Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853

TOM MOORE'S FIRST!

It is now generally understood that the first poetic effusion of Thomas Moore was entrusted to a publication entitled Anthologia Hibernica, which held its monthly existence from Jan. 1793 to December 1794, and is now a repertorium of the spirited efforts made in Ireland in that day to establish periodical literature. The set is complete in four volumes: and being anxious to see if I could trace the "fine Roman" hand of him whom his noble poetic satirist, and after fast friend, Byron, styled the "young Catullus of his day," I went to the volumes, and give you the result.

No trace of Moore appears in the volume containing the first six months of the publication; but in the "List of Subscribers" in the second, we see "Master Thomas Moore;" and as we find this designation changed in the fourth volume to "Mr. Thomas Moore, Trinity College, Dublin!" (a boy with a black ribband in his collar, being as a collegian an "ex officio man!"), we may take it for ascertained that we have arrived at the well-spring of those effusions which have since flowed in such sparkling volumes among the poetry of the day.

Moore's first contribution is easily identified; for it is prefaced by a note, dated "Aungier Street, Sept. 11, 1793," which contains the usual request of insertion for "the attempts of a youthful muse," &c., and is signed in the semi-incognito style, "Th-m-s M—re;" the writer fearing, doubtless, lest his fond mamma should fail to recognise in his own copy of the periodical the performance of her little precocious Apollo.

This contribution consists of two pieces, of which we have room but for the first: which is a striking exemplification (in subject at least) of Wordsworth's aphorism, that "the child is father to the man." It is a sonnet addressed to "Zelia," "On her charging the author with writing too much on Love!" Who Zelia was—whether a lineal ancestress of Dickens's "Mrs. Harris," or some actual grown up young lady, who was teased by, and tried to check the chirpings of the little precocious singing bird—does not appear: but we suspect the former, for this sonnet is immediately followed by "A Pastoral Ballad!" calling upon some Celia unknown to "pity his tears and complaint," &c., in the usual namby-pamby style of these compositions. To any one who considers the smart, espiègle, highly artificial style of "Tom Moore's" after compositions, his "Pastoral Ballad" will be what Coleridge called his Vision, a "psychological curiosity."

Passing on through the volumes, in the Number for February 1794 we find a paraphrase of the Fifth Ode of Anacreon, by "Thomas Moore;" another short poem in June 1794, "To the Memory of Francis Perry, Esq.," signed "T. M.," and dated "Aungier Street." These are all which can be identified by outward and visible signs, without danger of mistake: but there are a number of others scattered through the volumes which I conjecture may be his; they are under different signatures, generally T. L., which may be taken to stand for the alias "Thomas Little," by which Moore afterwards made himself so well known. There is an "Ode to Morning," in the Number for March 1794, above the ordinary run of magazine poetry. And in the Number for May following are "Imitations from the Greek" and Italian, all under this same signature. And this last being derived from some words in Petrarch's will, bequeathing his lute to a friend, is the more curious; and may the more probably be supposed Moore's, as it contains a thought which is not unlikely to have suggested in after years the idea of his celebrated melody, entitled the "Bard's Legacy." The Number for Nov. 1794, last but one in the fourth volume, contains a little piece on "Variety," which independent of a T. M. signature, I would almost swear, from internal evidence, to be Moore's; it is the last in the series, and indicates such progress as two years might be supposed to give the youthful poet, from the lack-a-daisical style of his first attempts, towards that light, brilliant, sportive vein of humour in which he afterwards wrote "What the Bee is to the Flowret," &c., and other similar compositions. I now give Moore's first sonnet, including its footnote, reminding us of the child's usual explanatory addition to his first drawing of some amorphous animal—"This is a horse!" or "a bear!" as the case may be. Neither the metre nor the matter would prepare us for the height to which the writer afterwards scaled "the mountain's height of Parnassus:"

If you think this fruit of a research into a now almost forgotten work, which however contains many matters of interest (among the rest, "The Baviad of Gifford"), worth insertion, please put it among "N. & Q.;" it may incite others to look more closely, and perhaps trace other "disjecta membra poetæ."

Belmont.

NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS

Let no one say that a tithe of these instances would have sufficed. Whoever thinks so, little understands the vitality of error. Most things die when the brains are out: error has no brains, though it has more heads than the hydra. Who could have believed it possible that after Steevens's heaped-up proofs in support of the authentic reading, "carded his state" (King Henry IV., Act III. Scene 2.), Warburton's corruption, 'scarded, i. e. discarded, was again to be foisted into the text on the authority of some nameless and apocryphal commentator? Let me be pardoned if I prefer Shakspeare's genuine text, backed by the masterly illustrations of his ablest glossarist, before the wishy-washy adulterations of Nobody: and as a small contribution to his abundant avouchment of the original reading, the underwritten passage may be flung in, by way of make-weight:

"Since which it hath been and is his daily practice, either to broach doctrinas novas et peregrinas, new imaginations never heard of before, or to revive the old and new dress them. And these—for that by themselves they will not utter—to mingle and to card with the Apostles' doctrine, &c., that at the least yet he may so vent them."—One of the Sermons upon the Second Commandment, preached in the Parish Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, on the Ninth of January, a.d. mdxcii.: Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. p. 55. Lib. Ang.-Cath. Theol.

