Additions and Corrections to the Wellesley Index
June 2004 Edition
Eileen M. Curran
In this, the first online edition of Wellesley Index additions and corrections, I am concerned, as so often in the past, with the minutiae of periodical authorship. If this seems nit-picking, I can only reply that the devil is in the details. What may seem insignificant errors may in fact significantly misrepresent a writer, a journal, a period. For example, here and earlier I have corrected Wellesley’s spelling of German names and words— after finding these correctly spelled in the journals being indexed. Relying on Wellesley, without consulting the original articles, would lead to at least one flawed generalization about 19th-century British knowledge of Germany.
Since much of this apparent nit-picking examines the evidence for attributing authorship, it deals directly with Wellesley’s main business. We rely on various forms of evidence, even on some that we know to be weak. One aim here is to sort out arguments either based on faulty premises or too weak to support an attribution.
While one might expect to find the surest evidence of authorship in the claims of authors, editors, or publishers, at times even these must be qualified or rejected. Were those statements made near the time of publication or decades later, when memory had started to play its tricks? Did the writer really draw up the list of his articles, or did his widow, who inadvertently miscopied some details? The Corrections below include at least one instance of this type of misattribution.
What are called publisher’s accounts or receipts would seem to provide a second apparently sure type of evidence, but these too must be examined critically. Occasionally one finds a person receiving payment on behalf of an author, perhaps for convenience (the author lives on the Continent, is an invalid or a young woman) or to preserve the author’s anonymity. This person may also have submitted the article in the first place; one must read any surviving correspondence carefully. Does it describe the article as being by a friend, the sister of a friend, in wording that suggests a middleman? Yes, we all know the fiction by which “a friend” stands for “I.” Details may provide a clue: not simply “a friend” but “a friend living in Rome” when the sender is known not to have been out of London for decades, or “a young friend who has not previously published and does not know how to approach editors” when the sender is established, with a lengthy bibliography. George Croly stands out as someone willing to assist neophytes, friends abroad, women; as a result the list of his writings, already lengthy, has been inflated with misattributions.
At least, you cry, republication in book form of an article or parts of an article gives incontrovertible proof of authorship. It should, but as with all rules, there are exceptions. I have found the same section of an article reprinted verbatim in books by two different writers. Did one plagiarize the other’s work (and if so, which is the plagiarist?), or did both plagiarize the work of a still unidentified third writer? Those are some of the possible puzzles even when the evidence seems firm. Most often we rely, at least in part, on what is called internal evidence—crossing fingers all the time. Several deletions below challenge Wellesley’s use, particularly in vol. 4, of such evidence. Sometimes better evidence now either confirms earlier suppositions or gives an article to a different contributor; often, unfortunately, when we question Wellesley’s evidence we are left with no attribution of authorship. So be it. What, however, gives credibility to internal evidence, and what denies it credibility?
If we attribute authorship on the basis of an introductory “As we explained in our article on this subject last year …,” are we not ignoring the possibility of a conscientious editor? An anonymous writer speaks with the voice of the journal, not as “I, John Smith,” and the editor effects that merger of writer and journal. Even well-known pseudonyms do not always belong to a single contributor. Though Blackwood’s “Christopher North” is from the start most often John Wilson, other contributors did write as Christopher North. Some editors were conscientious and made themselves acquainted with the contents of volumes published before they assumed the editorship. John Forster asked for earlier volumes of the Foreign Quarterly when he became editor and, perhaps with a lawyer’s instinct, familiarized himself with their contents, weaving his issues of the review into the fabric of the whole. Sometimes a person employed by the publisher acted as a sub-editor, providing continuity from editorship to editorship. (Changes of publisher make authorship more difficult to trace than do changes of editor.) We must also remember the Victorian love of cataloguing and classifying. While “as we noted in an earlier article” at the beginning or even later in an article may mean “as I noted,” we cannot without more evidence assume that it does.
So we look at style and immediately find ourselves sinking in quicksand. First, assessments are subjective; two readers may have exactly opposite views of which of two styles is aggressive and which quieter, less assertive (here I would refer, as several times below, to examples given in Wayne Hall’s excellent study of authorship in the Dublin University Magazine). If we argue that certain words or constructions are repeated, we must look for more than two or three words or constructions occurring in two different articles. We must also be sensitive to each period’s buzz words; think of someone 160 years from now arguing that two writers from the year 2000 must have been one person because of his/her frequent use of the word “contextualization” and its variants. Even the repetition of details may prove nothing. I once found the same Connemara anecdote in a book (signed) and at least three articles (unsigned, and in more than one periodical, the articles usually not about Ireland). Eureka! Retrieving the articles was not easy; that was in the days when notes were on 3x5 slips. And when I had retrieved them, I came to the unhappy conclusion that they were by different writers; the Connemara story was the equivalent of an often repeated urban myth today.
