Tonson may be deemed the prince of booksellers, in his association with some of the most eminent men of his own time. These were essentially "his friends;" but the mighty ones of the past had not less to do than the living in his establishment of his fortune and his fame. He identified himself with Milton by first making 'Paradise Lost' popular. A few years after, when he moved from his old shop in Chancery Lane, he no longer traded under the sign of "The Judge's Head," but set up "Shakspere's Head." He was truly the first bookseller who threw open Shakspere to a reading public. The four folio editions had become scarce even in his time. The third folio was held to have been destroyed in the tire of London. In 1709 Tonson produced Rowe's edition in octavo. Bernard Lintot the elder, who, about the same time, republished Shakspere's poems, expresses himself in his advertisement as if Tonson's speculation were an experiment not absolutely certain of success: "The writings of Mr. Shakspere are in so great esteem, that several gentlemen have subscribed to a late edition of his dramatic works in six volumes, which makes me hope that this little book will not be unacceptable to the public." Tonson and his family were long associated with editions of Shakspere. Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Warburton, Johnson, and Capell, were liberally paid by the Tonsons for their editorial services.—American Bibliopolist. EDITORIAL CURIOS. There is an enormous amount of leisure on the hands of the human race. Some employ it in sport, some in study, some in procuring an interview with some public official, most in writing letters to people they do not know and to the newspapers. The editor of the Birmingham Post, who has suffered much from the wild race of correspondents, lately published his experiences. Some people ask, "Do stones grow?"-it is a common belief in the South Sea Islands that they do-and others inquire whether man is an animal." Many country papers expose themselves to these heedless inquiries by acting as a kind of oracles, and devoting a column to answering all kinds of questions. But the reckless idiotcy of many persons shows its self in a constant fire of such questions, poured in on the editors of papers which do not publish answers to correspondents at all. "Sir, can you tell me the weight and height of Mr. W. G. Grace," or the names of actors who have married their second cousins, or the best place to buy Christmas presents, or the date of the vaccination of the Man in the Iron Mask, or the number of ways in which a distinguished historian can spell Edith, or, "whether the battle of Waterloo was fought in French or English waters," an inquiry in which * The great English cricketer. observation detects conscious humor. Such queries as these, and dozens of others on the most minute details of private life, on cures for freckles, on the best way of getting an article accepted by a magazine editor-these are cast into the post-office, and find their way promptly into the waste-paper basket. Now the people who write these letters must have enjoyed at least an elementary education, and it is to be presumed that they have eyes in their faces, if not, like the lizard, in their head. Yet it has never struck them that the paper which they pester does not pose as Sir Oracle, in this kind, and never gives cures for warts, nor advice as to the treatment of young men whose intentions "are honorable, but remote." There is not much to be gained by remonstrating with the correspondent who is always asking questions, nor with the other correspondent who writes hopelessly unacceptable letters, and then, weeks after, writes again to say that he desires to have his manuscript returned. Perhaps his manuscript may line a box, or serve to curl a maiden's locks. It has passed at all events into the waste-paper basket, and thence has mysteriously disappeared like the Vanishing Lady. There was nothing in the communication that could interest any mortal. Not often does a newspaper receive from an unknown correspondent so quaint an epistle as our Birmingham contemporary prints. There was a correspondence on the Mildness of the Season.' At last came a letter running thus: "Dudley, Nov. 2, 1886, -Dear Sir,-To show you the mildness of the season here we have got the bailiffs in." Only he did not say "bailiffs," but used a still shorter word, * familiar to mariners in connection with a nautical vivandiere. "Who was Salamander; where can I read about him?" asks an anxious inquirer in Leicestershire. Salamander is a river in the Troad, famous for its hot-water springs. Some student of the history of Costume wants to know "what a Dutchman wears in his own country." "Please give the cause of day and night; also of the seasons," as if any one understood things like that. "Explain