68
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. in. JAX. 28, 1005.
good Lady Sands " in one of his satires
(1678). She was buried in Westminster
Abbey, near the font, on 4 August, 1687, from
the parish of St. James, Westminster. As
she died intestate, her estate was adminis-
tered to on 15 August by Frances, Countess
Dowager of Portland, as principal creditor.
Col. Chester, in a learned note, identifies her
as a daughter of George Kirke, the notorious
Groom of the Bedchamber to King Charles II.,
by his first wife Anne, daughter of Sir Robert
Killigrew ('Westminster Abbey Registers,'
p. 218). These particulars, I regret to say,
do not appear in Peter Cunningham's ' Story
of Nell Gwyn ' (ed. 1904).
GORDON GOODWIN.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that the answers may be sent to them
direct.
" PERFICIENT." In Webster's 'Dictionary,' 1828, this word is entered only as a noun, and explained as "one who endows a charity." Although this entry has been taken from Webster by nearly every later dictionary, none of these has adduced any authority for it. We shall be obliged to any one who can refer us to a place where "perficient" is so used, and still more for a quotation. "Perficient" was formerly a common adjective; " perficient founder'" is applied by Blackstone to the endower of an eleemosynary corporation, just as "pious founder" might be; but ' perficient" and "pious," so used, are not the founder himself, but adjectives qualifying him. No one has, I think, shortened "a pious founder" into "a pious " ; has any one (out of the dictionaries) called a perficient founder "a perficient"? J. A. H. MURRAY.
'PARADISE LOST' OF 1751. Can any of your readers throw light upon a copy of ' Paradise Lost,' which 1 cannot identify with any of the described editions, and which is not, I understand, in the Catalogue of the British Museum 1 It is a duodecimo of 350 pp., followed by an unpaged index of subjects, of the nature of a concordance. There are two consecutive title-pages, iden- tical in wording, place, and date, but differing in the order of the publishers' names, as well as in type and quality of paper. The first is in a clear well-cut type on thick paper ; the second is in inferior type on coarser paper. The title runs :
"Paradise Lost. | A Poem in Twelve Books. \
The Author | John Milton. | London MDCCLI."
But the first title-page has :
" Printed for J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper, T. Longman, S. Birt, E. Wicksted, C. Hitch, J. Hodges, B. Dodd, C. Corbet, J. Bdtidley J. Oswald, and J. Ward."
The second :
"Printed for J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper and for S. Birt, T. Lonyman, G. Hitch, J. Hodges, B. Dod, E. Wicktted, J. Oswald, J. Ward, J. Brindley, and C. Corbtt."
These title-pages are followed by a dedica- tion (headed by his heraldic achievement) to the "Right Honourable John, Lord Sommers, Baron of Evesham," undated and unsigned ; but as it refers to his " Lordship's encourage- ment that occasioned the first appearing of this Poem in the Folio Edition," his Lordship's "ever obliged Servant" was evidently Jacob Tonson the elder, whose sumptuous folio edition, published by subscription in 1688, owed much of its success to Lord Somers's exertions.
Next comes Elijah Fenton's ' Life of Milton' (pp. xxviii), and a postscript giving the author's connecting lines between the eighth and twelfth books, and some new additions in other places of the poem.
The commendatory poems, in Latin by Samuel Barrow, M.D., in English by Andrew Marvel, originally prefixed to the second edition in 1674, follow, and the paragraph headed the 'Verse,' defending the absence of rime.
Then come the twelve books in order, each with the argument prefixed and with the illustrations designed by Hayman, and engraved by J. S. Muller, for Bishop Newton's edition of Milton, published in 1749. There are also numerous vignettes and tail-pieces, as well as Vertue's portrait of Milton. The book is in its original leather binding, and has belonged at various dates between 1790 and 1815 to Betty Dosson and Elizabeth Durston, of Shapwick, Somerset.
The difficulty is to reconcile the dates of the various parts of the book. The date 1751 and Hayman's illustrations suggest Bishop Newton's edition, but the first volume of that, published in 1749, had a life and elaborate notes, which this book does not contain, nor is there anything to indicate that it is a second or abridged edition.
Can it be a composite volume pieced together by some collector?
J. A. HEWITT, Canon. Cradock, S.A.
DETTINGEN TROPHIES. Salmon's 'Modern History : or the Present State of all Nations,