Always, if we think there are enough stylistic points to justify assigning articles to a common author, there should be at least one work known without doubt to be by that person. Other information may warrant our looking for internal evidence. Do we know that this person contributed to a particular journal at a particular time? It won’t do to think an 1830 article sounds rather like someone who is known to have written in the journal in 1870. Do we have any reason to suspect that he contributed earlier? We must keep in mind the tenures of editors and the relations between editors and certain contributors. Some writers stayed loyal to a periodical from editor to editor; others were loyal to an editor, leaving with him, often going to the next periodical he edited. In addition, was this possible contributor writing on the same subject or reviewing the same book elsewhere? A contributor could get away with such double dipping with some editors, not with others; the Blackwood’s, for example, were very possessive of some of their writers; if one of those is known to have reviewed a work for Blackwood’s, it is almost certain that he would not review it elsewhere. It may seem obvious, but one should try to discover a contributor’s dates and titles. I question one Wellesley atribution here because the man had died several years earlier. Articles were occasionally published posthumously, usually with an editorial note; they did not discuss events since the purported writer’s death. At the same time, some details need not be taken at face value. “His” use of male references, for example, does not prove that a writer is male; assigning the article to a woman, however, requires supporting evidence.
Just as seemingly insignificant typographical errors can indicate a more serious misunderstanding, here too we’re concerned with more than getting authorship right. As yet we have no reliable studies of many aspects of 19th-century journalism. For example, were the contributors to a particular journal a small and close-knit group of regulars, a larger and only loosely knit group of regulars, a disparate group of occasional contributors many of whom appear only once? So far these questions have been addressed for only a few journals—the early Edinburgh, Fraser’s, Punch. Was there ever a norm? a relation between a journal’s contributorship and its frequency of publication, intended audience, price? What were an editor’s duties? To what extent may many articles be collaborations between contributor and editor?
Some of the deletions that follow are what I would call positive deletions, when new evidence allows the removal of Wellesley’s “prob.” or “?”. There are additions (fewer than I would like): articles by previously known contributors and a new contributor, James Deacon Hume, secretary to the Board of Trade. There is also new biographical information. One addition continues the expansion of Wellesley. In vol. 32 of VPR, I identified authorship of verse in Bentley’s Miscellany; in one item below, Dr. Christopher Stray identifies a respected scholar who did not want to be known as the writer of a long satiric poem in Blackwood’s.
I hope that other workers on 19th-century periodicals will help make possible continued correction and expansion of Wellesley and urge anyone with good evidence (not “Well, it sounds like …”) to send me the information; credit will always be given. I would be particularly happy to learn more about anonymous authors of verse in these periodicals.
EMC, 6/04
Blackwood’s Magazine
Volume 41, April 1837
1593 Our two vases (No. i), 429-448. Attribution of the article to John Wilson is correct on Wellesley’s terms but misleading; little here is by Wilson, who only edits a collection of verse, supplying prose links between poems. These include “Sappho,” 431, a transl. “by an Oxonian--who has given only his initials H.K., and they are not familiar to our eyes”; “On the Statue of Ariadne, at Frankfort,” 431-432, “by another Infant of Isis--J.A., whose name ‘well may we guess, but dare not tell’”; “Meleager on Spring,” 432, trans. by “W.S. … a Queen’s [Oxford] man, an accomplished scholar--and a conscientious curate at Castle Thorpe, Stoney Stratford, Bucks.”; several translations by Fitzjames Tucker Price: of Theocritus, 433-435, of Bion‘s The honey stealer, and Third Idyll, both 436, and of Moschus, “When Love to fly once took occasion,” 436-437; Bion’s Eros and Fowler, 435, trans. by Rev. Mordaunt Barnard, of Amwell, Hoddesdon, Herts.; Chryto and Thespis, 437-439, Summer evening in Herts. (composed many seasons ago.), 445*-446*, To an evening cloud raining in the distance, 446*, and A picture (in the dark monastic ages), 446* all “by our unknown friend Rusticus Quondam,” who apparently is John Eagles; [Homeric] Hymns to Venus, 440-441, and to Mars, 441, both by William John Blew, who signs himself W.E.L.B.; Glee for winter, 442, Song for a family party, 442-443, and A Christmas hymn, 444-*445, all by Alfred Domett [Diary 9, 151; repr. in AD’s Flotsam & Jetsam]; The portrait, 443, unidentified; Cowslip wine, 444, and Barley Wood, 444, both by H.T.; Sonnets (Who that has gazed; Art thou so soon forgotten?; She is not beautiful; Oft in Hesperian climes; Sisters, unmothered; To the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, Master of Trinity), *447-448*, s/ M. J. Chapman.