the meaning of Morganic marriage." "Morgan" is a Breton word for a fairy-"Fata Morgana"-and marriages with fairies were very frequently dissolved, as in the case of Mélusine v. Lusignan. A Morganic marriage is therefore a marriage that you can get out of. "Which was supposed to be the most wealthy man, Raphael or Michael Angelo, the great printers ?" "What form of corporal punishment do you think would hurt a person least?" Probably being kicked to death by wild butterflies, but much depends on the person. "What is calculated to prevent excessive snoring in a person asleep?" On that subject at least there can be no doubt. Every one knows that to pop the soap into the mouth of the person who snores excessively is a certain remedy. Of course there is this difficulty, that you cannot do it to the gentlemen who fall asleep in clubs. In this case the * Bums. best opinions differ. Some are in favor of letting all the fire-irons fall with a clash. That, however, is a mere palliative. Others suggest appealing to the committee; others are for accidentally dropping a folio on the head of the victim of extreme snoring; others, very inhumanly, ask a waiter to call the gentleman early. But it is a melancholy fact that in this age of progress no means to "prevent excessive snoring when a person is asleep" in a club, in church, at a drawing-room, or a lecture has yet been discovered. On the other hand, if the person is not asleep, he very seldom snores. Perhaps the Church should allow marriages contracted with persons given to excessive snoring when asleep to count as Morganic. "A fresh hardship of the "battle-field," as the victimized editor says, "is brought to light in the query, 'is a young soldier compelled to write to his mother or not?"" A youth asks, "through the meridian of your valued paper"— meridian is sumptuous—"whether my writing is good enough for my age, and for an insurance office." But he does not mention his age! "Are members of the Royal family," asks W. B., "permitted to commit perjury in any court of justice in this country ?" It is usually done in the Ember days and in the Court of Common Pleas, by way of keeping up an old custom, dating from the time when Henry V., then Prince of Wales, boxed the ears of the Court. An inquirer in Worcester asks, "which holds the highest office, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the Grand Master of the Odd Fellows Society." When Sir Stafford Northcote was said to "have placed a pistol to the head" of somebody in debate in the House of Commons (certainly a robust figure of speech) an intelligent artisan wrote to the editor, and asked "if it was a real pistol, as we are very much divided in our orinion on the matter in this manufactory." Editors are not the only sufferers. Every nincompoop who thinks he knows a writer in any paper sends to that afflicted man the letters which ought to be addressed to the editor. To put them in the fire is the only practical way of dealing with these epistles, but it causes complication. Then every one who has written a book, though perhaps he deserves no commiseration, is exposed to the letters of the Philistines. Occasionally they rail at him in good set terms, describing his romance, for example, as "the miasmous exhalation of a softening brain." These letters are usually anonymous. Letters asking for autographs must reach men like the Laureate and Mr. Browning literally by the hundred, and the same distinguished people probably receive more MSS. from young poets than a publisher's reader gets through in a year. Then the young poets want sympathy and advice, and above all they want flattery. And not one of them writes verses worth one cent. To keep their hands in these people bore and pester even the small fry of letters, the toiling multitude, and occasionally they secure a reply by forwarding a stamp. May their stamps perish with them! BOSWELL'S TOUR. Bozzy, farewell! Thy famous "Tour,”- We grasp good Corri's friendly hand:- Good Boswell all that famous tour; T. J. CHAPMAN. NOTES AND QUERIES FOR A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF W. MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. No task is more difficult for the Thackeray bibliographer than that of identifying Thackeray's early contributions to Fraser's Magazine. That this statement is not made lightly, or without good reason, will appear from a consideration of the following facts. Thackeray was acquainted with Fraser's Magazine from the beginning. This is shown by his reference to it in the extract here given from a letter which he wrote to Mr. G. H. Lewes on the 28th of April, 1855, with regard to Goethe: "Any of us who had books or magazines from England sent them to him, and he examined thein eagerly. Fraser's Magazine had lately come out, and I remember he was interested