BINDERS OF THE VOLUMES IN THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY

In Dr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, 1817, vol. ii. p. 503., he thus introduces the subject:

"The commencement of the eighteenth century saw the rise and progress of the rival libraries of Harley and Sunderland. What a field, therefore, was here for the display of the bibliopegistic art! Harley usually preferred red morocco, with a broad border of gold, and the fore-edges of the leaves without colour or gilt. Generally speaking, the Harleian volumes are most respectably bound; but they have little variety, and the style of art which they generally exhibit rather belongs to works of devotion."

In a note on the above passage, Dibdin adds:

"I have often consulted my bibliomaniacal friends respecting the name of the binder or binders of the Harleian Library. Had Bagford or Wanley the chief direction? I suspect the latter."

If Dr. Dibdin and his "bibliomaniacal friends" had not preferred the easy labour of looking at printed title-pages to the rather more laborious task of examining manuscripts, they might readily have solved the Query thus raised by referring to Wanley's Autograph Diary, preserved in the Lansdowne Collection, Nos. 771, 772, which proves that the binders employed by Lord Oxford were Christopher Chapman of Duck Lane, and Thomas Elliot. Very many entries occur between January 1719-20 and May 1726, relative to the binding both of manuscripts and books in morocco and calf; and it appears, in regard to the former material, that it was supplied by Lord Oxford himself. Some of these entries will show the jealous care exercised by honest Humphrey Wanley over the charge committed to him.

"25th January, 1719-20. This day having inspected Mr. Elliot's bill, I found him exceedingly dear in all the work of Morocco, Turkey, and Russia leather, besides that of velvet.

"28th January, –. Mr. Elliot the bookbinder came, to whom I produced the observations I made upon his last bill, showing him that (without catching at every little matter) my Lord might have had the same work done as well and cheaper, by above 31l. He said that he could have saved above eight pounds in the fine books, and yet they should have looked well. That he now cannot do them so cheap as he rated them at; that no man can do so well as himself, or near the rates I set against his. But, upon the whole, said he would write to my Lord upon the subject.

"13th July, 1721. Mr. Elliot having clothed the CODEX AVREVS in my Lord's Morocco leather, took the same from hence this day, in order to work upon it with his best tools; which, he says, he can do with much more convenience at his house than here.

"19th January, 1721-22. Mr. Chapman came, and received three books for present binding. And upon his request I delivered (by order) six Morocco skins to be used in my Lord's service. He desires to have them at a cheap price, and to bind as before. I say that my Lord will not turn leather-seller, and therefore he must bring hither his proposals for binding with my Lord's Morocco skins; otherwise his Lordship will appoint some other binder to do so.

"17th September, 1725. Mr. Elliot brought the parcel I last delivered unto him, but took one back to amend a blunder in the lettering. He said that he has used my Lord's doe-skin upon six books, and that they may serve instead of calf; only the grain is coarser, like that of sheep, and this skin was tanned too much.

"23rd December, 1725. Mr. Chapman came, but I gave him no work; chiding him for being so slow in my Lord's former business, which he had frequently postponed, that he might serve the booksellers the sooner."

μ.

FRENCH VERSE

In the Diary of T. Moore I lately read, with some surprise, the following passages:

"Attended watchfully to her [Mdlle Duchesnois] recitative, and find that in nine verses out of ten 'A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall' is the tune of the French heroics."—April 24, 1821.

"Two lines I met in Athalie; how else than according to the 'Cobbler there was,' &c., can they be repeated?

'N'a pour servir sa cause et venger ses injures,
Ni le cœur assez droit, ni les mains assez pures.'"

—May 30, 1821.

Now, if this be the mode of reading these lines, I confess all my ideas are erroneous with respect to French poetry. I have always considered that though hemistichs and occasionally whole lines occur in it, which bear a resemblance to the Spanish Versos de Arte Mayor, the anapæstic measure of "A Cobbler" is quite foreign to it. I may, however, be mistaken; and it is in the hope of eliciting information on the subject that I send these few remarks to "N. & Q." Should it appear that I am not wrong, I will on a future occasion endeavour to develop my ideas of the French rhythm; a subject that I cannot recollect to have seen treated in a satisfactory manner in any French work.

