Alexandria, printing presses of, 29 Allegro r, 22 Allen, Grant, 106 Allen, John, 57 Allen, William, pseud., 151 Allen, William, cardinal, 138 Allen, W. Shepherd, 65 Allestree, Richard, 141 allies, conduct of the, 153, 158 allonym, 32 Almack, Edward, 139 alphabetism, 32 Alpine club, 98 2.5 Q 226 INDEX Althorp, lord (John 'Charles, third earl Spencer), 174 America, account of the European settlements in, 159 America, South, books on anony- mous lit. of, II anagram, 32 Anastasius, 83 anatomy of melancholy, 178, 216 Anderdon, J. L., 18 Anders, H., 221 Andrews, Joseph, history of the adventures of, 77 Andrews, Mrs. Shamcla, apology for life of, "jj angler, hy an, 207 angler, complete, 207 angler's vade-mecum, 181 Anglesey, marquess and mar- chioness of, 57 Angliae notitia, 182 angling, lover of, 181 Anne, Queen, 42 annual register, 160 anonym, 32 anonymous literature, histories of, I-II Anstey, Christopher, 12 Anstey, F. [i.e. T.A. Guthrie], 108 Anstis, John, 33 answer to a pamphlet on the naturalization of the Jews, 157 anti- Jacobin, 162 anticipation, 162 antidote to the miseries of human life, 49 antiquary, by an, 33 apoconym, 32 apocryphal, 32 apology addressed to the Travel- lers' club, 22 apology for bachelors, 22 apology for the beard, 22 apology for smokers, 22 Apperley, C. J., 208 arabian tale from an unpublished MS.. 82 Aram, Eugene, 94 Arana, Diego Barros, 11 Arber, Edward, 136 Arbuthnot, John, 186 architecture, poetry of, 211 Arezzi, count, 129 aristocracy, thoughts upon the, 175 aristonym, 32 Armitage, Robert, 92 Armstrong, John, M.D., 114-15 Arnim, countess of, 70 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 13 Arnold, Matthew, 12, 131 Arnold, Thomas, D.D., 146 Arnold, Thomas Kerchever, 13 Arrouca, nun of, 171 Artois, monsieur le chevalier Duvernois, etc., 13 Arundel, a novel, 80 ascetonym, 32 Ashburton, John Dunning, baron 162 Asia, light of, 13 ask Mamma, 208 Astell, Mary, 42 asterism, 33 atheism, necessity of, 130 AthencBum, the (newspaper), 9, 60, 62, 76, 98, no Atterbury, bishop (Francis), 13, 32, 42, 184-5 Auchester, Charles, 66 Auckland, William Eden, baron, 166 Audley ; lady Audley's secret, 6gn Auerbach, Berthold, 96 aunt Dorothy's tale, 57 Austen, Mrs. Benjamin, 93 Austen, Jane, 49, 61, 87 Austen, John, 40 Austen, lady, 118 authors by profession, case of, 22 authorship, dictionary of re- vealed, I o Axon, W. E. A., 10 Aytoun, W.^E., 134 INDEX 227 B., A. K. H. [A. K. H. Boyd], 14, 94 B., E. B. [E. B. Browning], 61 B., E. V. [E. V. Boyle], 14 B., J., Ill B., M., drapier, 154 B., T., esq. [Thomas Blount], 181 B., T. of the Inner Temple [Thomas Blount]., 181 B., W. [William Blake], 124 B., W., 199 Babington, William, M.D., 207 Badcock, John, 207 Baillet, Adrien, 2, 4, 5 Baillie, Joanna, 50 Baker, sir Richard, animadver- sions upon chronicle of, 181 Baker, Thomas, 16 Balatha, Nina, 98 Baldwin, Edward [i.e. William Godwin], 201 Balguy, Charles, 76 Ballantyne, John, 84 Baltic, letters from the shores of, " Bangorian controversy " [of bp. Hoadly], 19 Bankes, William, 86 Bannatine, George, 220 Barbauld, Mrs., 76 Barbier, A. A., 6 Barclay, John, 46 Barnstorff, Johannes, 114 baron, old english, 46 Barret, John, 141 barrier treaty, some remarks on the, 153 Barrow, Sir John, 54 Barrow, John, 98 Bastille, 5 Bates, William, 130 Bath : netv Bath guide, 12 Baville, Lamoignon, marquis de, 5 Baxter, Richard, 138 Bayley, sir John, 18, 33 Bayly, Ada Ellen, 69 Beattie, James, 121, 194 Beauchamp, May, the countess of Arnim, 70 Beauclerk, Topham, 140 beauty and the beast, 129 Beauvale, F. J. Lamb, baron, 173 Beckford, William, 17, 59, 81-3 Bede, Adam, 220-2 Bede, Adam, junior, a sequel, 222 Bede, Ciithbert [i.e. Edward Brad- ley], 10, lOI Bedford, Hilkiah, 222-3 Bee, Jon, [i.e. John Badcock], 207 Behn, Afra, 78 Belgium, anon. lit. in, 10 Bell, Beaupre, 141 Bell, Peter, 204 Bell, poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton, 34 Benger, Elizabeth O., 50 Bennet, H., 197 Bennet, hon. Henry Grey, 168 Bensly, Edward, 179 Bentham, Jeremy, 144, 162 Bentley, Richard, D.D., 14, 79 Bentley, Thomas Richard, 167-8 Beppo, a Venetian story, 127 Bercsford, rt. hon. John, 166-7 Berington, Simon, 188 Berkeley, George, bp., 75, 143, 188 Besant, Walter, 107 Bethune, Drinkwater, 209 bibliophilen, geseUschaft der, 4 Bindley, Charles, 208 Birch, Thomas, 158 birds, discourse on the emigration of, 206 Bisset, Robert, 168 Black sheep, 109 Black, William, 104, 192 Blackburne, Francis, archdeacon, 143-4 Blackgowns and redcoats, 132 Blackmore, R. D., 13 1-2 228 INDEX Blackstone, sir, William, 162 Blackwood's magazine, 60, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 98, 103, 134 Blackwoods (publishers), 64, 68, 83, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 98, 99, 204, 221 Blair, dr. Hugh, 220 Blake, William, 124 Blessington, Marguerite, lady, 125 Blount, Thomas, 181 Boccaccio, 76, 204 Bogue, David, 109 Bohatta, Harms, 4 Boitard, Louis Peter, 75 Bolingbrokc (Henry St. John), first viscount, 31, 113, 192 Bon Gualtier, 134 Bond, Nathaniel, 166 Bonmot, Egomet [i.e. T. G. Wainewright], 205 books, battle of the, 184 Bosbury churchyard, 69 Boscobel, 1 80-1 Boswell, sir Alexander, 84 Boswell, James, 47, 120, 217-18, 219, 220 Botanic garden, 122 boustrophedon, 33 Bower, Archibald, 159 Bowles, Caroline, 54, 207 Bowring, sir John, 145 Boyd, A. K. H., 14 Boyle, hon. Mrs. Eleanor Vere, 14 Boyle, hon. Robert, 2, 142, 186 Boz [i.e. Charles Dickens], 97 Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, 6gn Bradley, Edward, 10, loi Brankes, William, 150 Bray, Mrs., 85 breathings, divine, 142 Braybrooke, R. G. Neville, third baron, 162 Brewer, Thomas, 33 Bridgen, Mrs., 46 brief answer to a few cursory remarks, 168 brief answer unto those idle and frivolous quarrels of R. P., 138 Brissot, Madame, 191 British Museum, anon. lit. at, 12-31 Bromley, William, 17 Bronte, Anne, 34 ,, Charlotte, 34, 61-3 Emily, 34 Brooke, Henry, 122 Brooks, J. Tyrwhitt [i.e. Henry Vizetelly], no Brooks, Shirley, loi broomstick, meditations upon a, 186 brothers, works by two, 29, 132-3 Brougham, Henry, lord, 91, 92, 147. 173-4 Brown, Thomas, D. of physick, 180 Brown the younger, Thomas [i.e. Tom Moor el, 124 Brown, Tom, schooldays of, loi ; at Oxford, 10 1 Browne, sir Thomas, 179-80 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 60-62, 221 Browning, Robert, 61, 134, 211 Brummell, George (beau), 199 Brunet, Gustave, 6, 33 Brunton, Mary, 50 Brushfield, T. N., dr., 27 Brydges, sir Egerton, 33, 87 bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau, 210 bugle of the Black sea, 132 Buller, sir Francis, 163 bulletin du biblophile, 10 Bunbury, sir Henry Edward, 147 Bunbury, Henry William, 193 Bunney, Edmund, 138 Burges, sir James Bland, 55 Burges, Mary Anne, 55 Burgess, Thomas, bishop, 200 Burke, Edmund, 25, 31, 123, 144, 159-60, 163, 168 Burke, William, 159 INDEX 229 Burnet, Mrs. Elizabeth, 41 Burnet, Gilbert, bp. of Salis- bury, 25, 41, 42, 153 Burney, Frances, 46, 47 Burton, John Hill, 73 Bury, lady Charlotte, 56, 58 Bury, E. J., 57 Butler, Samuel, bishop, 93 Butt, Mary Martha [i.e. Mrs. Sherwood.], 51 butterfly's ball, 199 butterfly's birthday, igg butterfly's funeral, 199 Bygden, Leonard, 11 Byles, sir John B., 23 Bynon, George [i.e. Mary C. Golding Bright], 35 Bynon, Isabel G., 35 Byron, lord, 57, 82, 83, 126-9, 204 C. [i.e. J. W. Croker], 162 C., C. S. [C. S. Calverley], 14 C. 33 [i.e. Oscar Wilde], 135 Cadell, Thomas, 88 Cadcll, Thomas, the younger, 49 Cairns, Hugh McCalmont, lord, 17 Calamy, Edmund, 138 called back, 108 Calthorpe, hon. Somerset, 213 Calverley, C. S., 14 Calvinism, 139-40 Cambridge, member of the univer- sity of, 79 Cambridge, sketches from, 214 Camden, Charles Pratt, first earl, 162 Camden, William, 13-14 Cameron, Jane, memoirs of, 107 camp of refuge, 96 campaigyier at home, 105 Campbell, Archibald, 219 ■ Campbell, Thomas, 128 candidate, the, 122 Canning, George, 105, 1G2, 167, ^72-3 Canning, Joan, viscountess, 173 Canning, sir Stratford (after- wards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe), 213 Cardigan, James Thomas Bru- denell, 7th earl of, 212-13 cardinal's snuff box, 109 Carey, Henry, 186 