Trash, to shred or lop.—So said Steevens, alleging that he had met with it in books containing directions for gardeners, published in the time of Queen Elizabeth. I fear his memory deceived him, or why should a man of his sound learning afterwards incline to vail bonnet to the dogmatist Warburton? whose knowledge of dogs, by the way, must have been marvellously small, or he could never have imagined them to overtop one another in a horizontal course. Overrun, overshoot, overslip, are terms in hunting, overtop never; except perchance in the vocabulary of the wild huntsman of the Alps. Trash occurs as a verb in the sense above given, Act I. Sc. 2. of the Tempest: "Who t'aduance, and who to trash for over-topping." I have never met with the verb in that sense elsewhere, but overtop is evermore the appropriate term in arboriculture. To quote examples of that is needless. Of it metaphorically applied, just as in Shakspeare, take the following example:

"Of those three estates, which swayeth most, that in a manner doth overtop the rest, and like a foregrown member depriveth the other of their proportion of growth."—Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. p. 177., Lib. Ang.-Cath. Theol.

Have we not the substantive trash in the sense of shreddings, at p. 542. book iii. of a Discourse of Forest Trees, by John Evelyn? The extract that contains the word is this:

"Faggots to be every stick of three feet in length, excepting only one stick of one foot long, to harden and wedge the binding of it; this to prevent the abuse, too much practised, of filling the middle part and ends with trash and short sticks, which had been omitted in the former statute."

Possibly some of the statutes referred to by Evelyn may contain examples of the verb. In the meantime it will not be impertinent to remark, that what appears to be nothing more than a dialectic variety of the word, namely trouse, is of every-day use in this county of Hereford for trimmings of hedges; that it is given by Grose as a verb in use in Warwickshire for trimming off the superfluous branches; and lastly, that it is employed as a substantive to signify shreddings by Philemon Holland, who, if I rightly remember, was many years head master of Coventry Grammar School:

"Prouided alwaies, that they be paued beneath with stone; and for want thereof, laid with green willow bastons, and for default of them, with vine cuttings, or such trousse, so that they lie halfe a foot thicke."—The Seuenteenth Booke of Plinie's Naturall History, chap. xi. p. 513.: London, 1634.

Trash no one denies to be a kennel term for hampering a dog, but it does not presently follow that the word bore no other signification; indeed, there is no more fruitful mother of confusion than homonomy.

Clamor, to curb, restrain (the tongue):

Most judiciously does Nares reject Gifford's corruption of this word into charm, nor will the suffrage of the "clever" old commentator one jot contribute to dispel their diffidence of this change, whom the severe discipline of many years' study, and the daily access of accumulating knowledge, have schooled into a wholesome sense of their extreme fallibility in such matters. Without adding any comment, I now quote, for the inspection of learned and unlearned, the two ensuing extracts:

"For Critias manaced and thretened hym, that onelesse he chaumbreed his tongue in season, ther should ere lōg bee one oxe the fewer for hym."—Apoptheymis of Erasmus, translated by Nicolas Vdall, mcccccxlii, the First Booke, p. 10.

"From no sorte of menne in the worlde did he refrein or chaumbre the tauntying of his tongue."—Id., p. 76.

After so many Notes, one Query. In the second folio edition of Shakspeare (my first folio wants the whole play), I find in Cymbeline, Act V. Sc. 3., the next beautiful passage:

In the antepenultimate line, Britaine was more than a century ago changed by Hanmer into Roman, therefore retained by Warburton, again rejected by Steevens and Johnson, once more replaced by Knight and Collier, with one of his usual happy notes by the former of the two, without comment by the latter, finally left unnoticed by Dyce. My Query then is this. What amount of obtuseness will disqualify a criticaster who itches to be tinkering and cobbling the noblest passages of thought that ever issued from mortal brain, while at the same time he stumbles and bungles in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness, as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain?1 If editors, commentators, critics, and all the countless throng who are ambitious to daub with their un-tempered mortar, or scribble their names upon the most majestic edifice of genius that the world ever saw, lack the little discernment necessary to interpret aright the above extract from Cymbeline, for the last hundred years racked and tortured in vain, let them at length learn henceforth to distrust their judgment altogether.

P.S.—In article of No. 180. p. 353., a rather important misprint occurs, viz. date of 4to. King Richard II. with unusual title-page, which should be 1608, not 1605. Other little errors the reader may silently amend for himself.

