rebels and traitors. On Saturday, May 12, it was reported that 'It hath pleased God to bring this great Bubble of the Levellers about Banbury to a sudden breaking, and that Thomson had escaped with a party of about 300.' The end of the abortive rising was that Capt. Thomson was taken prisoner and shot together with his brother, whereon the insurrection collapsed. The two Thomsons were shot in Burford churchyard, having refused quarter.

With these documents should be compared the correspondence of the Levellers with Charles II in 1656, through their spokesman, William Howard (printed in Macray's edition of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. vi, pp. 67 seq.), one sentence of which will serve to show its general purport. It runs: 'What can we do more worthy of Englishmen, as we are by nation, or of Christians, as we are by profession, than every one of us to put our hand to an oar, and try if it be the will of our God that such weak instruments as we may be in any measure helpful to bring it at last into the safe and quiet harbour of justice and righteousness ! '

NOTE 23.-EASTERN TALES. Page 313.

A very valuable contribution to the History of the Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century has been made recently by Miss Martha Pike Conant, Ph.D., of the Columbia University, U.S.A. This interesting book may be cordially recommended to all students of Goldsmith, especially of that phase of his work in which he was so deeply interested-possibly in spite of himself-in tales more or less oriental. Miss Conant has dealt with the subject very sympathetically, and her book will interest many readers in England as well as in the United States.

NOTE 24.-PHILAUTOS, PHILALETHES, &C. Page 313. The Catalogues of the Bodleian and other great Libraries teem with such strange compounds as those here glanced at by Goldsmith, and many others like them. Perhaps the most interesting among those enumerated is a work by Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), entitled The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap, and tortur'd to death for gnawing the Margins of Eugenius Philalethes (1650). This book is a reply to Dr. Moore, who is styled in the Dedication 'a simple Bedlam', 'a certain Master

of Arts of Cambridge', and a Poet in the Loll and Trot of Spencer', 'a very Elf in Philosophie'.

NOTE 25.-PICKERING AS THE SUPPOSED SCENE OF DR. PRIMROSE'S IMPRISONMENT. Page 353.

Visitors to Pickering, which has been suggested as the site of the prison which was the scene of the Vicar's sufferings and final triumph over his enemies, may be safely advised to read The Evolution of an English Town, by Gordon Home (Methuen & Co.). This book contains much information as to the peculiarly rich folklore of the district and the history of the Castle and Vale of Pickering, together with many other interesting details, including a sketch-map of the district. A sketch of the Black Hole of Thornton-le-Dale shows an underground cell beneath some cottages which was formerly the village prison, and has been supposed to have sheltered the Vicar and his family. See an article by Mr. Edward Ford in the National Review for May, 1883.

NOTE 26.-DUELLING. Pages 378, 391.

The statement of George Primrose, that by sending a challenge to 'Squire Thornhill he had laid himself open to the extreme punishment of the law, has no real warrant in fact. Curiously, a similar statement is made by Sheridan in The Rivals (Act v, sc. 1), where Faulkner exclaims to Julia, 'You see before you a wretch, whose life is forfeited. . . I left you fretful and passionate —an untoward event drew me into a quarrel-the event is, that I must fly this kingdom instantly.' The law on the subject at that time is thus stated in Burn's Law Dictionary (ed. 1792):

Although upon the single combat no death ensue, nor blood be drawn, yet the very combat for revenge is an affray, and a great breach of the king's peace; an affright and terror to the king's subjects; and is to be punished by fine and imprisonment, and to find sureties for the good behaviour. 3 Inst. 157.

6

And where one party kills the other it comes within the notion of murder, as being committed by malice aforethought; where the parties meet avowedly with an intent to murder, thinking it their duty, as gentlemen, and claiming it as their right, to wanton with their own lives, and the lives of others, without any warrant for it, either human and divine; and

therefore the law hath justly fixed on them the crime and punishment of murder. 4 Black. 199.

'But if two persons fall out upon a sudden occasion, and agree to fight in such a field, and each of them goeth to fetch his weapon, and they go into the field, and therein fight, and the one killeth the other, this is no malice prepensed; for the fetching of the weapon, and going into the field, is but a continuance of the sudden falling out, and the blood was never cooled: but if there were deliberation, as that they meet the next day, nay, though it were the same day, if there were such a competent distance of time, that in common presumption they had time of deliberation, then it is murder. 1 Hale's Hist. 453.'

Goldsmith has evidently tried to put himself right, for the first edition contained certain passages which he afterwards changed. See Note on Suppressed Passages (Chapter XXVIII), p. 510.

NOTE 27.-EARLY DRAMA IN AMERICA.

In view of Goldsmith's admiration for Otway, it may be of interest to note that this dramatist was one of the first to be represented on the American stage.

The New York Nation of January 28, 1909, contained a highly interesting article on 'The First Play in America'. It is there decided, on very strong evidence, that the first playhouse in America dates from circa 1750, when a performance of Otway's Orphan was given in a Boston Coffee House. In 1866, Ireland wrote a circumstantial account of a company of actors that reached New York in February, 1750, under the management of a certain Kean and Murray'. The Philadelphia records of the Murray and Kean Company have been brought to light. An entry in John Smith's Journal gives the name of what was probably the first play acted by them :

'Sixth Month (August 22d, 1749). Joseph Morris and I happened in at Peacock Bigger's, and drunk tea there, and his daughter, being one of the company who were going to hear the tragedy of Cato acted, it occasioned some conversation, in which I expressed my sorrow that anything of the kind was encouraged.'