Carleton, captain, memoirs of, 72 Carleton, J. W., 208 Carlisle, Frederick Howard, 5th earl of, 126 Carlyle, Thomas, 77, 97, 100, 102 Carlyon, Cornish, family of, 49 Caroline, queen, 130 Carpenter, Mary, 107 Carroll, Lewis, 105 Carter, Elizabeth, iG, 61 Cartwright, Elizabeth, 55 Cassels, W. R., 150 castle Rackrent, 49 Castlereagh, lord, 128 Caswall, Edward, 97 catechism, brief explanation of the cliurch, 19 catechism on the corn laws, 23 catcchisme, practicall, 141 Catherine, saint of Siena, 68 catholics, Peter Plymley's letters on the subject of the, 169 catholicus, 23 caiisidicade, 78 cavalier, memoirs of a, 72 cavalry life, 38 Cave, Edward, 193 Cavendish [i.e. Henry Jones], 208 Caxton, Pisistratiis [i.e. Edward, lord Lytton], 94 Caxtons, the, 94 Cecil [i.e. Cornelius Tongue], 208 Cecil, Richard, 29 Cecil, or the adventures of a cox- comb, 59 Centlivre, Susannah, 78 Cervantes, Miguel de, 77 Chamberlayne, Edward, 18 1-2 Chambers, Robert, 148 230 INDEX champion of virtue, 46 chaperon, recollections of a, 58 Chapman, Edward, 100 Chappell, William, bishop, 141 characteristics in the manner of Rochefoucauld, 24 characteristics, modern, 24 characteristics of men, manners, 24 Charles I, king, 139 Charles II, king, 180 Charles XII, military hist, of, 78W Charles, Mrs., 6gn Charlotte, Elizabeth [i.e. Mrs. Phelan, afterwards Tonna], 52 Chatham, jWilliam Pitt, first earl of, 72, 192 Chatsworth, 93M Chatterton, lady Georgiana, 57,92 Cheap, wardmote of, 130 Chelsea church, 182 chemistry, conversations on, 56 Chesney, sir George T., 103 Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stan- hope, fourth earl of , 120, 156-7, 189-92 Chetham, James, 191 Cheveley novels, 95 Cheveley, or the man of honour, 95 Cheveley, lady, or the woman of honour, 95 child's guide to knowledge, 15 Chinese letters, 191 Chip, Will {i.e. Hannah More] 48 Christ, nature of the kingdom of, Christ, prophecies of, 18 christian, the devout, 24 christian directory, 138 christian exercise, first book of the, 138 christian observer [newspaper], 48 christian religion, as profess' d by a daughter of the church of England, 42 christian year, the, 131 Christianity, reasonableness of, 1 83 Chung, Mr., 106 Church, A. J., 208 Church, R. W., dean, 24W church reform, book of, 145 Churchill, Charles, 118, 128 Churchills, the (booksellers), 183 chymist, sceptical, 142 chymistry, curiosity in, 142 Cibber, CoUey, 77 citizen of the world, 191 Claremont tales, 68 Clark, rev. T. [i.e. John Gait], 91 Clayton, Robert, bishop, 26 clergy, modest plea for the, 184 clergymen, three dialogues on the amusements of, 198 clerical life, scenes of, 64, 221 Clive, Archer, 63 Clive, Caroline, 63 Cobbett, William, 169 Cobden, Richard, 175 cobwebs, new, 45 cobwebs to catch flies, 45 Cocker, Edward, 45 CcBlebs deceived, 49 CcBlebs in search of a cook, 49 Ccslebs in search of a wife, 48 Ccslebs, M. A., 49 Ccslibia choosing a husband, 49 Colburn, Henry, 89, 93 Cole, Sir Henry, 209-10 Coleridge, Christabel, 67 Coleridge, Derwent, 16 Coleridge, Hartley, 86-7, 199 Coleridge, Henry, 86 Coleridge, John Duke, first lord, 59. 67, 131 Coleridge, S. T., 97, 205 Coleridge, Sara, 59 Coles, C. B., 33 Collard, John, 33 collection of lies, 24 collection of poems [Dodsley's), 24 collection of private devotions, 24 Collier, Arthur, 190 INDEX 231 Collier, Jane, 26, 190 Collier, Margaret, 190 Colman, George, the elder, 118 Combe, George, 147 coming race, the, 94 Comment, Cuihbert [i.e. Abraham Tucker,'] 196 complaint, the, or night-thoughts, 114 conference about the next suc- cession, 138 confessional, the, 143 confirmation, address to young persons on, 19 Coningshy, Arthur, 97 constitution, dialogue on the, 191 Constitutional Society, 163 contemporary, by a, 65 Conway, Eustace, 96 Conway, Hy^gh [i.e. F. J. Far- gus], 108 Cook, Mrs. Millicent, 15 cookery, art of, 15, 52 cookery, domestic {new system) , 5 2 cookery made easy, by a lady, 1 5 cook's oracle, 53% Cooper, Thomas, 100 Cooper's hill, 11 1 Copleston, Edward, bishop, 21, 130, 170 Copley, J. S., 200 Copperfield, David, 36 Corcoran, Peter, 204 Cornhill Magazine, 103, 106 Corp, Harriet, 49 correspondents, distant, 43 corruption, 125 Corry, John, 28 Cory, William, 134 Cosin, John, bishop, 24 Coste, Pierre, 42 Cotton, Nathaniel, 119 Couch, A. T. Quiller, 14 country conversations, 66 country gentleman's advice, 196 country without a government, 174 couples, sketches of young, gSn Courier, the {newspaper), lyz Coiirtenay, John, 217 Courtenay, T. P., 167 Courtin, Antoine de, 29 Cove, Morgan, 144 Covent garden theatre, 75 Coventry, Francis, 79 Cowen, Joseph, 100 Cowley, Abraham, 43 Cowper, Wm, 45, 47, 118-20, 197 Cox, George, 132 Cox, G. v., 132 Crabbe, George, 20, 122-3 craftsman, the {newspaper), 192 Craigie, Pearl Mary Teresa, 37 Craik, Dinah Maria, 69?? Craik, Sir Henry, 153 Craven, 208 Crawley, captain Rawdon, 208 Crayon, Christopher [i.e. J. E. Ritchie], 201 Crayon, Geoffrey, gent [i.e. Wash- ington Irving], 200 Crayon, G., junior [i.e. George Darley], 200 Crayon, Walter, 201 Cresswell, Joseph, 2 Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, 91 Crib, Tom, memorial of, 125 critical review, 118 criticism, essay on, 112 Crito Cantabrigiensis, 200 Croker, John Wilson, 57, 88, 90, 128, 162, 169-70, 172-3 Croly, George, 99 Cromwell, Oliver, 151 Crooke, Andrew, 179 Cross, J. W., 64 Crotchet castle, 88 Crowe, Eyre, 153 crown of England, hereditary right of the, 222 Cruikshank, George, 74, 78 crust of bread, treatise on virtues of, when eat early, 30 cry, the, a new fable, 190 cryptonym, 33 232 INDEX Crystal [i.e. Sir Cresswell Cress- well], 91 crystal palace, shall we keep the, 210 Cudworth, Ralph, 41 Cumberland, Richard, 79-80, 121 Cunningham, J. W., 31 Currie, James, 165 Currie, Mary Montgomery, ^ady, 37 Curtis, Charles, 80 Curtis, G. W., 29 Curtius rescued from the Giilph, 80 Cushing, William, 10 cushion, velvet, 31 Cyrus, garden of, 180 A (delta), [D. M. Moir], 14 D., A. B.C. [Francis Attcrbury], 32 D., M. A. [Dyson], 67 Dacier, Anne, 61 Dacre, a novel, 57 Dacre, lady, 58 daily devotions, etc., 40 Dalembert, J. Le Rond, 32 Darley, George, 201 Darwin, Charles, 147 Darwin, Edward, 209 Darwin, Erasmus, 122 Daryl [i.e. sir Douglas Straight], 208 Davy, sir Humphry, 207 day of adversity, 19 De Morgan, Augustus, 186, 209 dead, dialogues of the, 45 dean and a curate, three dialogues between a, 198 decameron, the, 76, 204 Defoe, Daniel, 17, 18, 27, 30, 31, 54, 71-4, 152, 187 deism, refutation of, 130 Delecourt, Jules, 10 Delepierre, Octave, 33 Democritus junior [i.e. Robert Burton], 178-9 demoniacks, enquiry into the mean- ing of, 13 demonym, 33 denarius [i.e. sir Henry Cole], 210 Denham, sir John, 11 1 Denmark, anonymous lit. of, 1 1 Dennis, John, 1 12-13 De Quincey, Thomas, 86, 129, 205 Derrick, Samuel, 191 Derwent's breakfast, 16 Desfontaines, P. F. Guyot, 186 Devereux, 94 devil, the, 22-7 devotional exercises, 16 devotions, in the ancient way of offices, 40 ; daily, 40 dialogue in the shades, 120 diary of a dutiful son, 14 Dickens, Charles, 64, 97, 205 Diderot, Denis, 77 Digby, sir Kenelm, 179 Dilke, C. W., 62, 112, Ii3«, 161 Dilke, sir C. W., 215 Dilly, Charles and Edward, 46, 80, 190 Dion, letter to, i discipline; by the author of self- control, 51 discourse concerning the love of God, 42 discourse of the contests between nobles and commons in Athens and Rome, 153 Disney, John, 143 Disraeli, Benjamin, lord Bea- consfield, 57, 85, 93, 99, 105, III, 175-6 Disraeli, Isaac, 85 dissenters, shortest way with the, 152 Dixon, Henry Hall, 208 Doane, Richard, 145 Dobic, C. E., 139, 141 Dobson, Austin, 193 doctor, the, 85 Dodgson, C. L., 105 INDEX 233 Dodington, Bubb, lord Mel- combe, 194 Dodsley, James, 46, 123 Dodsley, Robert, 24, 46, 75, 115-18, 121, 189 Dodson, Michael, 18 Doleman, R. [i.e. Robert Par- sons], 138 don, by a [i.e. sir Leslie Stephen], 214 Donne, W. B., 10 1 Doorninck, Jan Izaak van, 10 Dorking, battle of, 103 Dorrington, Theophilus, 40 Dorset, Catherine Ann, Mrs., 199 Dorset, Richard Sackvillc, fifth earl of, 179 Douce, Francis, 197 Douglas, Djt,, 220 Douglas, John, bishop, 158-9 Drapier's letters, 157 Drayton, John [i.e. Mrs. Oli- phant], 