in those admirable outline portraits which appeared for a while in its pages." Again, Thackeray's portrait appears, in a conspicuous position, in Maclise's group of the contributors to Fraser's Magazine, which was issued with the number for January, 1835, so that we must assume that he was then at least an occasional contributor to its pages; yet so far as we are aware, there has been no completely satisfactory evidence as to Thackeray's authorship of any paper appearing in Fraser's Magazine before November, 1837, when the first instalment of The Yellowplush Correspondence' was published. In writing thus we are not forgetful of the strong support given by such men as Dr. John Brown and Mr. A. C. Swinburne to the theory that Thackeray was the author of Elizabeth Brownrigge,' which was published in August and September, 1832; but after most careful consideration of all they have written on the subject, and of the story itself, we are unable to concede to Elizabeth Brownrigge' the honour of counting Thackeray as its author. We had hoped that the books relating to the early days of Fraser's Magazine might be available as evidence on this interesting subject, but Messrs. Longman, Green & Co. inform us that "the books referring to Fraser's Magazine so far back as 1834 and thereabouts are no longer in existence." There are, we believe, no surviving contemporary relations of Thackeray who could be applied to for information, and as we are considering writings of a period more than fifty years ago, we cannot expect to find many people of any kind now alive who were then old enough to be concerned in literary matters. Unfortunately the surviving contemporary relations of Mr. James Fraser, with eyery inclination to assist in our researches, have been unable to help, as they were too young at the period in question to have known anything of the working of the magazine. Thus it will be seen that all certain means of knowledge have failed us, and we are consequently thrown back upon deduction and conjecture with reference to Thackeray's early anonymous contributions to Fraser's Magazine. With the object of identifying some of these early writings, we have laboriously read through the early volumes of the magazine, extracting all papers which, from their suǝject or style, suggested any probability of their having been written by Thackeray. We have again read carefully through the pieces so selected, seeking for any expression or reference which might serve to strengthen, or weaken, their claims, and in this task of selection we have had the assistance of others well qualified and entitled to express an opinion on the subject; yet after all we have only been able conclusively to identify one solitary ballad, though there are many pieces both in prose and verse that may have been, and probably were, written by Thackeray. The ballad we refer to appeared among the Fraser Papers for May, 1834, and as it was considerably altered before its reappearance, and has the interest of being, so far as we know, Thackeray's earliest contribution to the magazine, we reprint it here with the editor's remarks: "And yet we need not quit French song-writing, for here's an imitation of Béranger's first song, the 'Roi d' Yvetot,' a glorious chant it is, and, we presume, utterly untranslatable; but The King of Brentford is by no means to be despised. Il était un Roi d' Yvetot.'-BERANGER. There was a King in Brentford, It was his crown of state; And rise again full late. He eat his four good meals, With which this king was curst, His grace he kept a quart. He pleased the fine Court ladies With manners soft and bland; Through all his kingdom wide, That knew no reign like his." There are other ballads in the magazine about this time that may have come from the same source, and other imitations of Béranger were promised, but we cannot be certain of their authorship. Our remarks here, then, must take the form of queries rather than of notes. Passing by such seductive, but impossible items as 'Scenes in the Law Courts,' published in October, 1831, and actually signed "Theta" and Elizabeth Brownrigge,' of which enough has recently been written, we find nothing with special claims to notice before March, 1834, when there is a review called 'Hints for a History of Highwaymen.' Again, in April, 1834, we come across a long review of A Dozen of Novels' and in June, 1834 a review of 'Rook wood,' called 'High-ways and Low-ways; or, Ainsworth's Dictionary, with Notes by Turpin.' All or any of these may have been by Thackeray. After these there is nothing we feel inclined to mention before the article on 'Paris and the Parisians in 1835,' which was printed in the number for February, 1836. The title of 'The Jew of York' (September, 1836) suggests the author of Rebecca and Rowena'; and it seems not improbable that