VERNEY PAPERS—THE CAPUCHIN FRIARS, ETC

In the appendix to Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, by Sir Ralph Verney, edited by Mr. Bruce for the Camden Society in 1845, are "Notes written in a Cipher," which Mr. Bruce gives in the hope that the ingenuity of some reader will discover their meaning. I venture thus to decypher the same:

I ought to state that in one or two instances the wrong cypher has evidently been used by mistake, and this has of course increased the difficulty of decyphering the notes.

With reference to the note "The Capuchins' House to be dissolued," may I be allowed to refer to the following votes in the House of Commons, of the date 26th February, 1641-2:

"Ordered, That Mr. Peard, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Pideaux, Mr. Selden, Mr. Young, Mr. Hill, do presently withdraw, to peruse the statutes now in force against priests and Jesuits.

"Ordered, That Mr. Whittacre, Mr. Morley, do presently go to Denmarke House.

"Resolved, That the Capuchines shall be forthwith apprehended and taken into safe custody by the Serjeant-at-Arms attending on this house; and there kept till this house take farther order."

The Capuchins were under the protection of the Queen Henrietta Maria; Denmark House was the name by which Somerset House was at the period known.

Under date 2nd March, 1641-2, are the following entries in the Commons' Journal:

"Mr. Holles brings this answer from the French Ambassador, That the Capuchins being sent hither by Articles of Treaty between the Two Crowns, he durst not of himself send them without Order from the King his Master, or the King and Queen here: And said farther, That the Queen had left an express Command for their stay here; and that he would be ever ready to do any good Office for this House, and to keep a good Correspondency between the Two Crowns; and if this House pleased, he would undertake to keep them safe Prisoners at Somersett House; and that the chapel there shall have the doors locked, and no Mass be said there.

"Ordered, That Mr. Hollis do acquaint the French Ambassador, that this House doth accept of his Offer in securing the Persons of the Capuchins, till this House take farther Order: and that the Doors be locked, and made fast, at the Chapel at Somersett House; and that no Mass be said there.

"Ordered, That the Lord Cramborne and Mr. Hollis shall acquaint the French Ambassador with the desires of this House, that the Capuchins be forthwith sent away; and to know if he will undertake to send them away; and, if he will, that then they be forthwith delivered unto him.

"That Mr. Hollis do go up to the Lords, to acquaint them with the Resolutions of this House, concerning the Capuchins, and desire their Lordships' concurrence therein."

Some particulars of the proceedings of the parliament against the Capuchins may be found in "Memoirs of the Mission in England of the Capuchin Friars of the Province of Paris by Father Cyprian Gamache," in The Court and Times of Charles I., vol. ii. pp. 344. 354.

Cambridge.

EARLY SATIRICAL POEM

On the turning over the pages of an old printed copy of Durand's Rationale Divinorum Officiorus, edited by Bonetus de locatellis bergomensis, and printed at Lyons in 1506, by Natalis Brabam, for Jaques Huguetan, I found the following copy of verses written on the fly-leaf. They are written in a hand which I am inclined to assign to a date not much later than that of the book. There is no clue to the author. If they are thought worthy of insertion in "N. & Q.," I beg to inquire, through the medium of your columns, whether they are to be found in any collection of early English poems? and whether the author is known?

The ungallant sentiment of the first three stanzas is obvious. The fourth is not so plain; nor is its connexion with the others evident, though it is written without anything to mark separation; and the word "finis" is placed below it, as if to apply to the whole. I should be obliged if some one of your readers would give some explanation of it.

Winchester.

THE LETTERS OF ATTICUS

The editor of the Grenville Papers has alluded to some "very judicious and pertinent remarks in the 'N. & Q.'" respecting the Letters of Atticus, and as most of your readers will probably agree with him that the authenticity of these letters is "a curious and interesting question, and one that deserves very particular attention," I beg to correct an error into which he and others have fallen, as to the date when Junius ceased to write under the signature Atticus. The Atticus forwarded by Junius to George Grenville on the 19th October, 1768, was, there is every reason to believe, the last from the pen of that writer, who was then preparing to come before the public in a more prominent character. When another correspondent adopted the signature Atticus, Woodfall gave his readers warning by inserting the following notice into the Public Advertiser:

"The Address to the Freeholders of the county of Middlesex, signed Atticus, in our next. The Printer thinks it his duty to acquaint his readers that this letter is not by the same hand as some letters in this paper a little time since, under the signature Atticus."—Pub. Ad., March 19, 1769.

The printer took the like course when writers attempted to "impose upon the public" by using the signatures Lucius and C., and then freely inserted their letters; but when the same trick was tried with Junius, the printer did not scruple to alter the signature, or reject the contribution as spurious.

The genuine Letters of Atticus have had a narrow escape lately of being laughed out of their celebrity by writers in some of our most respectable periodicals. The authenticity of these letters up to the 19th October, 1768, is now fully established. The undecided question of the authorship of Junius requires that every statement should be carefully examined, and (as far as possible) only well-authenticated facts be admitted as evidence in future.