67 dreams, waking thoughts, 82 Dreyer, Matthias, 3 Druid [i.e. H. H. Dixon], 208 Drury lane theatre, 75 Dryden, John, 111-12 Dubois, Edward, 87 Du Maurier, G. L. P. B., 108 Dudley & Ward, John William, lord, 20, 126, 173 dunciad, the, 22, 122 Dunne, Mr., of Queen's co., Ireland, 35 Durham, J. G. Lambton, first earl of, 175 Durrant, Valentine, 95 Dyson, Mr., speech to the free- holders, 1 69 Dyson, Charles, 67 Dyson, Mary Ann, 66-7 E., A. L. O. [Charlotte Maria Tucker], 68 E., I. [Richard Bentley], 14 E., T. H. R. B. [the hon. Robert Boyle], 142 E. T., a layman [the hon. Robert Boyle], 142 Eastlake, Elizabeth, lady, 62-3, 212 Ecce homo, 148 Eccles, Charles Stewart, 217 Eclectic review, 220 Edgeworth, Maria, 27, 49, 61 Edinburgh review, 58, 122, 126, 146, 148 Edinburgh weekly journal, 172 Edmands, John, 161 education, some thoughts con- cerning, 183 Edwards, George, 206 Egcrton, George [i.e. Mary C. Golding-Bright], 35 Egmont, John Perceval, second earl of, 156 Egypt, by a traveller, 29 eighteen maxims of neatness, 53 Eikon Basilike, 139 elegy written in a country church- yard, 1 1 7-8 elegy, another churchyard, 121 elephants' ball, 199 Elia, 200, 201, 206 Eliot, Edward, first baron, 72 Eliot, George [i.e. Mary Ann Evans], 2,3. 35. 64, 95, 103, 105, 149, 220-2 Ellicott, Mrs., 98 Ellis, F. S., 9 Ellison, Mr., 28 Elizabeth, queen, conference about the next succession to, 138 Elizabeth, queen, treatise ad- dressed to, 136 Elizabeth and her german garden, 70 Elizabeth, in Rugcn, adventures of, 70 Emerson, R. W., 66 234 INDEX emigration of birds, discourse on, 206 eminent persons, odes and ad- dresses to, 204 emotions, some, and a moral, 37 Empedocles on Etna, 131 Enderhy : colonel Enderby's wife, 35 England, Ireland and America, 175 England, letters on, by don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, 182 hngland, letters on, by Victoire, Count de Soligny, 204 England, and Scotland, tour in, 198 England, anonymous literature of, 8-10 England, church of, essay on the revenues of, 144 England, history of, by Mrs. Markham, 55 England, history of, by a noble- man, 191 England, history of, remarks on, 192 England, new state of, 182 England, wants of, 182 Englandism, church of, 144 Englefield, Sir Francis, 138 english bards and scotch review- ers, 126 english government, thoughts on the, 165 english tongue, proposal for cor- recting and improving the, 186 enigmatic-pseudonym, 33 enquiry into the constitution of the primitive church, 25 enqtiiry into the measures of submission (1688), 25 enquiry, philosophical, into the origin of the sublime, 25 Enthusiast, the, 1 1 6 Eothen, 214 Ephemera [i.e. Edward Fitz- gibbon'], 208 Episcopalian, letters un the church by an, 146 Epullia, 132 errors, vulgar, 180 Erskine, first baron, 164, 166 Erskine, William, 84 Espriella, Manuel Alvarez [i.e. Robert Southey], 87 essay by a natural philosopher on shaving, 22 essay on the antiquity of living in a garret, 26 essay on spirit, 25 essays and reviews, 25 essays and sketches of life and character, lyi essays, moral and political, 188 essays on the church, 18 essays, philosophical, 189 essays written in the intervals of business, 26 estimate of the religion of the fashionable world, 47 Eton college, ode on a distant prospect of, 116 Euphranor, 133 Europe, memoirs of the affairs of, \J2, Euro pa's school, fight at dame, 102 Evans, Mary Ann, 33, 35, 64-5, 95. 103. 105. 149. 220-2 Evelina, 46 Examiner, [newspaper), 25, 205 Exeter, a letter to the bishop of, 18 Exquisites, the, 98 Eyre, Jane, novel of, 61-3 F.,W. J. [W.J. Fitzpatrick], 85 FabriciancB historia bibliothecce, 3 Fabricius, J. A., 3 Fabricius, Johann, the younger, 3 faction detected, 156 Fair child family, 51 Falconer, Lanoe [i.e. M. E. Hawker], 70 INDEX 235 Falkland, a novel, 93 Falkland islands, thoughts on the late transactions respecting the, 161 Falkner, a novel, 60 false alarm, 161 Falstaff, sir John, letters of, 205 family fend, 100 fancy, the, 204 Fane, Violet [i.e. lady Curric] ,^7 far from the madding croivd, 103 farm and fruit of old, 1^2 Farnham, Edward, bookseller, 180 Fargus, F. J., 108 fatherless Fanny, 46 Fathom, Ferdinand, count, 79 Fell, John, bishop, 141 fellowship, 63 Felsenburg^ die insel, 74 female life, economy of, 1 89 Fenn, Sir John, 45 Ferrier, Susan C, 49 Ferroll, Paul, 63 Ferroll, Paul, why he killed his wife, 64 few cursory remarks upon the state of parties, 166 Field, Barron, 43, 75 Fielding, Henry, 15, 26, 44, 77, 78, 79, 156, 186, 189-90 Fielding, Sarah, 15, 78, 190 Finch, Anne, countess of Win- "^ Chelsea, 43 Finnemore, Joseph, 74 Fisher, A. [i.e. Mrs. Slack], 45 Fisher, George [i.e. Mrs. Slack], 45 Fitz-Albion's letters, 168 FitzGerald, Edward, 133 Fitzgibbon, Edward, 208 Fitzpatrick, William John, 85 Flamands, vies des peintrcs, 81 Flaxman, John, 124, 205 Fleming, George [i.e. J. C. Flet- cher] , 36 Fletcher, Julia Constance, 36 Florestan of Monaco, fall of prince, 215 Florence, garden of, 204 Florian, selections of fables from, 53 Fonnereau, Thomas George, 14 Fonseca, M. A. da, 11 forlorn hope, 109 Forbes, Edward, 148 Forbes, George, 84 Forrest, G. {i.e. rev. J.G.WoodI, 2)3 Fortescue, G. K., 151 Fouque la Motte, 67 four months among the gold- finders, 109 Fox, C. J., 58, 163, 197 Frampton, Josiah [i.e. William Gilpin], 198 France, anonymous literature of, 4-7 France, history of, by Mrs. Markhain 56 France, sentimental Tourney through, 79 France, short ramble through some parts of, 115 France, causes of the frcnch revolution, 171 France, the frcnch revolution, 124 France, franco- Prussian war, 102- 103 France and Italy, notes on a journey through, 203 Francis, sir Philip, 161, 164 Frankenstein, 59 Franklin, Benjamin, 164 Fraser's magazine, 133 frail professorin, die, 96 free trade, sophisms of, 22, freewill, foreknowledge, 196 Fremont, col. J. C, 109 French, Gilbert James, 85 Frere, Ellinor, 45 Frcrc, John Hookham, 20, 45, 85-87, 127 Frewen, Accepted, archbishop, 140 236 INDEX Frey, Albert R., 10 friendship in death, 43 Friswell, James Hain, 28 Froude, James Anthony, 102, 105 Froude, Richard Hurrell, 145-6 Fudge family in Paris, 125 Fudge family in Washington, 125 Fudges, the, in England, 125 Fulman, William, 141 fur prcsdestinatus, 139 Fuseli, Henry, 123, 195, 205 Gallienne, Richard le, 203 Gait, John, 33, 91 Gambado, Geoffrey, 193, 200 game preserver's manual, 209 garden, days and hours in a, by E. V. B., 14 garden of Cyrus, 180 gardener, british, 197 gardener, every man his own, 196 Garnett, Dr. Richard, 60, 97 Garrick, David, 80, 194 Garth, sir Samuel, 114 Gauden, John, bishop, 139 Gaudentio, signor, 187-8 Gay, John, 119 Gazul, Clara {i.e. Prosper Merimee], 2 3 Gebeode, les freres [i.e. G. Brunei and O. Delepierre], ^;^ Gebir, 129 Geislcr Fridericus, 1-3 Geith, George, of Fencourt, 70 Gembloux, C. C. Pierquin de, 32 gentle life, 28 gentleman, by a, 16-17 gentleman's calling, 141 gentleman's magazine, 8, 46, 53 60, 61, 83, 84, 87, 115, 140, 153. 157. 