Volume 42, October 1837
1660 Our two vases No. ii, 548-572. As in #1593, John Wilson editsan anthology of verse by others, incl. Sonnets, 549-550, by M. J. Chapman; Sonnets written among the mountain scenery of Cumberland, 551-553, s/ R. W. H---- of Leeds, i.e., Richard Winter Hamilton; A view in the island of Tanna, 553-555, by Charlotte Hawkey; Midnight--Written at Bermuda, 555, “by Archdeacon Spencer, copied for us by a lady of rank”; The Martyr Student, 556, by J.T.C. of Brazen-nose; Song of Silenus, 556-557, by J.A. of Wadham College, Oxford; 3 Greek epigrams, 558, trans. William Hay; Thoughts of Youth and Manhood, 558-559, by Orielensis; The forest beauties Written in recollection of a sojourn in the backwoods of Upper Canada, in the winter of 1833 and 1834, at end “West Springs, Virginia, July, 1834,” and Fancy in a stage-coach. Written among the Alleghanies, 1834, pp.559-562, both by Alfred Domett; from Crystals from a Cavern, 562-572, all s/ Clio, by John Sterling.
Volume 45, April 1839
1808 Correct title to “Desultory dottings [not jottings] down upon dogs.
5727a The Earl and the Doctor; or, the Chair and the Siege. A Fytte of UniversityReform, 131 (April. 1882) 522-530. Richard Claverhouse Jebb. Blackwood to Jebb, 15 and 21 March, 1 April 1882; Jebb papers, in private hands. Jebb’s piece intervened in the debates which followed the 1878 Royal Commission on the Universities of Scotland. The immediate stimulus was probably “On some defects in the educational organisation of Scotland,” Contemporary Review #1771 (41 [Jan. 1882], 142-59), by James Donaldson, Professor of Humanity (Latin) at Aberdeen. In footnotes to his satire, Jebb, since 1875 Professor of Greek at Glasgow, several times quotes both Donaldson’s article and his evidence to the Royal Commission. Jebb did not acknowledge authorship when he sent the poem to William Blackwood and insisted on strict anonymity when pressed to identify the author. Blackwood, pleased from the start with the poem, expressed “much pleasure to welcome you as a new Contributor to old Maga” and hoped “the Earl & the Doctor will not be your last & only appearance in Ebony”; however, nothing further in Blackwood’s has been identified as Jebb’s. (Dr. Christopher Stray, Hon. Research Fellow in Classics, University of Wales Swansea.)
Bk: Unidentified contributions and misidentified contributors
Dwyer, Francis Doyne. The claim by his daughter, Anna Dwyer, that her father had contributed “crucial articles” to Blackwood’s is not to be credited. Blackwood did publish several editions of Dwyer’s On seats and saddles, bits and bitting (1868, 1869, 1879), but there are no blanks in article identification after early 1868, when Blackwood & Sons said they first knew Dwyer (RLF archives).
British and Foreign Review
Volume 2, January 1836
27 The Poles and the Czar, 65-89. Gilbert A. Young. More specific than the present evidence: at the annual general meeting of the London Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, 2 May 1840, Lord Dudley Stuart announced that they would reprint “an article, from the pen of Mr. G. A. Young, entitled the ‘Poles and the Czar,’ which was first published in the 3rd. No. of the British and Foreign Review, … with slight alterations, the author was kind enough to take the trouble of arranging it for the press” (Report of the Proceedings … 8 [London: M. Wyszynski & Co., 1840], 11).
36 Corn Laws, 270-304. James Deacon Hume. Charles Badham, The life of James Deacon Hume, Secretary of the Board of Trade (London, 1859), 330.
Volume 2, April 1836
47 Duties on timber; the colonies, 623-653. Delete present attribution. Add James Deacon Hume. Badham 330; 199-234 repr. article.
Volume 11, No. XXII, 1840
[Published January 9, 1841]
214 The present government of Russia: the Emperor Nicholas [and Poland], 543-591. Walerian Krasinski. Delete “prob.” At the annual general meeting of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland on 3 May 1841, Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart said that since the last general meeting in May 1840 articles by Mr. P. F. Zaleski (#209) and Count V. Krasinski had appeared in B&FR (Report of the Proceedings … 9:25). The implication is that these articles concerned Poland.
