MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS.-We have for some months mislaid a letter which the Rev. Dr. Ingram was so obliging as to address to us, in answer to the challenge of our Correspondent PLANTAGENET in our January Magazine, p. 44. He refers us to an historical account of the Chiltern Hundreds given in the Preface to Skelton's Oxfordshire, from which we make the following extract: "No writer has hitherto observed the distinction, which ought to be made, between the Chiltern Hills and the Chiltern Hundreds. The former appellation is understood by Geologists, as descriptive of the great line of chalk, which extends in a south-western direction from Norfolk into Dorsetshire. The latter term is more limited; and, with the exception of the three contiguous hundreds in Buckinghamshire, which are so called from their situation, comprises expressly those Four Hundreds and a Half in our county, of which we shall endeavour, for the first time, to give an historical sketch." The names of these four hundreds and a half are, Pirton, Lewknor, Binfield, Langtree, and Ewelme: they were attached at the Domesday survey to the royal manor of Bensingtone, now Benson. It was for a History of those hundreds that Dr. Ingram announced his intention of collecting materials, in a prospectus issued about the year 1824. The writer of the Preface concludes with the observation that, "the office of Steward is now become merely nominal, and passes as a matter of course, or as an equivocal compliment, to every person in his turn, who, during a session, vacates a seat in parliament." But here we believe lies the long-prevalent mistake, or uncertainty. We have no proof that the stewardship of the Oxfordshire Chilterns has ever been granted for the purpose alleged; whilst our correspondent PLANTAGENET has satisfactorily shown that the office which it has been the modern practice to grant most frequently, in order to vacate a seat in Parliament, (the form, we may remark, is lithographed,) is the Stewardship of the three Buckinghamshire Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham (misprinted in the aforesaid form, Bonenham). -We may here mention, that during the changes at the commencement of the present Parliament, whilst Henry Warburton, esq. and Alderman Thompson vacated their seats, Sept. 8, by accepting the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, Sir George Anson effected the same object by taking the Stewardship of the manor of Poynings. This seems to shew that the Stewardship of the manor of East Retford is no longer available. E. B. P. respecting Richborough, has not consulted the publications upon the place. Let him look at Stukeley's bird's eye view, which shows the cross of masonry (possibly the site of the church which stood within the castle),—a plan in Boys's History of Sandwich, plate VII. p. 473, Battely's Antiquitates Rutupinæ, or the Beauties of England and Wales, vol. VII. p. 949. The inscription on the small seal found near Totness, of which an impression has been sent us by L. is apparently S. IEHAN LE COVTELLER, (that is, in modern spelling, John Cutler,) surrounding a profile head, looking to the left; but the seal will be found to give much better impressions when further cleaned from its rust. A Correspondent has observed on the following passage (p. 493) in the last Magazine, "The English authorized editions of the Scriptures are of general acknow. ledged incorrectness, not only in the mechanical department but in numerous instances of erroneous interpretation, which, however to touch, like the Ark of the Covenant, would be profanation, and the word of God is thus suffered to circulate by its superiors in conscious error."-" It can hardly be necessary to refer any churchman to the excellent pamphlets of Dr. Turton and Dr. Cardwell, in which this false statement is deliberately sifted, examined, and refuted, by the clearest evidence, on the last occasion in which it was brought prominently forward. Such insidious attacks on the Church ought not to be inserted without a rebuke." We beg to inform a "Constant Reader," who dates from "Bromley Hill," that the quotation which he sends, "Her delicate blood spoke," &c. is taken from Donne's Poem to his Mistress. A Correspondent suggests, that the sin gular sign of "Diogenes and Tumbledown Dick," noticed in Oct. p. 360, may have originated at or shortly after the Restoration, and convey a veiled political satire. According to this theory, the Greek Cynic was Oliver Cromwell, and the English drunkard his son Richard. Do any of the squibs or songs of the time record the application of such soubriquets to the personages in question? J. R. asks, where any account of the ancient family of Robertson (or Robinson), of Strowan (or Struan), in Perth shire, Chief of the Clan of that name, is to be found. CYDWELI, in answer to J. R. in ournext. