NOTES AND Medium of Entercommunication LITERARY MEN, GENERAL READERS, ETC. "When found, make a note of."-CAPTAIN CUTTLE. EIGHTH SERIES.-VOLUME FIRST. JANUARY-JUNE 1892. 93 002 LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE, EC. BY JOHN C. FRANCIS. UERIES:-Portrait of Duke of Gloucester-Houbraken EPLIES:-Will of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, 9- Anne d'Autriche Signatures of Town Clerks-" She is Old Coins, 18. NOTES ON BOOKS:-Gosse's Gossip in a Library'- Arabian Nights.' Notices to Correspondents. Notes. EDITORIAL SUGGESTION. At the outset of a new series the Editor thinks it pardonable to speak a few words upon the one difficulty which attends the discharge of duties he ventures to think honourable as well as agreeable. No regulation is more fully understood among contributors than that which excludes from N. & Q' all matter tending to political or theological controversy. Yet the moment a subject points in this direction contributors rush in with an appetite for the fray recalling that of Homeric heroes. Amplification takes the place of compression, and the exercise of editorial supervision becomes a matter of annoyance and complaint. Such supervision, however, is indispensable, if for no other reason than because the insertion of all that is sent would be practically to confine 'N. & Q.' to the matter in dispute. On the subject of Mr. Calderon's 'St. Elizabeth' the Editor is deluged with correspondence, a large quantity of which is polemical. The subject of Socialism and Libraries is one that can scarcely be discussed with the serenity that is necessary if 'N. & Q.' is to discharge its useful and unostentatious mission. One or two other subjects scarcely less provocative of strong feeling may easily be mentioned. In coming to the determination to arrest these matters the Editor counts on the support and approval of those contributors whose loyal and priceless service makes N. & Q.' what it is. He promises, moreover, to use his best effort to prevent the intrusion into literary opinions of any form of acerbity. One more suggestion he couples with his best wishes for the New Year to his contributors. Questions which are fully answered in a book so acces sible as Bartlett's 'Familiar Quotations' come with irritating persistency. The question as to the origin of the phrase "Pour oil on troubled waters" presents itself every other week. With every wish to aid all who consult its pages, the Editor holds that it cannot be necessary to occupy space with questions that can be answered from the most obvious sources of reference. This counsel is not, of course, needed by those who are the chief support of N. & Q.' The previous counsel, however, EDITOR. concerns some of these most of all. A TEMPTING INVITATION. 'N. & Q.' in its long career has contained many original letters of great interest, but few, I venture to think, of greater interest than the subjoined invitation to Garrick to visit Ireland. Admirers of Garrick, of Johnson, and of Swift, students of the social history of the last century, lovers of anecdote, all may find in it something to entertain them. Sir James Caldwell had previously asked Garrick to pay a visit to Castle Caldwell. Garrick's reply, promising to do so when free from the responsibility of managing Drury Lane, where he was giving his final performances, drew forth the following warm-hearted letter, which is copied from vol. ii. of the Forster MSS. at South Kensington, the peculiarities of spelling in the original being retained : Castle Caldwell, the 3a of June, 1776. DEAR SIR,-I take the first opportunity of returning you my sincere thanks for your most obliging and polite letter. I know no one from whom such an attention would give me a higher gratification, and what adds much to it is the pleasing hopes of receiving you and Mrs. Garrick at this place in the best manner in our power. will make Berwick, Edinburgh, Glascow, and Ayr your If you come by the way of Scotland it is probable you road, and take that opportunity of paying a visit to the literati of those towns. You will find (as I have been lately informed by a Scotch officer) the roads, accomidation, and post horses very good the whole way to Portvery well appointed; and I shall be rejoyced to hear patrick, where the packet boats, lately established, are Mrs. Garrick admit that her passage from thence to Donaghadee was but like a summer's pleasuring on the Thames, the difference only known by the impending Scotch and Irish mountains. From Donaghadee you Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, who by the changes and chances pass by Newtown Ards, distant from thence seven miles. of this world are worth 14,000l. a year, live in this town; their house is an excellent plan for an inn. Their son, who was first married to Lord Hertford's daughter, and I could wish that you and Mrs. Garrick would avail lately to Lord Camden's, is a polito, sensible young man. yourselves of the attention I am sure he will show you the moment he hears of your arrival in town, as it will 107096 |