188, 191, 199, 218 gentlemen, adventures of young, 97 geonym, ^^ George II, 158 George III, 161 George IV, diary illustrative of times of, 56 Georgics, 132 Germany : books on anonymous lit. of, 1-4 Germany : considerations on the present (1760) german war, 158 Germany : occasional thoughts on the present {1760) german war, 158 Germany ; tour of a german artist in England, 63 Ghepredestineerde deef, 140 Gibbon, Edward, 123, 195 Giffard, Peter, 181 Gilbert, sir Jeffray, 30 Gilbert, sir John, 74 Gilliver, Lawton, 186 Gilpin, John, 119 Gilpin, rev. William, 198 Ginx's baby, 214 girls' realm {newspaper), $gn Giuliari, Giovanni Battista Carlo, 8 Gladstone, W. E., 14, 64, 66, 92, 132, 148, 149, 215 Glasgow herald (newspaper), 104 Glasse, Hannah, 15, 52 Gleig, G. R., 88 Glenarvon, 57 Glossographia, 181 Glover, John Hulbert, 8 Glumpiis, king, 98 Godolphin, a novel, 94 Godwin, M. J., 130 Godwin, William, 50, 201-2 golden rules, 201 goldfinders, four months among the, 109 Golding-Bright, Mary Chavelita, 35 Goldsmith, Oliver, 15, 190-2, 218 good intent, progress of the pil- grim. 54 INDEX 237 Goodrich, S. G., 32 Gore, Catherine, G. F., 58-9 Gorham case, the, 18 Gosse, Edmund, 203 government, fragment on, 162 government, principles of, 163 government, two treatises of, 183 Grafton, Augustus Henry Fitz- roy, third duke of, 18, 29 Graham, EHzabeth Susanna, 53 Graham, Sir James, 174 Granhy, a novel, 58 Grand, Sarah [i.e. F. E. Mac- Fall], 2,7 grande tour, remarks on the, 17 Grandison, sir Charles, history of, 77 grandmother' s money, 106 Grant, Mrs. Ann, 16, 55 Gray, Susan, history of, 51 Gray, Tliomas, 79, 114-18, 121, 216 Great Britain ; controversy be- tween and her colonies, 163 Great Britain ; interest of, stead- ily pursued, 157 Great Britain ; short review of the political state of, 164 Great Britain, tour through, 17 great men, letter addressed to two, 159 great men, remarks on the letter addressed to two, 159 Green, Emanuel, 218 Greenfield, Mr., 84 Greenhill, W. A., Dr., 180 greenwood tree, under the, 103 Gregg, Hilda Caroline, 34 Gregory, John, 30 Grenville, George, 163 Grenville-Murray, Eustace Clare, 213 Greville, Charles, 173, 176 Greville, Fulke, 115 Grey, Barbarina, the lion, lady, 58 Grey, Vivian, 93 Grier, Sydney C. [i.e. Hilda Caroline Gregg], 34 Grimaldi, Joseph, memoirs of, 97 Griset, Ernest, 74 Groddeck, Gabriel, 3 Grote, Harriet, Mrs., 23 Gryll Grange, 88 Guairard, I'abbe, 6 guesses at truth, 133W. Gulliver, John, travels of, 186 Gulliver, captain Lemuel, travels of, 185 Gulliver, Lemuel, junior, 53, 186 Gulliver, Martin, 186 Gunning, Henry, 132 Guthrie, Thomas Anstey, 108 Gyp [i.e. the countess S. G. M. A. de M artel de Janville], 36 Gyp, camping out by, 36 Gyp, story of, 36 Gyp, poor, whose dog is it ? or the story of, 36 H. S. [i.e. Samuel Henley], 83 hagionym, 33 Haig, J. D., 8 Hake, Dr. Thomas Gordon, 99 Halifax, George Savillc, mar- quess of, 15 Halifax, John, Gentleman, 69 n. Halkett, Samuel, and Laing, John, 8, 9, 10, 52, 107, 137-8, 161, 184 Hall, Joseph, bp., 138 Hallam, Arthur Henry, 133 Hallam, Henry, 139 Hamerton, P. G., 104-5 Hamilton, Elizabeth, 50 Hammond, Henry, 141 Hampton Court, architecture, etc., 209 Hamst, Olphar [i.e. Ralph Thomas], 9, 15, 2>^ Hanover forces, case of, 156 Hanway, Jonas, 157 Harbin, George, 222-3 , 238 INDEX Hardwicke, Philip Yorke, the first lord, 158 Hardy, Thomas, 103 Hare, Augustus William, I33n. Hare, Julius Charles, 133W. Harland, Henry, 109 Harland, Marion [i.e. M. V. Hawes, afterwards Terhunc], 109 Harleian miscellany, 152 Harley, Robert, first earl of Oxford, 73 Harlowe, Clarissa, 77 Harrison, Mary St. Leger, 34 Harte, Walter, 113 Hawes, Mary Virginia (after- wards Terhune), log Hawker, Mary Elizabeth, 70 Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 33 Hawkins, sir John, 44 Haydn's diet, of dates, no Hayley, William, 26, 47, 120 Hay ward, Abraham, 29 Hazlitt, William, 20, 21, 24, 26, 72, 200-3 Hazlitt, W. C, 205 Head, sir Francis Bond, 210 Headlong Hall, 88 headquarters, letters from, 212 health, art of preserving, 114 hearts, satyrical lecture on, 212 n. Heaven our home, 150 Heher, letters to Richard, 84 Heilly, Georges d' [i.e. A. E. Poinsof], 7 Helps, sir Arthur, 26, 94 Henchman, Humphrey, bp., 141 Henley, rev. Samuel, 82-3 Hennell, miss, Sara, 95 Henrietta, 44 Henry, letters to little, 51 Henry, little, and his hearer, 51 Henry, little Henry's holiday, 51 Herbert, Amy, by a Lady, 16, 69 Hereward the Wake, 96 Heron, Robert [i.e. John Pinker- ton'], igj Hervey, John, lord, 155 Hesketh, lady, 47 Heth, daughter of, 104 Heumann, C. A., 3 Heyne, Christian Gottlob, 195 Hickes, very rev. George, 40, 184 hidden depths, 65 Hieover, Harry [i.e. Charles Bind- ley], 208 hieronym, 33 high church, 106 High elms, by, 209 high life below stairs, by James Townley, 27 Hill, sir John, 52 Hinchliffe, John, bp., 161 hind and the panther, the, in hints on longevity, 26 hints submitted to the serious, 18 history of an Apple Pie, 27 history of Pews, 27 history of the children in the wood, 27 history of the world, 27 history, sketches of, 201 Hoadly, Benjamin, bp., 19 Hoare, Mrs. Louisa, 27 Hobbes, John Oliver [i.e. Craigie, P. M. T.], 17 Hobhouse, John Cam (baron Broughton), 128, 167 Hodson, Mrs., 86 Hoe, Robert, 190 Hoey, Mrs. Cashel, 109 Hogarth, D. G., 214 Hohenlinden, 128 Hole, very rev. S. R., dean of Rochester, 98 Holland, books on anon. lit. of, II Holland, sir Henry, 147 Holland, Henry Richard Vassal!, third baron, 173, 201 Holland, lady, 57 Holroyd, John Baker, first earl of Sheffield, 123 holy alliance, fables for the, 125 INDEX 239 Holzmann, Michael, 4 Home, Henry, lord Karnes, 81 homebook of pleasure, 66 Hood, Thomas, 204 Hook, very rev. James, 89 Hook, Theodore, 86, 90 Hooke, Nathaniel, 155 * Hooker, sir W. J., 148 Hookwell, Dr., 92 Hope, Anthony, 2,3 Hope, Thomas, 83 Hopton, Susanna, 40 Horlock, Knightley, Wm., 208 Hornbook, Adam [i.e. Thomas Cooper'], 100 Home, R. H., 24 Home, T. H., 33 Horneck, Catherine, 192 Horneck, Mary, 193 Hornem, Horace, 126 Horner, Francis, 168, 169 Horner, Leonard, 148 horse, scouring of the white, 102 horsemanship, annals of, 193 horsemen, academy for grown, 193 Houghton, lord ; see Milnes, R. M. household words{magazine),2iT„222 how to dress on £1^ a year as a lady, 15 how to make home unhealthy, 25 Hudson, John, 183 Hughes, Mary Anne, wife of rev. Thomas Hughes of Uf- fington, 84, 86 Hughes, Thomas, 100-2 Hughes, T. S., 93 human action, essay on the prin- ciples of, 202 human life, economy of, 189 human nature, treatise of, 18S humble penitent [i.e. S Hopton'], 40 Humboldt, Carl Wilhelm von, 147 Hume, David, 146, 188-9 humorist, an unknozvn, 66 Humphreys, Mrs. Desmond, 36 Humphreys, Henry Noel, 212 Hunt, John, 203 Hunt, Leigh, 75, 205 Hurdis, James, vicar of Bishop- stone, 119 Husenbeth, F. C, 9 Huskisson, William, 172 Hutcheson, Francis, 166 n. Hutchinson, George H. Holy, 208 Hutchinson-jargon, 116 Hutton, Richard Holt, 98 Huxley, T. H., 148 I. T. R. D. J. S. D. O. P. L [the rev. doctor Jonathan Swift], 185 idleness, hours of, 126 Idler, 194 Idstone [i.e. Thomas Pearce], 208 ignorance, defence of, 24 Ufracombe, notes on the geology of, 209 indians, conversion and instruc- tion of the free, 163 inebriety, 122 Inez the queen, 95 Inglis, Sir Harry, 168 Inglis, sir Hugh, 168 inheritance , 50 initialism, 33 Inner Templar, 145 Innes, Alexander, 219 intercepted letters, 125 lonica, 134 Ireland, leaders of public opinion in, 176 Ireland, little tour in, 98 Ireland, maxims controlled in, 153 Ireland, modest proposal for pre- venting the children of poor people from being a burthen to their parents or the country, 153 Ireland, past and present policy of England towards, 176 Ireland, short view of the state of, 153 240 INDEX Ireland, sketch of the state of, 128, 169 Ireland, travels of an Irish gentleman, 125, second tra- vels of, 125, 146 " Irelaunde, master Samuel," 205 ironym, 33 Irving, Washington, 200 Isaiah, new translation of, 18 Italy, books on, anon. lit. of, 7-8 Italy, 86, 124 Italy, notes on a journey through France and, 203 Italy, sentimental journey through France and, 115 Italy with sketches of Spain, 82 Ivo and Verona, 67 Ivy [i.e. Mrs. Dugald Stewart], 20, 126, 173 Ixe, mademoiselle, 70 Jabet, George, 212 Jackson, Thomas, 140 Jacqueline, 127 Jamieson, Thomas Hill, 9 Jarvis, Geoffrey [i.e. Elizabeth Hamilton], 50 Jeffrey, Francis, lord, 84 Jenkins, John Edward, 214 Jenyns, Soame, 25 Jersey, lady, 176 Jesuits, anon. lit. of, 11 Jew, wandering, 91 Jews, the, 157-8 Jews, case of the lawfulness of the toleration of, 142 Jewsbury, miss, 100 Jip or Jyp, 36 Johnson, Joseph (bookseller), 124 Johnson, Samuel, 20, 21, 25, 43, 44, 45, 47, 72, 84, 93, 115, 120, 121, 123, 140, 161, 178, 179, 184, 193-5. 216, 217, 218, 219, Johnson, William, 134 Joliet, Charles, 7 Jones, familiar epistles to F. J.