B&FR: Unidentified contributions and misidentified contributors
Chapman, Henry Samuel. Wellesley cites MWT, 10th ed., as identifying Chapman as a contributor to B&FR; however, #47, which Wellesley suggests may be by Chapman, was by James Deacon Hume (see above). What, then, did H. S. Chapman write?
Dublin University Magazine
Volume 14, October 1839
803 Our portrait gallery (No. I): introduction, 394-395. Delete attribution to Isaac Butt, who ceased to be editor with the Nov. 1838 issue--pointed out by Wayne Hall, “Attribution problems: the Wellesley Index vs. the Dublin University Magazine,” Long Room 36 (1991), 32-33. As Wellesley itself notes at DUM 60, the initials A.P. (= Anthony Poplar) were used from the beginning by DUM’s editors. Add James M’Glashan, who served as editor Dec. 1838 through March 1842. [Hall 29-33 also questions Wellesley’s reliability when attributing articles on internal evidence to Samuel O’Sullivan, Mortimer O’Sullivan, and Isaac Butt.]
Volume 23, April 1844
1333 Southey and his poems, 458-469. While this may be by Michael Vicary, Wellesley’s misquotation of evidence raises doubts. In his RLF application Vicary claimed “Poetical Articles--during the editorship of Charles Lever--but the Magazines I have not in my possession.” First, plural, not singular. Second, at this time contributors often referred to poems as “articles,” even without the modifying “poetical.” DUM frequently published verse. Vicary published a collection, Pencillings in Poetry, in 1857; this should be checked against DUM verse published between 1842 and 1845. Wellesley’s description of Vicary as a “Protestant minister” is slightly misleading; he was a clergyman of the Church of Ireland--the Anglican church established in Ireland.
As noted above, Wayne Hall has taken Wellesley to task for excessive attribution on slender purported internal evidence. I suggest that we look critically at more of Wellesley’s attributions of authorship in DUM. As a beginning, consider the following:
2414 The early continental campaigns of the British army in 1793-4, and the true causes of failure, 43 (Jan. 1854), 115-126.
2424 The Eastern question, 43 (March 1854), 253-266.
2433 The War, 43 (Apr. 1854), 379-392.
2448 The Eastern question, 43 (May 1854), 624-634.
2457 The War, 44 (July 1854), 1-10.
2473 The wars of Russia and Turkey, 44 (Aug. 1854), 194-203.
2524 How shall we deal with the [Crimean] War, 45 (Jan. 1855), 103-110.
2598 The plan of the War, 46 (Oct. 1855), 383-396.
2625 A sweep of the political horizon, 46 (Dec. 1855), 741-752/
2741 The Second Congress and the Principalities, 49 (Jan. 1857), 3-16.
2760 Continental complications, 49 (Feb. 1857), 246-256.
4083 The science of war, 71 (May 1868), 483-502.
For all twelve articles just listed, delete Francis Doyne Dwyer. Add: Author not identified. These articles are not included in the three detailed lists of articles provided by Dwyer and his widow to the Royal Literary Fund, the first two by Dwyer in 1869 and 1872 and the last by his widow in 1881. On 19 Jan. 1881 his daughter Anna described her father’s literary career: “He contributed for many years to ‘Frazer’ and to the United Service Magazine. Also crucial articles to the ‘Cornhill’ and ‘Blackwood’ magazines. He was military correspondent to the ‘Observer’ for some time. He contributed for several years to the ‘Naval and Military Gazette’ and occasional articles to the ‘Imperial Review’ ‘Dark Blue’ Dublin University magazine and the ‘Broad Arrow.’” That “occasional articles” should rule out the long list of DUM articles Wellesley ascribes to him--all articles dealing with the Crimean War. As Wellesley correctly notes, Dwyer wrote about military affairs--but only about conflicts involving Austrian or Prussian forces. During the 1850s Dwyer served as a major in the Imperial Austrian Army, published German-language military manuals in Vienna, “contributed to the ‘Darmstadter Militär Zeitung’ for nearly twenty years [from about 1853 to 1872] besides occasional articles to other German military papers”; he did not write again for British periodicals until 1859.
Links between some articles in the above group most likely indicate a conscientious editor or sub-editor; they do not point to Dwyer as the author.
