Notes and Queries, Number 25, April 20, 1850Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 25, April 20, 1850
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
_Coleman's Music House._--A house of entertainment, with a large and
well planted garden, known as "Coleman's Musick House," was offered for
sale in 1682. It was situated near _Lamb's Conduit_, and was demolished
upon the building of Ormond Street.
_White Conduit House._--The old tavern of this name was erected in the
reign of Charles I. The workmen are said to have been regaling
themselves upon the completion of the building, at the instant the king
was beheaded at Whitehall. {396}
_Goodman's Field Wells._--A place of entertainment established after the
suppression of the theatre in this locality in 1735.
_Bride Lane, St. Bride's._--The first meetings of the Madrigal Society
(established in 1741) were held at a public-house in this lane, called
"The Twelve Bells."
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
* * * * *
POPE'S REVISION OF SPENCE'S ESSAY ON THE ODYSSEY.
Spence's almost idolatrous admiration of, and devotion to, Pope, is
evident from the pains he took to preserve every little anecdote of him
that he could elicit from conversation with him, or with those who knew
him. Unfortunately, he had not Boswell's address and talent for
recording gossip, or the _Anecdotes_ would have been a much more racy
book. Spence was certainly an amiable, but I think a very weak man; and
it appears to me that his learning has been overrated. He might indeed
have been well designated as "a fiddle-faddle bit of sterling."
I have the original MS. of the two last Dialogues of the _Essay on the
Odyssey_ as written by Spence, and on the first page is the following
note:--"The two last Evenings corrected by Mr. Pope." On a blank page at
the end, Spence has again written:--"MS. of the two last Evenings
corrected with Mr. Pope's own hand, w'ch serv'd y'e Press, and is so
mark'd as usual by Litchfield."
This will elucidate Malone's note in his copy of the book, which Mr.
Bolton Corney has transcribed. I think the first three dialogues were
published in a little volume before Spence became acquainted with Pope,
and perhaps led to that acquaintance. Their intercourse afterwards might
supply some capital illustrations for a new edition of Mr. Corney's
curious chapter on _Camaraderie Littéraire_. The MS. copy of Spence's
Essay bears frequent marks of Pope's correcting hand by erasure and
interlineary correction, silently made. I transcribe the few passages
where the poet's revision of his critic are accompanied by remarks.
In Evening the Fourth, Spence had written:--"It may be inquired, too,
how far this translation may make a wrong use of terms borrowed from the
arts and sciences, &c. [The instances are thus pointed out.] As where we
read of a ship's crew, Od. 3. 548. The longitude, Od. 19. 350. Doubling
the Cape, Od. 9. 90. Of Architraves, Colonnades, and the like, Od. 3.
516." Pope has erased this and the references, and says:--"_These are
great faults; pray don't point 'em out, but spare your servant_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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