[one]s, Esq., 128 Jones, Henry, 208 Jones, sir William, 163 Juan, don, 128 jugements des savants, 5 Julia, advice to, 125 Julia, letters to, 125 Junius, 1 60- 1 juries, fragment on the constitu- tional power of, 163 Kames, Henry Home, lord, 81 Kaye, John, bishop, 125 Keats, Gwendoline, 37 Keble, John, 67, 131 Keddie, Henrietta, 38 Kemble, Frances Anne (Mrs. Butler), 62, 10 1 Ken, Thomas, bishop, 18, 43 Kennet, White, bishop, 42 Kenrick, William, 15 Kerr, Orpheus C. [i.e. R. H. Newell], 2>Z Keyher, Conny, yy Khayyam, Omar, 133 Killing noe murder, 151 Kilner, Dorothy, 21 King, Peter, baron, 25, 219 King's book, bibliog. of the, 139 Kinglake, A. W., 214 Kingsley, Charles, 34, 38, 61, 96, 100 Kippenberg, August, 74 Kitchiner, William, M.D., 53 n. Kley, H., 74 Klopstock, F. G., 43, 114 Knapp, John Leonard, 207 Knight, Charles, 92, 96 Knightley, family of, 137 Knox, William, 162 L. E. L, [i.e. L. E. Landon], 14 INDEX 241 L[eg] g, J. of Market Lavington, 206 ladies aggravating, 15 ; veiled, 33-70 lady, by a, 15-16, 43, 45, 52, 78, 143, 189, 199 lady's magazine, 206 lady's new year's gift, 15 Laing, Catherine, 10 Laing, rev. John ; see Halkett. Lamb, lady Caroline, 57 Lamb, Charles, 12, 21, 43, 75, 129, 178, 201, 204-6 Lamb, Frederick James (lord Melbourne), 173 Lamb, Mary, 21 Lamoignon, Marquis de Bavillc, 5 Lancetti, Vincenzo, 7 land at last, 109 Landon, L. E., 14 Landor, Robert Eyres, 95, 129 Landor, Walter Savage, 129 Landseer, Thomas, 99 Lara, 127 larva detracta, i Laska, Sidney [i.e. Henry Har- land], 109 last man, 60 Lauder, William, 159 Lauderdale, James Maitland, eighth earl of, 86 Lavington, George, bishop, 143 Law, William, 19 layman, by a, 18 learning, enquiry into the present state of polite, 190 Lecky, W. E. H., 158, 163, 176 Lee, William, 72, 187 Leech, John, 98, 208 Lefevre, sir George William, 28 Legg, John, 206 Lemon, Mark, 98 Lennox, Charlotte, 44 letter, commercial and political, 1 65 letters, familiar, jj letters and observations in a short tour, 17 letters for literary ladies, 27 letters from a Persian in Eng- land, 27 letters from England by don M. A . Espriella, 87 letters from the mountains, 16 letters from the north of Italy, 22 n ; letters intercepted, 125 letters of literature, igj letters written for the post, 170 Lewes, George Henry, 64, 105 Lewis, sir G. C. 57, 176, 188 Lews, twenty years in the, 208 liber amoris, 202 library, the, 123 lieutenant's daughter, the, 102 "life," works on, 27,28 life of a travelling physician, 28 Liggins, Joseph, 220-2 light of nature pursued, 196 Lightfoot, J. B., bishop, 150 Lilburne, John, 151 lillies, leaf, 67 Limborch, Philippus van, 183 Lincolnshire grazier, 2i?> Lindsay, Mayne, 2,7 Lingard, John, 139 Lister, Maria Theresa (lady Lewis), 57-8 Lister, Thomas Henry, 58 Lintot, B. B., 113 lioness's rout, 199 lion's masquerade, 199 Lisbon, voyage to, 44, 190 literary gazette, 124 literature, pursuits of, 123 Little, Thomas [i.e. Tom Moore], poetical works of the late, 125 Lloyd, Robert, 118 Lobo, father Jerome, 193 Lochiel's warning, 128 Locke, Alton, 100 Locke, John, 41-2, 182-3 Lockhart, J. G., 14, 57, 61, 62, 72, 85-91, 94, 99 Locuta, voyage to, 53 242 INDEX Lodore, 60 Loftie, W. J., 142 London, 115 London Magazine, 204-5 London oddities, 54 London, satirical view of, 28 Long, Charles (baron Farn- borough), 167 Longmans, publishing firm of, 124 looking glass, the, 202 Lord's prayer, stories on the, 69 Lord's supper, 18, 19 lords, friendly advice most respect- fully submitted to the, 174 London's architectural magazine, 211 Love, B. L., 22 Lovechild, Mrs. [i.e. Ellinor Frere], 45 Lovelace, lady, 147 loves of the plants, 122 low life above stairs, 28 Lowth, Robert, bishop, 79 Lubbock, Sir J. W., 209 Luc, J. A. De, 55 Lucas, E. v., 66 Lukin, George, dean of Wells, Lukin, Robert, 30 Lunel, Albert, 92 Lupton, Thomas, 206 Luttrell, Henry, 125 Lyall, Edna, 69 Lyell, sir Charles, 147 Lyndhurst, John Singleton Cop- ley, baron, 200 Lyttelton, George, fii'st baron, 27, 44, 191 Lyttelton, lady, 200 Lytton, Edward George Earle Buhvcr, baron, 93-5, 99 Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer, second baron, first earl of, 94 n. Lytton, Rosina, baroness, 95 M. G. [i.e. Gaetano Melzi], 7 M. J. [Milton], 139 M. J. H. [Markland], 162 M. W., 67 M.P., an [Sir Hugh Inglis], 168 Macaulay, Catharine, 160 Macaulay, Zachary, 48 MacCulloch, J. R., 172 Macdonell, Sir John, 144 MacFall, Frances Elizabeth, 37 MacFlecknoe, iii Mackenzie, Harry, 84 Mackenzie, Henry, 80-1, 217-8 Mackintosh, sir James, 162, 170, 196 Macleod, Fiona [W. Sharp], 107 Macmillan, firm of, 102 Madan, Falconer, 102 Madan, Martin, 163-4 Maga, contributor to, 134 Magazine of Magazines, 117 Magee, W. C, bp. of Peter- borough, 103 Magliabecchi, Antonio, 2 Maid Marian, 88 Maids, philosophical, historical and moral essay on old, 26 Maignien, Edmond, 7 Maitland, passages in the life of Mrs. Margaret, 67 mattre, le divine, 65 Malagrowther, Malachi, 172 Malet, Lucas [i.e. Mary St. Leger Harrison}, 34 Mallarme, Stephane, 83 Mallet, David, 1 13-14 Mallory, Percy, 89 Malone, Edmond, 140 Malthus, T. R., 26 Mammuth, or human nature diS' played, 198 man, by an old, 210 man, essay on, 113-14, 122 man in quest of himself, 196 man in the moon, 197 man, new whole duty of, 141 man of feeling, 80, 217-19 INDEX 243 man of the world, 81 man, revolt of, 107 man, whole duty of, 140 man without a name, 58 Manchester manufacturer, a [i.e. Richard Cobden], 175 Mandeville, Bernard, i Manne, Edmund Denis de, and Louis C. J. de, 6 Manners, lord John, 92 Manning, Anne, 69 n. Manning, cardinal, 18, 23 Mansfield, William Murray, first earl of, 162, 163 Marcet, Mrs. Jane, 56 Marchant, sir Denis le, 174 Marcliffe, Theophilits [i.e. Wil- liam Godwin], 202 Marian, Maid, 88 market gardener, a, 132 Markham, Mrs., 55 Markland, J. H., 162 Marlborough, Sarah, duchess of, account of the conduct of, from her first coming to Court, 155 Marmorne, 104 marprelate controversy, 136 marriage, 50 Marry at, Frederick, captain, 96 Marshal, William, gent., 81 Marshall, Stephen. 138 Marteilhe, Jean, 190 Martcl de Janville, the countess S. G. M. A. de, 36 X Martin, sir Theodore, 134 Martineau, Harriet, 16, 25, 96 Mary, princess, 199 Masham, Damaris, lady, 41-2 Masham, sir Francis, 41 Maskell, William, 136 Mason, William, 118 Massingbeard, lost sir, 104 Master, divine, 65 Mastricht, Gerhard von, 3 Mathias, T. J., 85, 123 Matthew, Henry, 124 Mauduit. Israel, 158 Maurice, F. D., 23 n., 96 mausoleum, the, 120 Mawe, Thomas, 197 Maxwell, Mrs. [i.e. M. E. Brad- don], 69 n. Mead, Richard, M.D., 187 Medal, the, in Medals, essay on, 197 Meg of Elibank, 38 Melanter, 131 Melbourne, F. J. Lamb, third viscount, 173 MclibcBus in London, 212 Melincourt, 88 Melville, Henry Dundas, first viscount, 172 Melvillcs, the, 68 Melzi, Gaetano, 7 memoirs of modern philosophers, memoirs of a peeress, or the days of Fox, 58 memoriam, in, 133 memory, pleasures of, 123 Meredith, Owen, 94 n. Merian, Maria Sibylla, 55 Merimee, Prosper, 33 Merivale, very rev. Charles, 62 Merriman, Henry Seton, no Merryweather, John, 180 Meteyard, Eliza, 33 method of devotion, 41 methodists, enthusiasm of, 143 Miege, Guy, 182 migratory movement, unity of the, 206 Mill, John Stuart, 97, 144 Milman, very rev. Henry Hart, 86, 149 Milnes, Richard Monckton, lord Houghton, 92, 99, 108 Milton, John, 22, 139, 159 mind, essay on, 60 minister, apology for the conduct of a late second-rate, 156 minstrel, the, 121 miracles, essay on, 146 244 INDEX miscellaneous literature, disguises in, 178-215 miscellany poems, 43 Mitchell, William, 68 Mitford, rev. John, 61, 87 Mitford, Mary Russell, 61, 62, 211 Moir, David Macbeth, 14 monkeys,"' anecdotes of, 22 Montague, Victor Alexander de la, II Montagu, lady Mary Wortley, 78 Montagu, Mrs., 44 Montgomery, James, 169 monthly packet, 67 monthly review, 118, 122, 124, 196 monthly review (1902), 66 Moore, epistle to Thomas, 171 Moore, Norman, 30 Moore, Thomas, 53, 124-5, ^4'^- 171, 204 Moores baffled, 183 Moors and the fens, 69 More, Hannah, 33, 47, 48 more veiled ladies, 40-70 Moreton, Andrew [D. Defoe],^^o'' Mori, Mademoiselle, 68 Morley, Henry, 25 Morley, John, viscount, 24 Morley, lady, 57-8 morning chronicle, 203 Morpeth, lord (George Howard, sixth earl of Carlisle), 126 Morris, M. C. F., 67 Morris, Peter, 89 Moriiboy, ready money, 107 mother church relieved by bleed- ing, 145 mothers and daughters, 58 mourning, whole duty of, 141 Moxon, Edward, 133 Muhamed, life and death of, 184 muhametisyn, first state of, 184 Muir, John, D.C.L., 150 Mulgrave, John Shefheld, earl of, 112 Miiller, Friedrich Max, 94 Mullion, Mordecai [i.e. John Wilson], 172 n. Mulock, Dinah Maria, 69 n. Mulready, William, 199, 202 