Volume 54, September 1859
3093 The Legend of Golden Prayers …, 366-369. Delete attribution to John Stanyan Bigg. Add: Attributed to John Stanyan Bigg in an application to RLF of 5 June 1865--but the application is not by Bigg, who had died on the preceding 19 May, but by his widow, Rose Ann Hart Bigg. Moreover, Bigg had listed this title in his application of 7 Feb. 1862--as appearing in the 20 Aug. 1859 issue of the Literary Gazette; his widow copied the full date but changed the periodical.
Foreign Quarterly Review
Volume 18, October 1836
416 Ancient Persian poetry, 119-159. B. E. Pote. Although the evidence for the attribution is circumstantial, internal, tangential even, there is enough to justify removing “prob.” In addition to the evidence cited in Wellesley, in 1839 the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 5:xxvii, reported the donation to the Society library during the preceding year of nos. 35 through 40 of the Foreign Quarterly, given “By the Editor.” Though Pote was the editor at the time of the donation, he had not been editor in 1836; he seems to have donated the issues which contained his articles. This was Pote’s first full-length article in FQR (#340 was a brief “Critical Sketch”).
Volume 20, October 1837
464 [Critical sketches], Meyen, Botanical Geography, 201-206, by H. E. Lloyd? A long shot, but a letter from FQR’s editor (Shoberl), 11 May 1837, to an unidentified recipient (now in Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg), accepts this article but postpones decision on reviews of books by Förster and Hurter. P.204n is signed “L.”; Lloyd lived in Hamburg for several years and throughout his life corresponded “with eminent travellers and men of science” (DNB)--see p. 202 here; he had reviewed an earlier work by Förster, FQR #368.
Volume 24, October 1839
549 Industrial and moral state of Belgium, 75-89. Thomas Colley Grattan. Delete “prob.” Add to evidence in Wellesley: In 1838-39 Grattan wrote a book on Belgium for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which rejected it, returning the ms. to Grattan on 6 July 1839. Their readers’ reports seem to describe this article. In particular, H. Bellenden Ker’s report, 11 March 1839, questioned Grattan’s statement that there are 40% fewer crimes in Belgium than in France; see p.88 here. Quotations in Ker’s report parallel pp. 85-87 here. Grattan’s letters to SDUK members frequently emphasised his need to realize money on the ms. (SDUK mss., UCL).
Volume 35, April 1845
826 The history of British India, 34-55. Philip Meadows Taylor (1808-1876)? FQR’s earlier writer on India disappeared after the January 1845 issue, and a new contributor appeared with this article. On 24 Dec. 1844 Meadows Taylor reported that “the proprietors of the Foreign Quarterly have written to me for articles; a Mr. Kelly is Editor” (The letters of Philip Meadows Taylor to Henry Reeve, ed. Sir Patrick Cadell [London, 1947], 156). The request was particularly welcome at this time; Meadows Taylor had contributed articles on India to the British and Foreign Review from January 1839 through its final issue in December 1844 and needed to find another outlet for his articles. See evidence for FQR 842 below.
Volume 35, July 1845
842 Railways in India, 382-409. Philip Meadows Taylor (1808-1876), prob. See FQR 826 above. A year and a half later, on 10 Dec. 1846, Meadows Taylor referred to “all the visions of roads, canals, railways, proper education and general civil improvement which I have been thinking and writing on for the last five years” (Taylor-Reeve Letters 251). This article, while primarily concerned with railways, also discusses roads and, using the same phrase as the letter, “proper education” (see p.403 here). Note also the uniformity of article titles in B&FR and those suggested as his in FQR: most include “of India” or “in India.”
Volume 36, January 1846
866 Indian railways and the Indian press, 306-323. Philip Meadows Taylor (1808-1876)? See #842 above.
Volume 37, April 1846
888 The Governor General of India, and the war in the Punjâb, 212-234. Philip Meadows Taylor (1808-1876)? Man cited had earlier written about British administration of India; see B&FR 205.
Fraser’s Magazine
Volume 23, April 1841
1533 Lin the commissioner: an autobiogram, with lucubrations, transmitted from the island of Tchousang, by Brian O’Lynn the younger, volunteer attached to her Majesty’s eighteenth, or Royal Irish, regiment of foot, 459-463. Delete attribution to an actual Brian O’Lynn, Jun.; substitute “Author unidentified.” Wellesley admits that “Brian O’Lynn” may be a pseudonym; I would argue that it undoubtedly is. “Brian O’Linn” or “O”Lynn” is one of the best known Irish humorous ballads, dating in Ireland at least to the early 19th century and in Scotland, where he is Tam rather than Brian, to the 16th century. The song starts, “Brian O’Lynn had no shoes to put on”; he would serve nowhere but in a regiment of foot.