Bishop Tegnér, the poet of Sweden, seems also to have differed in opinion with Moore respecting the rhythm of French poetry, for he compares it to the dancing of a deaf man, who forms his steps accurate, but who does not keep time. Both are alike mistaken, in my opinion; and their error arises from their judging French poetry by rules that are foreign to it. The rhythm of French verse is peculiar, and differs from that of any other language.

Thos. Keightley.

A SPANISH PLAY-BILL

Though not much a frequenter of theatres of late, I was recently induced, by the flourishing public announcements, to go to Drury Lane Theatre; with the chance, but scarcely in the hope, of seeing what I never yet have seen, a perfect Othello. Alas! echo still answers never yet. But yours are not the pages for dramatic criticism.

As my bill lay before me, I could not help thinking what an execrably bad taste our modern managers show in the extravagant and ridiculous announcement of the splendour of the star you come to contemplate! If Mr. Brooke have great merit, he needs not all this sound of trumpets; if he have it not, he is only rendered the more contemptible by it. I have some of the play-bills of John Kemble's last performances before me, and there is none of this fustian: the fact, the performance, and the name are simply announced. If our taste improves in some respects, it does not in this; it is a retrogression—a royal theatre sinking back into the booth of a fair. Shakspeare's and Byron's texts have been converted into the showman's explanations of panoramas: to what vile uses they may be next applied, there is no guessing. Poor Shakspeare! how I have pitied him, and you too, Mr. Editor, as I have seen him for so many months undergoing the operation of the teazle in "N. & Q.!" I hope there will be soon an end of this "skimble stuff," "signifying nothing."

But my observation upon the Drury Lane play-bill reminded me of one I have in my common-place book; and, as a correspondent and reader of "N. & Q.," I think it my duty to send it:

A Spanish Play-bill, exhibited at Seville, 1762

"To the Sovereign of Heaven—to the Mother of the Eternal World—to the Polar Star of Spain—to the Comforter of all Spain—to the faithful Protectress of the Spanish Nation—to the Honour and Glory of the Most Holy Virgin Mary—for her benefit, and for the Propagation of her Worship—the company of Comedians will this day give a representation of the Comic Piece called—

Nanine

The celebrated Italian will also dance the Fandango, and the Theatre will be respectably illuminated."

William Robson.

Stockwell.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

The Meteorology of Shakspeare.—A treatise might be written on meteorology, and might be illustrated entirely by passages taken from the writings of "the world's greatest poet." "N. & Q." may not be the fitting medium for a lengthened treatise, but it is the most proper depository of a few loose Notes on the subject. Those who study Shakspeare should, to understand him, thoroughly study Nature at the same time: but to our meteorology. Recent observers have classified clouds as under:

There are composite forms of cloud, varieties of the above, which need not be noticed here. The Cumulus is the parent cloud, and produces every other form of cloud known, or which can exist. Mountain ranges and currents of air of unequal temperatures may produce visible vapour, but not true cloud.

Cumulus. This cloud is always formed at "the dew point." The vapour of the lower atmosphere, at this elevation, is condensed, or rendered visible. In fog the dew point is at the surface of the earth; in summer it may be several thousands of feet above. The Cumulus cloud forms from below. The invisible vapour of the lower atmosphere is condensed, parts with its thousand degrees of latent heat, which rush upwards, forcing the vapour into the vast hemispherical heaps of snowy, glittering clouds, which, seen in midday, appear huge mountains of clouds; the "cloud-land" of the poet, floating in liquid air. The Cumulus cloud is ever changing in form. Cumulating from a level base, the top is mounting higher and higher, until the excessive moisture is precipitated in heavy rain, hail, or thunder showers.

The tops of the Cumulus, carried away by the upper equatorial currents, form the Cirrus clouds, which clouds must be frozen vapour, as they are generally from twenty to thirty thousand feet above the level of the sea. The base of the Cumulus is probably never more, in England, than five thousand feet high, rarely this. The Nimbus is the Cumulus shedding its vapour in rain; and the Stratus is the partially exhausted and fading Nimbus.

Poets in all ages have watched the clouds with interest; and Shakspeare has not only correctly described them, but has, in metaphor, used them in some of his sublimest passages. Ariel will "ride on the curled clouds" to Prospero's "strong bidding task" that is, ride on the highest Cirrus cloud, in regions impassable to man. How admirably the raining Cumulus (Nimbus cloud) is described in the same play:

"Trinculo. Here's neither bush⁴ nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing. I hear it sing i' the wind: yond' same black cloud, yond' huge one, looks like a foul⁵ bumbard that would shed his liquor …

… Yond' same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls."