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. THOMSON'S WORKS. ALDINE EDITION. PICKERING. 2 vols. THE announcement of a new edition of Thomson's Seasons by Mr. Bolton Corney, and the probability of the Aldine edition being shortly reprinted, has gratified us by the assurance that the public taste is still able to estimate and admire the beauties of the first descriptive poet in our language; yet the numerous readers of the Seasons are perhaps little aware upon what authority the present text is founded, or what successive alterations it has undergone. The poem of Summer originally contained 1205 lines, it now consists of 1804; Autumn had 1275 in the earlier editions, but the common text extends to 1371, or, in Lord Buchan's calculation, after the edition, 4to, of 1730, Spring had 85 additional lines, Summer 599, Autumn 96, and Winter 188. But besides these additions, many passages were transposed, others materially altered, even when the original number of the verses was preserved, single lines were entirely remodelled, and particular expressions totally changed. In this manner, through successive alterations and improvements, this poem of the Seasons, beautiful with all its faults, gradually formed itself into the text in which it is now fixed. Winter, the portion of the poem the earliest published, appeared in 1726; and we find that so late as 1743 Thomson was still revising the text of the Seasons. Of Mr. Bolton Corney's ability and accuracy we think so highly, that we could not wish the new edition of the poet in other bands, and we are extremely sorry to bear that he did not also, in addition to the revision of the text, favour us with the biography of the poet; but as that portion of the forthcoming work has passed, we hear, into other hands, we shall withhold any communication we might have made on the subject till the edition appears, and then we shall feel ourselves at liberty to express without reserve our opinion as to the manner of the execution, both as regards the biographer's critical taste, in his judgment of Thomson's poetical talents, and of his literary knowledge in the collection and arrangement of the new materials for his life. We shall now briefly mention the object we have in view in the few following pages of the present article. Having been from early youth, we must confess with a blush that hardly becomes a manly cheek, somewhat too much "smit with the love of sacred song," and having, through the kindness of an indulgent fortune, always enjoyed, what we have duly estimated, a life of leisure, we employed some of our time in forming collections for improved editions of our English poets: nor can we think this purpose to have been unreasonably entertained; for even now, many years after we commenced our pleasing occupation, how few of our poets have been edited in a manner worthy of their fame! Shakspere, the sun and centre of the poetical hemisphere, still looks to Mr. Collier for that justice he has received from no earlier hand; the twin brothers of the same stage, Beaumont and Fletcher, are now first rising in their true shape and colour under Mr. Dyce's care. To Sir Walter Scott we are indebted for a very elaborate and excellent edition of Dryden; but what are we to say of Chaucer, of Spenser, of Milton, of Pope, of Gay (whose works have never been collected), and many others? We think, therefore, that some reflection is cast on our national taste, when it may be observed, that the editions of the poets of Greece and Rome have been undertaken repeatedly by scholars of the greatest fame, from the days of Scaliger and Stephens to those of Porson and Herman; while, with the most delicate perception of their beauties, and the highest admiration of their genius, these scholars have added the most profound acquaintance with the language, and the most careful and religious examination of the text ;-while, in fact, all the combined resources of erudition and industry have been employed, and all but exhausted, in the endeavour to restore these shattered relics of unequalled beauty to something of their original form and lustre; the poets of our own country, the emulators, and in some cases, the rivals, or more than rivals, of their fame, have been placed in the hands of men more or less incompetent to perform the high duty so rashly undertaken by them and the result has necessarily been, that we are still obliged to read the body of the English poets in the Collection of Mr. Alexander Chalmers; to see the pages of Ford covered with the slime and froth of Mr. Weber's ignorance; to lament that the text of Pope is crowded with annotations, but not illustrated; and Shakspere himself, for so he might justly be represented, holding up his works with uplifted arm, far out of the reach of the swarm of little wits and antiquaries, "parsons, templars, players,"-et hoc genus omne,— grovelling and crawling at his feet. With