Volume 29, January 1844
1892 A fine day in Fleet Street, 68-77. Peter Cunningham. Delete “prob.” Attributed by his widow in RLF application, case 1790.
Volume 29, April 1844
1921 A fine day in the Strand, 379-391. Peter Cunningham. Delete “prob.” Attrib. as in #1892.
Volume 30, August 1844
1969 A fine day in Piccadilly, 197-210. Peter Cunningham. Delete “prob.” Attrib. as in #1892.
Volume 89 o.s., 9 n.s., February 1874
5515 The Christian Brothers [Jesuits] and their lesson books, 186-199. Delete the bracketed word. Christian Brothers and Jesuits are two different Roman Catholic orders; both established schools [see James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man].
FM: Unidentified contributions and misidentified contributors
Collins, Mortimer. Applying for RLF assistance in 1869 (case 1785), he claimed “Fraser’s Magazine. Several articles under Parker’s editorship about 1848.” John William Parker, Jr., was editor July 1847 - Oct. 1860; Wellesley credits Collins with only one article in Fraser’s, #3043, in 1852.
Halpin, William Henry. 1773-1848. Born and died in Ireland but spent much of his adult life in London and Cheltenham; according to clipping from unidentified paper, he was “for 30 years connected with the metropolitan and provincial press of England.” He also at one time lived in Paris, where he was a sub-editor of Galignani’s. His widow claimed that “He was one amongst the early contributors to Fraser’s Magazine and various periodicals” (RLF case 1208).
Isaacson, Stephen. 1798-1849. See DNB. He claimed that he had contributed to Fraser’s but gave no details (RLF case 1219). Of the four periodicals to which he said he contributed, Ainsworth’s is confirmed in Wellesley and Christian Remembrancer by a letter from its editor to RLF; for the fourth, see New Monthly Magazine below.
Thomson, Rev. Thomas Napier. 1798-1869. Biographer and historian. Obituary notice in the Edinburgh Daily Review, pasted into his widow’s application for Royal Literary Fund aid (case 1781), credits him with“numerous articles of every class in ‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ ‘The Scottish Christian Herald,’ and other periodicals.” He may have contributed at some time between 1839 and 1844
New Monthly Magazine
Volume 25, February 1829
1310 A tour in Mexico in 1827 (Part 1), 155-162. Pascoe Grenfell Hill. Claimed not in his RLF application of 1 Nov. 1859 but in his second application, 3 Dec. 1860.
Volume 94, February 1852
4782 Correct title: Niebuhr, not Neibuhr.
Volume 102, December 1854
5177
More Stray Letters from the Seat of War, 454-467. Yes, by Ellen
Wood, but delete “concl.”
Five more letters from “Ensign Thomas Pepper,” all by Mrs. Wood,
appeared in the next year (which Wellesley
does not cover):
Tom Pepper’s Letters from the Crimea (no. 4), 103 (Feb. 1855), 153-166.
Ensign Pepper’s Letters from the Crimea (no. 5), 103 (Apr. 1855), 418-32.
Ensign Peppers Letters from the Crimea (no. 6), 104 (June 1855), 141-155
Ensign Pepper’s Letters from the Crimea (no. 7), 105 (Oct. 1855), 34-46.
Ensign Pepper’s Letters from Sebastapol (no. 8, concl.), 105 (Nov. 1855), 283-296.
Burgauer’s Mrs. Henry Wood …, cited in Wellesley’s #5118, identifies these articles as Mrs. Wood’s, noting volume numbers and a single generic title; he made the identifications on the authority of Charles Wood’s brief references in his biographies of his mother: Argosy 43, (Apr. 1887), 269, and Memorials of Mrs. Henry Wood (London: Bentley, 1894), 279-280. I am indebted to Michael Flowers for this information.
NMM: Unidentified contributions and misidentified contributors
Isaacson, Stephen. 1798-1849. Claimed that he had contributed to the “Magazines of Fraser, Coulburne, Ainsworth, & Xn. Remembrancer” (RLF case 1219); many contributors referred to NMM as “Colburn’s magazine.” He gave no dates; calling it Colburn’s indicates no later than Nov. 1845. See Fraser’s above.