Muralto, Onuphrio, 81 Murchison, sir Roderick, 148 Murray, John, publishers, 53, 55, 86, 89, 126, 127, 128, 210, 213 my novel, 94 Mylius, J. C, 3 Mytton, memoirs of the late John, 208 N. M. [William Camden], 13 Naiad, 204 Napier, Macvey, 58, 148, 173 Napoleon, historic doubts relative to, 146 Napoleon, ode to, 127 Nash, Richard, faint sketch of the life of, 192 Nash, Richard, life of, 192 Nash, T. R., 218 Nasology, 211 Nassau, bubbles from the Brun- nen of, 210 National Review, 214 natural history, new and com- plete, 206 natural philosophy , conversations on, 56 naturalist, journal of a, 207 nature's cabinet unlock' d, 180 naval chronicle, hydrographer of, 74 Neale, Erskine, 87 Neale, J. M., 27, 31 Neaves, lord, 135 Netherlands, books on anon. lit. of, II Nevill, lady Dorothy, 88 new monthly magazine, 203 Newbery's magazine, 191 Newby, T. C, 222 INDEX 245 Newcastle, Thomas Pelham, first duke of, 159 Newcome in the navy, adventures of Johnny, 89 Newcome, military adventures of Johnny, 88 Newcomen, Matthew, 138 Newell, R. H., 33 Newman, John Henry, 23, 67, 145, 146, 149 Newport, colonel Andrew, 72 Newte, Thomas, 198 Newton, Alfred, 206 Newton, John, 48 nightingale, natural hist, of the, 206 Nightmare Abbey, 88 nightthoughts, Young's, 114 Nile notes, 29 Nimrod [i.e. C. J. Apperley], 208 Nimrod, Harry, 125 no church, 106 no name series, 104 nobility, for the use of the young, 191 nobleman, history of England in a series of letters from a noble- man to his son, 191 nocturnal review, 43 Nolan, Frederick, 33 nominum, de mutatione, i nonjurors, preservative against the principles of, 19 Norris, Henry, of Hackney, 29 Norris, John, 42 Norris, Robert [probably Alexan- der Pope], 112 North, Christopher, iy2 n. Northanger Abbey, 49 Northcote, conversatioiis of James, 203 Norton, hon. Mrs., 65 Norway, books on anon. lit. of, II Norway, trip to, 208 noses, critical dissertation on, 212 noses, notes on, 212 not Paul but Jesus, 144-5 Notes and Queries, 8, 63, 85, loi, 145, 162, 179, 181, 186 novel, -my, 94 " novelet," 96 novelists, concealed men novel- ists, 7X-110; women, 33-70 nugcB criticcB, 105 O., H. E. [T. G. Fonnereau], 14 O., S. G. [Sidney Godolphin Osborne], 14 observations, 173 observations on a late publication, 164 observations on modern gardening, 28 observations on the present state of the nation, 163 observations on the use of the words shall and will, 28 Observer, a near, 166 occasional reflections upon several subjects, 2, 186 occasional thoughts in reference to a virtuous life, 42 O d, letter to the bp. of, 79 CEdipus tyr annus, 130 Oliphant, Laurence, 94, 98 Oliphant, Mrs., brother of, GS Oliphant, Mrs., 67, 93 Oliver, William, 192 Omar Khayyam, 133 Omen, the, 91 once a week, 107 original poems for infant minds, 29 Orlando, modern, 99 Orrery, John, fifth earl of, 191 Osborne, Francis, 21 Osborne, lord Sidney Godolphin, Otranto, castle of, 46, 81 Onida [i.e. Mademoiselle de la Ramee], 36 Owen, Pen, 89 Owen, sir Richard, 64, 147-8 246 INDEX Oxford graduate [i.e. Jeremy Bentham], 145 Oxford, graduate of [i.e. John Riiskin], 33, 211 Oxonian, an, 98 oysters, upon the eating of, 187 P. R. [i.e. Robert Parsons], 138 painters, biographical memoirs of extraordinary, 8 1 painters, modern, 211 Pakington, Dorothy, lady, 141 Paley, William, archdeacon, 196 Pall Mall Gazette, 214 Palmerston, H. J. Temple, third viscount, 162, 174 Paltock, Robert, 75 Pamela in high life, yy Panmure, Fox Maule, second baron, 213 Papist, reasons why a protestant should not turn, 142 Pardon, G. F., 208 Parisians, the, 94 Park, sir J. A., 18 Parley, Peter [i.e. S. J. Good- rich], 32, 169 parliament, humble remonstrance to the high court of, 138 parliament, select specimens from the speeches in, 202 Parncll, col. the hon. Arthur, 73 Parr, Samuel, 80, 143 Parsons, Nancy, 18 Parsons, Robert, 2, 137-8 Passano, Giambattista, 7 Passavant, J. D., 63 Paston, George [i.e. E. M. Sy- monds], 35 Paston letters, 35, 45 Patmore, Coventry, 20 Patmore, Peter George, 20, 93 n., 204 patriot, the, 161 patriotism, maxims on, 143 Pauline, 1 34 Paul's letters to his kinsfolk, 89 Pauncefote, B., 108 pauperism, causes of the increase of, 170 Payn, James, 103-4, ^'^^> 212 peacock at home, 199 peacock and parrot in their tour, 199 Peacock, Thomas Love, 88 Pearce, Thomas, 208 Pearce, Zachary, Bishop, 1 56 Peel, Sir Robert, 23, 168, 170, 174, 176 Peel, Sir Robert, and the corn law crisis, 176 Pegge, Samuel, 76 Pelham, a novel, 93 Pellew, George, dean of Norwich, 168 Pen Owen, 89 pen, pencil and poison, 205 Penrose, Elizabeth, 55 Penry, John, 136-7 Perceval, Spencer, 170 Perreau, Robert, 80 Perronet, Vincent, 143 Persian, letters from a, 27 person of honour, written by a, 142 Peter Parley, 169 n. Peter Pindar, 169 n. Peter Porcupine, 169 n. Peter Positive, 169 n. Peterborough, Charles, third earl of, 72 Peter's letters to his kinsfolk, 89 Peters, Hugh, 151 Pettersen, Hjalmar, 11 Petzholdt, Julius, 4 Pharmaconym, 33 Phelan, Mrs. [or Tonna], 51 Philalethes Cantabrigiensis [i.e. bishop Kaye], 125 Philander, a novel, 44 Philips, Ambrose, 217 Philips, John, 184 INDEX 247 Philomela [i.e. Elizabeth Rowe], 43 philosophical, historical, and moral essay on old maids, 26 Phiz [i.e. H. K. Browne], 97-8 phoenix, or the history of Poly- archus, 46 phraseonym, 33 phrcnonym, 33 physician, passages from the diary of a late, go picture galleries, sketches of the principal, 203 Pigott, sir Arthur, 169 pillory, hymn to the, 153 Pindar, Peter [i.e. Dr. Wolcot], 169 Pinkerton, John, 197 Piozzi, Mrs., 194 Pitt, William, first earl of Chat- ham, 159, 160, 202 Pitt, William, 162, 165-8 Placcius, Vincent, 2-4 Place, Francis, 145 plague year, journal of the, 71, 187 plain answer to the misrepresent- ations in " the cursory re- marks of a near observer," 167 plain reasoner, 158 plain reply to a plain answer, 168 pleasures of imagination, 1 15-16, 217 Plymley, Peter [i.e. Sydney Smith}, 169 poem to a widow, 28 poems, 128 poems fit for a bishop, 28 poems on several occasions by Philomela, 43 poems, original, for infant minds, 29 poetical dictionary, 191 poetical sketches, 124 poetry, a rhapsody, 154 poet's pleasaunce, 212 poets, anonymous, 11 1-35 Poinsot, A. E., 7 Pole, William Wellesley, third earl of Mornington, 170 political economy, conversations on, 56 political tracts, 161 politicians in the dark, 151-77 Pollock, Sir Frederick, chief baron, 149 Polonius, 133 Pohvhele, Richard, 143 Pompeii, last days of, 94 Pompey the little, history of, 79 poor, case of, against the rich, 23 Pope, Alexander, 22, 43, 60, III, 112-14, 115, 122, 132, 154-5. 179. 193. 195. 216 population, essay on the principle of, 26 Popple, William, 183 Porcupine, Peter [i.e. William Cobbett], 169 Porson, Richard, 200 Porter, Jane, 54 Porteus, Beilby, bishop, 47-8 Portugal, anonymous writers of, II Portuguese question, 173 Portuguese, sonnets from the, 61 Positive, Peter [i.e. James Mont- gomery], 169 Potter, Christopher, 142 Pow, William, 124 Powell, Frederick York, 107 Powell, J. G., 161 Poivell, Mary [Anne Manning], 69 n. Poivcr, Cecil [i.e. Grant Allen], 106 Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 125 prayer, whole duty of, 141 prenonym, 33 present state of the nation, 163 Prior Matthew, 43 prison, female life in, 107 prison, stories of, 107 248 INDEX Proast, Jonas, 183 probability, on, 209 Procter, Bryan Waller, 62 Prometheus bound, 60 proper answer to a late scurrilous libel, 156 proper reply to a late scurrilous libel, 155 prospectus and specimen of an intended national work, 127 Protestant, memoirs of a, 190 Psalmanazar, George, 219-20 pseudandry, 33 pseudoinitialism, 33 pseudojyn, 33 pseudonym library, 70 pseudotitlonym, 33 public advertiser {newspaper) ,119 public affairs, free thoughts on, 202 Puddicombe, Mrs. Beynon, 70 Pullen, Henry William, 103 Pulteney, William, lord Bath, 15579 pursuits of literature, 123 Pycroft, James, 33 Q. [i.e. A. T. Quiller Couch], 14 Quality, by a person of, i<\2. Quaritch, Bernard, 133 Quarterly review, 8, 14, 57, 58, 62, 86, 87, no, 149, 172, 174 Queen's head, blot on the, 214 Querard, J. M., 6, 7, 32 Querard, le, 32 Quicksilver [i.e. lord Brougham], 91 Quirk, Mr., 222 Quirk, Gammon and Snap, 90 Quixote, don, yj Quixote, female, 44 Quiz, sketches of young ladies by, 97 Rabelais, 134 Rainbow coffeehouse, 116 Raine, Allen [Mrs. Beynon Pud- dicombe], 70 Ralegh, sir Walter, 27 Ralph, alderman, 100 Ralph, James, 22 ramblers, the, 193 Ramee, mademoiselle do la, 36 Random, Roderick, 78 Rasselas, 1 94 Rayner, Olive Pratt [i.e. Grant Allen], 106 Reading gaol, ballad of, by Oscar Wilde, 135 ready money Mortiboy, 107 Reboul, Robert, 7 Redcliffe, heir of, 67 Reeve, Clara, 45 Reeve, S., 46 Reeves, John, 165-6 reflections on the 7 days of the week, 16 reflections, serious, of a rational christian, 29 reflections upon learning, 16 rejected addresses, 19 rejected articles, 20 religio medici, 2, 179-80 religion and reason, reconcilable- ness of, 142 remaines [by William Camden], 13-14 Renneville, R. A. C. de, 5 Rennie, Eliza, 65 rents, treatise on, 30 reply of a near observer, 168 reply to a plain answer, 168 reply to a short review, 164 resurrection, the, 220 revohition, the, 124 Reynolds, John Hamilton, 204 Reynolds, Myra, 43 Rice, James, 107 Richardson, Samuel, 17, 46, 76-7. 