he who reviewed Grant's 'Paris and its People' in December, 1843, may have previously reviewed the same author's Great Metropolis' in December, 1836. There is much in the style as well as in the title and subject of Another Caw from the Rookwood: Turpin Out Again' (April, 1836), to suggest that Thackeray was the writer; while it is the subject and a reference to Lord Tennyson's 'Timbuctoo,' rather than any internal evidence, that lead us to suppose that Thackeray may possibly have had a hand in the Letters from Cambridge to Oliver Yorke, about the Art of Plucking,' &c., which made their appearance in June, July, and August, 1837. The review which appeared in April, 187, One or Two Words on Ore or Two Books,' too, might well have owned Thackeray as its author. Other papers of this period may suggest themselves to this or that taste as having been written by our author (the list we have given of possible contributions makes no pretension to completeness), but it must be remembered that in the years 1836 and 1837 he was, as we have seen in our last article, occupied in work for the Constitutional, and may not have written much for Fraser's Magazine. These are, however, at best but speculations, and are put forward merely as suggestions or queries which may, though we fear they will not, lead to Before leaving "Yellowplush" we would mention that in the 'Preface to our Second Decade," in the number for January, 1840, appear on p. 21 these words: "Yellowplush with pen and pencil, contributed to the harmless mirth of nations'"; while on the following page, in a description of the plate of the Fraserians, we read: "Those who appear only in this group are...... Thackeray, William M." We should imagine that at this time comparatively few people knew who "Thackeray, William M." was, or identified him with any of his anonymous and pseudonymous writings in Fraser's Magazine. By means of our friend Yellowplush we are able to ascribe to Thackeray, with what amounts almost to certainty, some papers not hitherto recognized. The first of these is A Word on the Annuals,' published in December, 1837, during which month, it will be observed, there is a hiatus in 'The Yellowplush Correspondence." On p. 760 we find this note: "Our friend Mr. Yellowplush has made enquiries as to the authorship of this tale, and his report is that it is universally ascribed in the highest circles to Miss Howell-and-Jaines." In a note-book of Thackeray we find this entry, dated January, 1838: Twenty-four pages in Fraser, Yellowplush, Trollope, Bulwer, Landon, and a design." In January, 1838, an instalment of "The Yellowplush Correspondence' appeared," as did also a long article on 'Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837.' This article alone fills about twenty-four pages, so that it seemed at first that the entry was inaccurate. But we found that there were nearly twelve pages of "The Yellowplush Correspondence,' and that the reviews of Mrs. Trollope's The Vicar of Wrexhil,' of Bulwer's' Ernest Maltravers,' and of Miss Landon's 'Ethel Churchill' fill a little over twelve pages more, making together the twenty-four pages mentioned in the diary. It is clear, then, that these three re-views were written by Thackeray, the remaining notices being probably supplied by another writer. An entry under January 4th (1838), "Wrote a little Etiquette and read Life of George IV.," we have not succeeded in unravelling, but another hint is given twice, first as, "January 31. Wrote on Penny Newspapers for Fraser," and again as,. "Wrote for Fraser on the Penny Press and Yellowplush, No. 1V.-7 Feby." These notes clearly identify an article in the number for February, 1838, called Half a Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge,' as Thackeray's. It deals with fifteen of the penny and twopenny periodicals of the day, among others with "Oliver Twiss. By Bos. 1d. E. Lloyd, Bloomsbury." All Thackeray's generous references to his great contemporary are interesting, and we quote the following passages as evidence of the genuineness of his admiration of Dickens's writings, shown in an anonymous and unacknowledged review: "We come next to Oliver Twiss, by Bos; a kind of silly copy of Boz's admirable tale. We have not, we -confess, been able to re d through Oliver Twiss. The only amusing point of it is an advertisement by the publisher, calling upon the public to buy Lloyd's Edition of Oliver Twiss, by Bos,' it being the only genuine one. By which we learn, that there are thieves, and other thieves who steal from the first thieves; even as it is said about that exiguous beast the flea there be other fleas, which annoy the original animal." The next entry in the note-book as to Fraser's Magazine is: "Yellowplush in April. Letter from Paris." This is puzzling. Yellowplush is in the April number, but