Tweddell, George Markham. Born 1823; still living at end of Nov. 1895. In his frequent applications to the Royal Literary Fund (case 1517), he often did not identify periodicals to which he had contributed; when he did (never citing individual articles or dates), he included NMM. Since Wellesley covers NMM only through 1854 and only prose contributions, questions remain: when did Tweddell contribute, and what? He was contributing to periodicals by 1845; he contributed mainly prose, on a wide variety of subjects, but also wrote sonnets. Since the London journals to which this Yorkshireman contributed were perhaps a cut below Wellesley’s (other titles he included were Belle Assemblée, Howitt’s Journal, and London Journal), one is tempted to assume that he contributed to NMM in its declining years. Nevertheless, here he is to consider. He published a book on Shakespeare in 1852, taught in a Ragged School in Lancashire, returned to Yorkshire about 1860.
Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine
Volume 26 o.s., July 1855
3132 Correct title: “The Maine Liquor Law movement,” not “Main.”
Temple Bar
Volume 9, November 1863
363 Comic literature, 590-599. Delete suggestion that article may be by Edmund Yates. Add Andrew Halliday. Identified in Henry Silver’s ms. diary of Punch table-talk (at Punch Library, London), entry for 4 Nov. 1863 (information provided by Patrick Leary).
Volume 11, June 1864
426 Gandler’s annuity, 447-453. s/ A.H. Andrew Halliday, prob. Delete “Unidentified” and “Perhaps.” The identification of Halliday as a contributor in the preceding year (#363 above) encourages the equation of A.H. and Halliday.
Volume 16, February 1866
614 “It fell upon a day,” 395-405. R. A. Kempt. Conclusive evidence, better than parallels in wording: Kempt was paid 5 gns. for this article (Bentley Receipts 2:15).
Volume 16, March 1866
623 A true Bohemian, 551-557. James Bowker. Delete the question mark. Bowker was paid £3.10/ for this (Bentley Receipts 2:15).
Volume 20, May 1867
745 Passing notes on our neighbours, 179-183. Francis W. Tremlett. Delete “prob.” Bentley Archives 2/107, accounts page headed “Anonymous Authors,” includes this article; same hand adds “(Tremlett).”
Volume 24, October 1868
889 Six years in the prisons of England, 321-340 [and subsequent installments: #s 902, 909, 917, 928, 939, 946]. Wellesley does not explain why it rejects Bentley’s claim that these articles were by a merchant using the pseudonym James Fairweather (known only as such to Bentley) and edited by Frank Henderson (repeated in the publisher’s records; see Turner, Bentley index). While the editor may have been the author, we need proof.
Volume 56, August 1879
1987 Some theatrical recollections, 458-468. J. H. Stocqueler / J. H. Siddons. Delete “prob.” Whether one takes Stocqueler or Siddons to be the real name and the other the pseudonym, they are the same man. This is signed “J. H. Siddons.”
Westminster Review
Volume 37, January 1842
875 Critical and miscellaneous notices. Pages 234-235, s/ G.N. Delete attribution to Horace Grant, who usually signs as “G.” Wellesley’s argument is faulty, since the book noticed here is not a geography but Little Arthur’s History of England.
Volume 48, January 1848
1116 Correspondence, 553-563. Third item here, the second letter from Florence, is translated from the Berliner Nachrichten, not Nachruhten.
Volume 50, October 1848
1150 Critical and miscellaneous notices. Correct pages attributed to George Luxford to read 312-313, not 315. (Pp. 314-315 notice C. Egan’s Status of Jews in England.)
Volume 130, September 1888
2762 [Independent section:] United Australia and imperial federation, 335-348. O.k., signed “Robert Christison,” but not by Sir Robert Christison. Delete attribution to Sir Robert in Pt. B of vol. 3 and in vol. 5. Sir Robert was a toxicologist and professor, successively, of medical jurisprudence, clinical medicine, and materia medica at the University of Edinburgh. Nothing associates him with Australia. Moreover, he died at the age of 84, on 27 Jan. 1882, over 6 1/2 years before the publication of this article, which deals with current issues.
WR: Unidentified contributions and misidentified contributors
Stigand, William. In all four of his applications to the RLF (case #1706), from 1866 to 1870, he claimed that in addition to WR 1426, on Victor Hugo, he had contributed articles on contemporary literature to WR in 1853, 1854, and 1855. These may have included WR 1377, Contemporary literature of France (Oct. 1853); G. H. Lewes, who had claimed previous articles with this title, does not include this in his Receipts, and Stigand was living in Paris. In 1854 and 1855, several regular features were merged into a single “Contemporary Literature”; those whom Wellesley credits with various sections sometimes simply edited work by others; Stigand possibly contributed bits to #s 1386, 1395, 1404, 1413, 1421, 1429, 1437, or 1444.