193 Rigby, Miss [afterwards lady Eastlake], 62-3 righted wrong, a, 109 INDEX 249 Riley, Henry Thomas, 186 Rita, an autobiography, 36 Rita [i.e. Mrs. Desmond Hum- phreys], 36 Ritchie, James Ewing, 201 Roberts, col. David, 88 Roberts, Margaret, 68 Roberts, William, 98 Robinson, F. W., 106-7 Robinson, Nicholas, M.D., 30 Robinson Crusoe, 54, 73-5, 187 Robinson, Swiss family, 74 Robinson in Deutschland, 74 Robinson und Robinsonaden, 74 Rochefoucauld, Fran9ois de la, 24 Rochester, John, second earl of, 112 rock ahead, 109 Rogers, Frederic,' baron Blach- ford, 148 ,. Rogers, Samuel, 23, 57, 82, 85, 86, 92, 123, 127 Rolliad, the, 20, 162 ' Rolt, Richard, 216-17 Romaine, William, 157-8 Romilly, sir Samuel, 144, 163-4, 169 Rosalba, 106 Roscoe, Robert, 199 Roscoe, William, 199 Rose, George, 167 Rose, W. Stewart, 22 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 100, 134 Roubigne, Julia de, 81 Roumania, Elizabeth, queen of, 38 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 77, 195 Rowe, Elizabeth, 42-3 Rowlandson, Thomas, 89 rules for holy living, 29 rules of civility, 29 rules, short, for modern whist, 29 Rundell, Maria Eliza, 52-3 Rundle, Elizabeth, 69 n. Runnymede, letters of, 175 Rush, Richard, 200 Ruskin, John, 33, 210-11 Russell, G. W. E., 51 Russell, lord John, 170-2 Russia, 175 Rusticus [i.e. F. D. Maurice], 23 n. S. [i.e. sir John Skelton], 105 S., G. A. [George Augustus Sala], 63 S. J. K. [James Kenneth Ste- phen], 14 S., L. [sir Leslie Stephen], 177 S., R., 75 S., T. [Thomas Sherman], 142 S., T. P. A. P. O. A. B. I. T. C. O. [i.e. Arthur Sykes], 13. Sacrament, earnest exhortation to the Holy, 18 Sadler's Wells theatre, 75 Sala, George Augustus, 63 Salisbury, cathedral church of, 13, 103 Salisbury, lord and lady, 103 Salmonia, or days of fly-fishing, 207 Salt, Henry, 29 Sancroft, William, archbishop, 139-40 Satan in search of a wife, 130 Satchell, Thomas, 198 Satire, essay on, 1 1 2 Saturday review, 104, 107 Savage, Richard, 193 Scandinavia, anon. lit. of, 1 1 Scarlett, James, first baron Abin- ger, 202 Scenonym, T);^ Schmidt, frdiilcin, and Mr. Ans- truthcr, 70 Schnabel, J. G., 74 Schonberg-Cotta family, 69 n Schrock, Daniel, i Scoticisms, 28, 194 Scotland, a gentleman of {i.e. James Boswell], 120 250 INDEX Scotland, journey to the western islands of, 194 Scotland, travels in, 198 Scott, Miss, of Ancram, 84 Scott, Hugh Stowell, no Scott, John of Amwell, 161 Scott, Thomas, 84-5 Scott, Mrs. Thomas, 84 Scott, Sir Walter, 22, 49, 60, 84-5, 90, 91, 93, 94, 128, 172, 204 scouring of the White Horse, 102 Scrutator [i.e. K. W. Horlock], 208 Scudery, George de, 71 Search, Edward [i.e. Abraham Tucker], 33, 196 seasonable hints from an honest man, 159 Seaward, sir Edward, narrative of, 54 Seeker, Thomas, archbishop, 16, 163 Sedgwick, Adam, 148 sedition and defamation displayed, 15s Seeley, Robert Benton, 18 Seeley, Sir John Robert, 18, 149 Segrave, Adolphus [i.e. P. G. Hamerton], 104 Selborne, Roundell Palmer, lord, self-control, 50 sense and sensibility, 49 sentimental journey through France, 79 serious proposal to the ladies by a lover of her sex, 42 Sertorius, fawn of, 95 Sewell, Miss E. M., 16, 69 Sexby, Edward, 152 shadows of the clouds, 102 Shaftesbury, Ashley Cooper, third earl of, 24 ; seventh earl of, 149 Shakespeare, William, essays on writings of, 45 Shakespeare, William, illustrated, 44 shall and will, observations on, 28 Shandy, Tristram, 178 Sharp, John, archbishop, 185 Sharp, Richard, " conversation Sharp," 86 Sharp, William, 108 shaving, essay by a natural philosopher, 22 Sheffield, John, earl of Mulgrave, 112 Sheffield, John Baker Holroyd, first earl of, 123 Shelburne, William Petty, second earl of (afterwards marquis of Lansdowne), 162-4 Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 59. 89 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 60, 89, 130, 204 Shelley, Sir Timothy, 60 shepherd of Salisbury plain, 48 Sheppard, Elizabeth Sara, 66 Sheridan, William, bishop, 153 Sherman, Thomas, 142 Sherwood, captain Henry, 51 Sherwood, Mary Martha, 51 Shilleto, A. R., 178 Shipley, William Davies, dean, 163 Shirley [i.e. sir John Skelton], 105 short account of a late adminis- tration, 168 short account of a late short administration, 160 Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot, duke of. 185 Sidgwick, Henry, 149 Sidmouth, Henry Addington, first viscount, 166-8 Silverpen [i.e. Eliza Meieyard], 33 Simple, David, adventures of, 15, 78 Sinclair, sir John, 27 INDEX 251 Singleton, Mrs., afterwards lady Currie, 37 sisters, poems by three, 133 n. six weeks' tour, history of a, 59 sixty-one, 208 Skelton, sir John, 105 Skene, Felicia, 65 sketch of the state of parties, 168 sketches or essays on various subjects, 114 Skillett, Joseph [i.e. lord John Russell], 171 Slack, Mrs., 47 Slatius, Henry, 140 Smalridge, George, bishop, 184 Smart, Sir George, 199 Smectymnuus, 138 Smith, Alfred Charles, 206 Smith, Charlotte, 199 Smith, Edmund, 184 Smith, Gamaliel [i.e. Jeremy Bentham], 145 Smith, George Vance, 150 Smith, Goldwin, 148 Smith, Hannah, 36 Smith, Horace, 20, 130 Smith, James, 20 Smith, Robert Percy (Bobiis), 20, 58 Smith, Sydney, 20, 58, 84, 169, 173 smoking, 22 Smollett, Tobias G., 21, 78-9, 118 sobriquets and nicknames, 10 Soligny, count dc [i.e. P. G. Patmore], 204 solitary summer, 70 solitude, 106 songs and verses, 134 sonnets of E. B. B. [Browning], 61 sonnets from the Portuguese, 61 Somers, John, baron, 153, 185 Somerset, Edward Adolphus Sey- mour, twelfth duke of, 147 Sommervogel, Carlos, 11 Southey, Robert, 20, 54, 85-9, 124, 128, 129, 207 Southgate, Richard, 197 Southwell, Robert, 2 sowers, the, no Spain, anonymous lit. of, 11 Spain, Italy, with sketches of, 82 Spain, letters from, 145 Sparks, Timothy [i.e. Charles Dickens], 97 Speaker, the plain, 203 Spectator, the {newspaper), 99, 103 Spencer, Herbert, 64 Spinckes, Nathaniel, bishop, 41 spirit of the age, 200, 203 spleen, a pindaric ode, 43 Sponge, Mr., sporting tour of, 208 Spurstowe, William, 139 Stanhope, Charles, third earl of, moral epistle to, 129 Stanhope, Philip Henry, fifth earl of, 73, 172 Stanley, Edward G. G., lord (fourteenth earl of Derby), 174 Stanley, Edward Henry, lord (fifteenth earl of Derby), .210 Stannard, Henrietta Eliza Vaug- han, 38 Stapleton, Augustus Granville, 173 Steele, sir Richard, 113 Stephen, sir George, 201 Stephen, J. K., 14 Stephen, sir James, 147, 196 Stephen, sir Leslie, 66, 103, 106, 177, 208, 214 Sterling, John, 97 Sterne, Laurence, 79, 178, 216 Sterne, Richard, archbishop, 141 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 77 Stewart, Dugald, 20, 126, 169, 173 Stewart, Katie, 68 stigmonym, 33 Stonehenge [i.e. J. H, Walsh], 208 252 INDEX Stothard, Thomas, 74-5 Strahan, William, 80, 194 Straight, sir Douglas, 208 strayed reveller, the, 131 Stretton, Hesha [i.e. Hannah Smith], 36 Stuart, Harriot, life of, 44 Stuart, lady Louisa, 84 Stubble, sir Hector [i.e. sir Strat- ford Canning], 213 subaltern, the, 88 sublime and the beautiful, philo- sophical enquiry into the origin of, 160 subscription no bondage, 23 subtle [i.e. sir James Scarlett], 91 Suett, Richard, 161 Sullivan, Mrs. Frederick, 58 Summerly, Felix [i.e. sir Henry Cole], 209 Sunday under three heads, 97 supernatural religion, 149 superstition, ode to, 123 Surtees, R. S., 208 Swallows, on the emigration of, 207 Sweden, books on anonymous lit. of, II Swift, Jonathan, dean, 21, 73, 153-5. 