such impressions on our mind, that with honest industry something might be done to purify and amend the text where corrupt, and explain it where difficult or obscure, of most of our great poetical writers, we formed, not with the purpose of publication, but solely for our own gratification and improvement, some materials, which, in the course of time, spread widely over the Parnassian field. Among others, Thomson's Seasons, the early favourite of our youth, and our constant companion when a boy on the banks of the Medway, or idly wandering among the Kentish hills, attracted our attention. An observation made by Dr. Johnson in his life of the poet, on the text of the early editions, led to some research on the subject; and as "fortune not only favours fools," but is also not seldom seen at the elbow of the diligent and industrious; she crowned our earliest efforts by putting into our hands, at the price of one shilling and sixpence, what we would not exchange for the great ruby in the royal crown, the edition of the Seasons of 1738, 8vo. Miller, interleaved, filled with Thomson's alterations in his own hand in every page, and with numerous emendations and alterations by Pope, in his small and beautiful writing. That Pope had corrected the text of the Seasons was not unknown to us before, for we had seen a mention of it in Warton's edition of Pope; but it was with great delight that we saw the assertion of the Commentator verified by this volume,-and that, in our own possession. We shall now only add what is the arrangement of the materials we propose to afford for our readers' entertainment and instruction in the following *To Mr. Dyce, the admirable editor of the valuable productions of our older dra matic writers, Green and Peele, and Webster and Middleton, we are now looking for a still far more important effort of his learning and industry-an edition of the poems of Skelton; a work that will be the most desirable accession to our early poetical literature that it has received since the days of Warton, Percy, and Ritson. pages; and we wish them to be received by our readers, not as intended to form any part of a new edition, for that purpose they are not adapted,— but rather as gentle harbingers of the approach of Mr. B. Corney's forthcoming work, or rather as whetters of the public appetite, in the manner in which our friends at Petersburg and Moscow lead us to a side-table of little delicacies-petits morceaux de poisson, avec un coup de vin-to give our stomachs a keener edge for the substantial and solid repast to come. We shall give first, a poem of Thomson's, which we presume to be but little known, written when he was probably not more than eighteen years old,* if so much, on the subject of the Seasons. We next give extracts from our copy of the Seasons, of the alterations made by Thomson in his own writing; by which our readers will see the sculptor-poet, not surveying his finished gallery of works, but employed in his workshop, with his rule and his plummet, his apron round his waist, and the chisel in his hand. We next add some interesting selections from the alterations by Pope. After this, we give a few specimens of the Lyttelton copy of the Seasons, the nature of which is explained in the noble and friendly critic's own words;† while the sufferance of it forms a remarkable instance of that easy, indolent, goodnatured reliance on others for which Thomson was known to his friends. We then add some quotations from the early editions of the Seasons, in order to mark the nature and extent of the subsequent alterations; and lastly, we add a few specimens of the manner in which the text and poetic language of Thomson might be illustrated from the Greek and Latin poets. Of our collections on this head we have given but a very small selectionỏλiyn Xißas,—and our readers will please to recollect that Thomson was a very good scholar (in the sense that scholarship is useful to the poet), and was well-read in "sad Electra's poet," and in those other great tragedians whose matchless productions Athens held so dear. Of a Country Life, by a Student in the University. "I hate the clamours of the smoaky towns, But much admire the bliss of rural clowns, Where some remains of innocence appear, Where no rude noise insults the list'ning ear; Nought but soft Zephyrs whisp'ring through the trees, The gentle murmurs of a purling rill, Which does the strength of drooping beasts renew: This poem is taken from the Edinburgh Miscellany, 1720, 2nd edition. Thomson was born in 1700, and we presume that the first edition, which we never saw, and of which we do not know the date, must have been printed at least two years before. †This book, containing the criticisms and emendations of Lord Lytttelton on his friend Thomson's poem, was presented to Lord Spencer by Mr. Matthew Montagu, who found it among the books of his aunt Mrs. Montagu. |