Part B, Vols. 1 - 4 / Volume 5
[Starred entries indicate contributors not in Wellesley; other entries add to or correct Wellesley information.]
Bell, Arthur F. Add: Probably Arthur Fitzroy Bell, born 2 Apr. 1864, alive in 1943. Information as for James Stanislaus Bell below.
Bell, George Hamilton, M.D. of Edinburgh. In vol. 1, Part B, delete “possibly” before equation of Dr. George Bell and Dr. George Hamilton Bell; in vol. 5, add “Hamilton” as middle name. NBR 194 deals with the Registration Bill (of marriages, births, and deaths); several of Dr. George Hamilton Bell’s publications on cholera show his interest in death registers.
Bell, James Stanislaus. Add dates, 1796-1858, and description, “adventurer.” Information supplied by Don Montague, a great-great-great nephew.
Bell, John Zephaniah, 1794-1883. Add: Brother of James Stanislaus Bell, above.
Bell, Robert Fitzroy. Add dates, 1859-1908. Source as for James Stanislaus Bell.
Bell, Thomas Evans. Add: Army officer, later deputy comm. police, both Madras. See Boase Suppl.
Browne, Charles. Author of TBar 689. I question Wellesley’s suggested identification with Charles Orde Browne. First, it was Capt. Charles Orde Browne; TBar Accounts, like other Bentley records, were careful to indicate titles, and this Charles Browne is given none. The accounts give no middle name or initial but do identify him as living in Birmingham (Bentley Archives 2:68). A search of 1866 Birmingham directories might help identify the man.
Davies, Thomas Stephens. Alter year of birth from 1795 to 1794. His widow gives his d.o.b. as 27 Jan. 1794 (RLF case 1280); Boase also gives 1794.
Dwyer, Francis Doyne. In vol. 5 delete “?” before FM 5722--deleted in Wellesley 3:996.
Fetherston, F. Morgan. Add first name, Francis. In place of present biographical information, substitute: Born 1822, apparently still living in 1885. Publ. verse and misc. prose, much of it in periodicals; guidebooks; translations from Italian; Yorkshire dialect verse and prose under pseudonym “Timothy Goorkrodger.” Born in London but lived in many places throughout the U.K. and in France. A Roman Catholic, perhaps a convert. RLF case 1702; BL Cat.
*Hume, James Deacon. 1774-1842. Civil servant; joint secretary, Board of Trade. DNB. B&FR 36, 47.
O’Lynn, Brian. Delete from both Pt. B and Vol. 5; certainly, not possibly, a pseudonym. See FM 1553.
Mackenzie, Gordon Thomson. Add dates 1848-1918. India Office Records: Civil Annuities L/AG/21/8/33, 35. Disregard suggestion that middle name is Thomas.
Mills, John. Novelist. Delete “d. c.1885.” Add 1815 - 27 Dec. 1887. He did live in Essex the last 35 years of his life but had lived the first half in Surrey and Putney. RLF case 1276 (where his publisher certifies that Mills wrote the novels which Boase, Wellesley’s faulty source, gives him.)
Ritchie, James Ewing. Correct date of birth: 1820, not 1826. In RLF application cited, Ritchie says he was born in 1820, and adds in 1866 that his current age is 46. Boase also gives d.o.b. as 1820.
Smelt, R. TBar accounts add “Captn.” (Bentley Archves 2:71.)
Smith, Alexander, Scottish poet, essayist. Correct date of birth: 1829, not 1830. Both his widow and the Kilmarnock Chronicle give d.o.b. as 31 Dec. 1829, in Kilmarnock. Though a notice in a London newspaper gives 31 Dec. 1830, the widow and the hometown newspaper (which even gives the address of the house where he was born) would seem more reliable. (Widow’s application for RLF aid, case 1776; secr. of RLF pasted in the newspaper clippings.)
Stubbs, Alfred. Signs FM 1737, where he adds C.B.M.I., which Wellesley interprets as “Chairman of the Bloomsbury Mechanics Institute.” Perhaps a real person who should be listed in vol. 5?
ALMOST WELLESLEY
Eclectic Review
Volume 101, June 1855
3405 Gilfillan’s Third Gallery of Portraits, 674-680. John Stanyan Bigg. Claimed (as 1856) in his RLF application, 7 Feb. 1862.
Eclectic: Unidentified contributions and misidentified contributors
Ritchie, James Ewing. In his RLF application (#1698) he claimed to have contributed to the Eclectic but gave no dates or titles.
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