158. 184-7, 197 Swift, Thomas, 185 Sykes, Arthur, 13 Sylva, Carmen [i.e. Elizabeth, queen of Roumania], 38 Symonds, Emily Morse, 35 Sympson, Richard, 185 Syncopism, 33 T — / — , intercepted letter from J — T — ,■ from Canton, 128 Tail's magazine, 175 Talavera, battles of, 128 Talbot, Catherine, 16 tale and tales, 29 tales of the peerage and peasantry, 58 Tangier, discourse on, 183 Tasker, rev. Wm., 219 taxation no tyranny, 161 Taylor, Ann, 12, 29 Taylor, sir Henry, 85 Taylor, Jane, 29 Teachwell, Mrs. [i.e. Ellinor Frere], 45 Tedder, H. R., 189 telonism, 33 Temple, Launcelot [i.e. John Armstrong, M.D.], 114 Temple Church, glances at the, 209 teyi thousand a year, go tennis, treatise on (1822), 30 tennis, treatise on (1875), 3° Tennyson, Alfred, lord, 29, 132 Tennyson, Charles, 132 Tennyson, Frederick, 132 Tenterden, Charles Abbot, first lord, 91 Teviot, Andrew Rutherford, lord, 183 Thackeray, Wm. Makepeace, 62- 3, 98, 147 Thalatta, 105 thefts, wholesale, 216-23 Thelyphthora, 163 theologian, the concealed, 136- 50 theology, excellence of, i^'Z Thirlwall, Connop, bp., 150 Thomas, Ralph, 9, 15, 32 Thomas, Walter, 114 Thomason, George, bookseller, 151 Thompson, T. Perronet, 23 Thompson, W. H., 161 Thomson, Richard, 33 Thomson, Thomas, 122 Thomson, William, 197-8 Thornton, Bonnell, 118 thoughts and recollections, 22 n. thoughts on executive justice, 163 thoughts on the importance of the manners of the great, 47 INDEX 253 thoughts on the present discon- tents, 159, 160 Tichborne, Chidiock, 129 Tichburn, Cheviot, 129 Tickell, Richard, 162 Ticknor, George, 145 Tidy, Tim, 53 Tierney, George, 170 Tillotson, John (archbishop), 42 Times, the, 14, 71, no, 221 Times, the, on the American war, 177 Timon, the new, 99 Tinsley, William, 109 tithes, inquiry into the necessity of a commutation of, 144 titlonym, 33 Titmarsh, Michael Angclo [i.e. W. M. Thackeray], 98 Titmouse, Tittlebat, 90 Titus, captain Silas, 152 Toland, John, 139 toleration, letter on, 182 Toilet, miss, 66 Tom unlimited, 106 Tomkins, Isaac, gent. [i.e. lord Brougham], 175 Tongue, Cornelius, 208 tongue, government of the, 141 Tonna, Mrs., or Phelan, 52 tormenting, essay on the art of ingeniously, 26, 190 torn sails, 70 Torrens, colonel Robert, 49 Tory, a democratic, 105 Townley, James (high life below stairs), 27 Townshend, Charles, 159 Toynbee, Mrs. Paget, 10 Tr afford, F. G., 69 tragedy, ode to, 120 Train, the, 105 traits of character, 65 translationism, 33 Travellers' club, 22 travels into several remote na- \tions, by Lemuel Gulliver, 185 treatise addressed to the queen and parliament, 136 Tregaskis, James, 78 n. Trelawny, E. J., 21, 89 Trelawny, Jonathan, bp., 184 Tremaine, 93 Tressel, Linda, 98 Trevelyan, sir W. C, 162 Trevenen, Emily, 16 triumphs of temper, 120 i Trollope, Anthony, 99 tub, tale of a, 184 Tucker, Abraham, 33, 75, igd Tucker, Charlotte Maria, 68 Tucker, Henry St. George, 68 Tunison, J. S., 195 Tupper family, 133 n. Turner, Dawson, 162 Turton, Thomas, bishop, 200 Twist, Oliver, 97 Tynan, Katharine, 108 typewriter girl, 106 Tytler, Sarah [i.e. Henrietta Ked- die], 38 Ullrich, Hermann, 74 universal beauty, the, 122 unseen world, 31 Uriarte, Jose Eugenio dc, 11 urn-burial and garden of Cyrus, 180 Ussher, James (archbishop), 139 V, ix. poems by [Mrs. Clive], 63 Valdarno, 99 Valentine, Mrs. Laura, 66 Valperga, 60 Valpy, Robert Harris, 209 value, pernicious effects of a variable standard of, 170 Vanity fair, 98 Vansittart, Nicholas, first baron Bexley, 165 Vates, 99 Vathek, 82-3 254 INDEX Vaughan, Clara, 132 Vaughan, Derrick, novelist, 69 Veal, Mrs., appearance to Mrs. Bargrave, 31 Vegetation, economy of, 122 velvet cushion, 31 Venn, John, 208 Verdant Green, 10 1 Vere, de, 93 vestiges of the natural history of the creation, 147 Vetter, Theodor, 43 Veyrat, Xavier, 32 vice versa, 108 view, brief view of ecclesiastical history, 31 view, comparative view of the state of man and animals, 30 view of the invisible world, 30 view of the relative situations of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington, etc., 168 village curate, 119 village politics, by Will Chip, 48 vindication of natural society, 31 VirgD, 132, 195-6 virtue, enquiry into the original of moral, 219 Vischer, L. F., 3 visions in verse, 119 visit, friendly visit to the house of mourning, 29 Vizetelly, Henry, 109 Vlint, widder, 17 Vogt, Carl, 148 Voltaire, F. M. A. de, 45 vulgar errors, 180 W. S. (Stephen Weston), 82 W. W. (J. H. Reynolds), 204 Wagner, H. F., 75 Wagstaffe, Thomas, 139 Wainewright, Thomas Grifhths, 205 Waldegrave, Robert, 137 Wales, George, prince of, 164 Walker, Anthony, 139 Walker, Obadiah, 141 Waller, Edmund, 156-7 Walpole, Horace, 10, 16, 46, 79, 81, 116, 156 Walpole, Horace, the old (baron Walpole of Wolterton), 157 Walpole, sir Robert, 154, 155 Walpole, sir Spencer, 171 Walsh, John Henry, 208 Walton, Izaak, 181, 198, 207 Waltz, the, 126 Warbeck, fortunes of Perkin, 60 Warborough, Martin Leach [i.e. Grant Allen}, 106 Warburton, William (bp. of Gloucester), 77, 195 Ward, Mrs. R., 15 Ward, Robert Plumer, 93 ; letter to, 168 Warren, Samuel, 90 Warter, J. W., 86 Warton, Joseph, 116, 194 Warwick, Eden [i.e. George Ja- bet], 211-12 Waterland, Daniel, 21 Waterloo, 88 Watson, J. D., 74 Watson, Richard, 201 Waver ley, 83 Waverley, Edward Bradwardine [i.e. J. W. Crokcr], 172 Waverley novels, who wrote the, 85 Weathercock, Janus [i.e. T. G. Wainewright], 205 Weller, Emil, 4 Wellington, duke of, 88, 174-6 Welsh singer, a, 70 Wesley, John, 143 Westbury, Richard Bethell, lord, 17 Westminster, guide a I'abbaye de, 209 Westminster, world at, 125 Weston, Stephen, 82 Westwood, Thomas, 198 INDEX 255 Wharton, Thomas, 1 14-15 what will he do with it ! 94 Whately, Richard, archbishop, 28, 145-6 Whately [Richard), historic doubts relative to archbishop, 146 Whately, Thomas, 28 Wheatstone, sir Charles, 147 Whewell, WiUiam, D.D., 95, 146, 148 whig guide, new, 162 Whishaw, John, 57, 84 whist, laws and practice of, 49 Whistlecraft, William and Robert [i.e. J. H. Frere], 127 White, Gilbert, 207 White, James, 205-6 White, Joseph Blanco, 125, 145-6 Whitefield, George, 143 Whitgift, John, archbishop, 136 Widdington, lord [i.e. Charles Abbott, first' baron Tenter den], 91 Wilberforce, Samuel, bp., 92 Wilberforce, William, 47, 48 Wilde, Oscar (ow the decay in lying), 24 ; [ballad of Reading Gaol), 135. 205 Wilkes, John, 115, 161 Wilkins, John, bp., 75 Wilkins, life and adventures of Peter, 75 Williams, Isaac, 131 Willington, James [i.e. Oliver Goldsmith], 190 Wilson, J. Arbuthnot [i.e. Grant Allen], 106 Wilson, Jasper [James Currie], 165 Wilson, John, professor, 91, 172 n. Wilson, Walter, 72 Winchelsea, Anne Finch, coun- tess of, 43 Windham, William, 30 Winnington, Thomas, 155-6 Winter, John Strange [i.e. Hen- rietta E. V. Stannard], 38 wit, treasury of, 197 witches, pleasant treatise of, 30 Wolcot, John, 169 woman, whole duty of, 15, 141 women, feminine reasons for secrecy, 32-9 won by waiting, 69 Wood, J. G., 33 Wood, William, 154 Woodd, Basil, 19 Woodhead, Abraham, 141 word of advice to saints, 31 word to a drunkard, 31 Wordsworth, Christopher, 139 Wordsworth, William, 43, 204 world without souls, a, ^1 worlds, of the plurality of, 147 Wraxall, sir Nathaniel, 164 Wynn, Charles, 86 Wyss, Johann David, 74 Xo Ho, letter from, 81 Yarnall, Ellis, 131 Yates, Edmund, 105, 109 Yeates, J. B., 107 Yonge, Charlotte, 67 Yonge, sir William, 155 Yorick, Mr. [i.e. Laurence Sterne^, 79 Yorke, C. P., 54 Young, Edward, 114 Young, Thomas, 138 Z. [i.e. Hannah More], 33, 48 Z. [i.e. J. A. Froiide], 102 Zack [i.e. Gwendoline Keats], 36 Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. Date Due APfi 9 M/\R ' lyb/ f) UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY I AA 000 603 800 4 PR121 C6 Courtney, ¥.P. The secrets of our national literature . BRENTANO'8