the only thing at all answering the description of 'Letter from Paris' is the first of a series of three long papers called 'Our Club at Paris,' the second and third papers appearing in the numbers for May and June, 1838, and we are not inclined to ascribe these to Thackeray's pen. The diary gives no more information as to contri'butions to Fraser's Magazine, but it appears from it that early in 1838 Thackeray was writing for Galignani, and to a considerable extent for the Times. In Fraser's Magazine for October and November, 1838, we find a humorous, quizzing review of what the writer calls Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary,' under the guise of 'Passages from the Diary of the 'late Dolly Duster, with Elucidations, Notes, &c., by various Eds.' One of the editors signs himself "Knarf," which we think we shall show introduces us to another of Thackeray's numerous noms de guerre. The second part of the paper begins with the following "Note by Ed. No. 3": Oct. 25, 1838. With some surprise and much apprehension, I have just read the following letter (written on the back of a "weakly dispatch" to Lord Yellowbelly). I at once lay it before the reader, merely noticing that, as its date implies, it was begun on the 5th, and appears to have cost the author twenty days' work to finish. Its cacographical" purity, however, accounts for this labour. To the Editor of Frazer's Magazine. Reform Club, October 5. Sir,-A lady by the name of Duster has, I perceive, commenced the publication of her Memoirs in your Magazine. I very seldom read that miscellany, much more write in it; and must confess an extreme disgust at a report which has gone abroad that I myself am connected in any way with the memoirs in question. May I request, sir, that you will contradict this rumour, which is likely seriously to injure me in the Society in which I have at present the honour to move. A member of the Club from which I address you this note, a partisan (as far as my efforts go) of ministers, a friend of the most celebrated literary men in England, it would ill become me to contribute to a miscellany like yours, or to attempt by a stupid series of cacographical errors. to awaken the laughter of the public. A gentleman, sir, should never be a buffoon; it is a poor wit which is obliged to adopt such vulgar means for obtaining applause. In case you refuse the insertion of this letter, I need not say that I shall expect a very different species of satisfaction. I have the honour to remain, sir, Your obedient Servant, FITZROY YELLOWPLUSH. P.S. (Private.) Haven't I got on in spelling? Come and dine here some day: we let people in while the lrish members are out of town. I have got a novel in the style of a certain friend of mine, for which I want to make arrangements with you: it's got poetry, classix, metafizzix, and is crammed chock full of bits of Greek play. Do you twig? It is tolerably certain that no writer among Fraser's staff other than the author of 'The Yellowplush Correspondence' would have referred in such terms to "cacographical errors," and it will hardly be doubted that 'Dolly Duster' is to be added to our list of Thackeray's contributions to Fraser's Magazine. It is certain that there must be many other unrecognized papers by Thackeray in the magazine, such as 'Paris Pastimes for the Month of May' (June, 1839), 'The Paris Rebels of the Twelfth of May' (August, 1839), and "The Fêtes of July' (September, 1839); but it is difficult to positively identify any others about this date as his work. We think, however, that we may claim that, apart from our suggestions or queries, we have somewhat lessened the labors of the future bibliographer by showing beyond dispute that several of the unclaimed contributions to Fraser's Magazine owed their existence to Thackeray. A LETTER OF DE QUINCEY'S. Some letters of De Quincey's have just been added to the autograph collection of the Buffalo Library. They are addressed to his publishers and to intimate friends, and are all written in the same strain of physical distress and mental exhaustion. One or two examples will indicate the character of all: Sate up all last night, as unhappily always happens to me now; found myself very ill in the morning; have been so all day long: have been in cons. now obliged to go to bed. I shall be up by 4 o'clock A. M., and shall finish something before breakfast. 1⁄2 past 5, Wedn. April 8. Another, dated "Tuesday, May 24," runs as follows: My dear Sir,-Here is a sketch of one day as I now drag through daily with very trivial variations:-15 min. bef. 4 A. M. I find myself broad awake. From this time to 7.30 (making 3 hours -- %ths-I am a miserable suffering cripple-not daring to stoop or to stretch out my arm. I find all the time little enough for doing such wretched processes as I am compelled |