Hamlet points to a changing Cumulus cloud, when he says to Polonius, "Do you see that cloud, that almost in shape like a camel?"

"Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.
Ham. Or like a whale?
Pol. Very like a whale."

But the finest cloud passage in the whole range of literature is contained in Antony and Cleopatra, painting, as it does, the fallen and wasting state of the emperor (Act IV. Sc. 12.):

"Ant. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
Eros. Ay, noble lord!
Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish:
A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion,
A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs:
They are black vesper's pageants.
Eros. Ay, my lord.
Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought,
The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct,
As water is in water.
Eros. It does, my lord.
Ant. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body: here I am Antony;
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave."

Those who wish to understand this sublime passage must watch a bank of Cumulus clouds at the western sky on a summer's evening. The tops of the clouds must not be more than five or ten degrees above the apparent horizon. There must also be a clear space upwards, and the sun fairly set to the last stages of twilight. It will then be comprehended as to what is meant by "black vesper's pageants," and Warton and Knight will no more mislead by their note. It is only at "black vespers" that such a pageant can be seen, when the liberated heat of the Cumulus cloud is forcing the vapour into the grand or fantastic shapes indicated to the poet's eye and mind.

How truly does Antony read his own condition in the changing and perishable clouds. Shakspeare names or alludes to the clouds in more than one hundred passages, and the form of cloud is ever correctly indicated. Who does not remember the passages in Romeo and Juliet? Much more might be written on this subject.

Robert Rawlinson.

At the Hull meeting of the British Association, Mr. Russell, farmer, Kilwhiss, Fife, read a paper on "The Action of the Winds which veer from the South-west to West, and North-west to North." This he wound up by a reference to Shakspeare, which may be worthy of noting:

"In concluding, I cannot help remarking that this circuit of the wind from SW. by W. to NW. or N., from our insular position, imparts to our climate its fickleness and inconstancy. How often will our brightest sky become suffused by the blackest vapours on the slightest breach of SW. wind, and the clouds will then disappear as speedily as they formed, when the NW. upper current forces their stratum of moist air to rise and mingle with the dryer current above. I do not know who first noticed and recorded this change of the wind from SW. to NW., but the regularity of the phenomenon must teach us that the law which it obeys is part of a grand system, and invites us to trace its action. I do not think it will be out of place to point out the fact that the great English poet seems to have been quite familiar with this feature of our weather, not only in its most striking manifestations in the autumn and winter months, to which he especially refers, but even in its more pleasant aspects of summer. Shakspeare likens the wind in this shifting to an individual who pays his addresses in succession to two fair ones—first he wooes the North, but in courting that frigid beauty a difference takes place, whereupon he turns his back upon her and courts the fair South. You will observe the lines are specially applied to the winter season—

'And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning this face to the dew-dropping south.'

—I am not aware that the philosophic truth contained in these lines has ever before been pointed out. The beautiful lines which the poet, in his prodigality, put into the mouth of one of his gay frolicsome characters, the meaning of them he no doubt thought might have been understood by every one; but his commentators do not seem to have done so. In some editions turning his side has been put for face, which is feeble and unmeaning. And I do not think the recent emendation by Mr. Collier on the text is any improvement, where tide is substituted for face, which impairs both the beauty and harmony of the metaphor."

Anon.

A Word for "the Old Corrector."—Allow me, as an avowed enemy to "the Old Corrector's" novelties, render "the Great Unknown" one act of justice. I am convinced there are but two practically possible hypotheses, on which to account for the MS. emendations: either the emendations were for the most part made from some authoritative document, or they are parts of a modern fabrication. No third supposition can be reasonably maintained. Mr. Knight's view, for example, gives no account of the immense number of coincidences with the conjectural emendations of the commentators. Whichever of the two hypotheses be the true one, I need hardly say that Mr. Collier's name is a sufficient guarantee for all honorable dealing, so far as he is connected with the MS. corrections.

Permit me farther to do an act of justice to Mr. Collier himself. In my note on a passage in The Tempest, I stated that Mr. Collier had overlooked a parallel passage in Richard II. It was I who had overlooked Mr. Collier's supplemental note. However, I must add, that how Mr. Collier could persuade himself to print heat for "cheek," in his "monovolume edition," after he had seen the passage in Richard II., is utterly beyond my power of comprehension.