A remote correspondent finds all help to fail him from bibliographers and
cotemporary reviewers in giving any clue to the authorship of the works
described below. But he has been conversant enough with the "N. & Q." to
perceive that no Query, that he is aware, has yet been started in its pages
involving a problem, for which somebody among its readers and contributors
has not proved a match. Encouraged thereby, he tenders the three following
titles, in the full faith that his curiosity, which is pretty strong, will
not have been transmitted over the waste of waters but to good result.
1. _Posthumous Parodies, and other Pieces_, by several of our most
celebrated poets, but not before published in any former edition of their
works: John Miller, London, 12mo., 1814. This contains some twenty
imitations or over, of the more celebrated minor poems, all of a political
cast, and breathing strongly the tone of the anti-Jacobin verse; executed
for the most part, and several of them in particular, with great felicity.
Among that sort of _jeux d'esprit_ they hardly take second place to _The
Knife Grinder_, the mention of which reminds me to add that it is manifest
enough, from half-a-dozen places in the volume, that Canning is the "magnus
Apollo" of the satirist. The final piece (in which the writer drops his
former vein) is written in the spirit of sad earnest, in odd contrast with
the preceding _facetiae_, and betokening, in some lines, a disappointed
man. Yet, strange to tell, through all the range of British criticism of
that year, there is an utter unconsciousness of its existence. Whether
there be another copy on this side the Atlantic, besides the one which
enables me to {245} make these few comments, your correspondent greatly
doubts. One living person there is on the other side, it is believed, who
could throw light on this question, if these lines should be so fortunate
as to meet his eye; since he is referred to, like many others, by initials
and terminals, if not in full--Mr. John Wilson Croker.
2. _Adventures in the Moon and other Worlds_: Longman & Co., sm. 8vo.,
1836. Of this work, a friend of the writer (who has but partially read it
as yet himself), of keen discernment, says: "It is a work of very marked
character. The author is an uncommonly skilful and practical writer, a
philosophical thinker, and a scholar familiar with foreign literature and
wide reaches of learning. He has great ingenuity and fancy withal; so that
he is at the same time exceedingly amusing, and suggestive of weighty and
subtle thoughts." This, too, is neglected by all the reviews.
3. _Lights, Shadows, and Reflections of Whigs and Tories_: Lond. 12mo.,
1841. This is a retrospective survey of the several administrations of
George III. from 1760 (his accession) to the regency in 1811; evincing much
political insight, with some spirited portraits, and indicative both of a
close observation of public measures and events, and of personal connexion
or intercourse with men in high place. There is a notice of this in the
_London Spectator_ of 1841 (May 29th), and in the old _Monthly Review_; but
neither, it is plain, had the author's secret.