34 NOTES AND QUERIES. ' NECK OB NOTHING ' : AUTHOR WANTED | (12 S. viii. 509). This satirical piece has' been very generally attributed to Samuel I Wesley, eldest son of the rector of Epworth, first a scholar, and afterwards for nearly twenty years usher, of Westminster School. The piece is reprinted, with an article on ! the same, in ' N. & Q.,' 2 S. ii. 361 (Nov. 8, 1856). A. R. BENTEN. I MR. CLEMENT SHORTER will find an answer to his query given in the pages of !
- N. & Q.' just upon forty years ago, under j
the note ' Edmund Curll, Bookseller ' by i the REV. J. I. DREDGE : [It] was the production of Sam. Wesley, M.A., jun.. and will be found in the edition of his poems by Mr. Nichols, 1862, pp. 304-11. Mr. Wesley was then the head usher of Westminster School (see 6 S. iv. 98). ,, MR. EDWARD SOLLY had a note about | Wesley's ushership at the school (p. 112), to j which MR. DREDGE replied at p. 171, cor- j recting MR. SOLLY in one remark he made | about the poem, and continuing : Mr. Wesley's brochure was not an epistle or a j letter to John Dunton. He cleverly personates ! Dunton, and designates his piece Neck or Nothing : a Consolatory Letter from Mr. Dunton to Mr. Cll, &c. From a further note by MR. SOLLY I will quote only a couple of sentences : He very ingeniously adopts the [name and style of his uncle, John Dunton, by prefixing the j words " From Mr. D-nt-n to Mr. C-rll." John Dunton was then alive, and many readers might imagine that he really was the author. The 'D.N.B.' (lx., p. 317), under Samuel W T esley the younger (1691-1739), says that many of his poems were published separately ('Neck or Nothing,' 1716). An account of the incident is given in the ' D.N.B.' (xiii., p. 327) under Curll (1675-1747). The Westminster b y s en ' ticed the bookseller into Dean's Yard and tossed him in a blanket, and the incident is said to have been the theme of ' Neck or Nothing,' a poem " believed to have been written by Samuel, the elder brother of, John, Wesley." In the ' Curliad ' (p. 25) the victim states that I the torture was administered not with a blanket but a " rugg " and the whole controversy relating thereunto shall one d y see the light.^ The castigation of Curll took place on Aug. 3, 1716. It is rather interesting and curious that John Dunton also wrote a work called ' Neck or Nothing ' about the same time (see ' D.N.B.' vi., p. 236) : [Dunton] took to writing political pamphlets on the Whig side, one of which, called ' Neck or Nothing,' attacking Oxford and Bolingbroke, went through several editions, and is noticed with ironical praise in Swift's ' Public Spirit of the Whigs.' In 1723 [he published] an appeal to George I. in which his services are recounted and a list is given of forty of his political tracts beginning with ' Neck or Nothing.' The subject by Dunton is continued in ' Neck for Nothing : or, a Satyr upon Two Great Little Men now in the Ministry. . . . The whole written by Mr. John Dunton, author of Neck or Nothing.' n.d. Price Is. [May 27, 1719.] As the 20th edition of ' Neck or Nothing ' in prose was unprocurable in London, Dunton advertised ' Neck or Nothing ' in verse, printed for the author, Mr. John Dunton, price Qd. Another little volume in my possession is ' Mordecai's Dying Groans from the Fleet Prison ; or, The Case and Sufferings of Mr. John Dunton (author of ' Neck or Nothing ' ),' 1 7 1 7. This is full of the Duntons' troubles and is a different book from Wesley's. It is singular that these terms should be used by each. It suggests that Dunton may have had some connexion with W'esley's tract. Dunton, in his ' Life and Errors,' says he had very much written for him " both in verse and prose, though I shall not name over the titles, in regard I am altogether as unwilling to see my name at the bottom of them." The literature of Dunton, Curll and the Wesleys is a large one. I feel sure that now the founder of The Sphere has the clue, some important additions will be made to our knowledge of his rare tract. HERBERT E. NORRIS. Cirencester. STARESMORE OF FROLESWORTH (12 S. viii. 512). There are two pedigrees of this family in the ' Visitation of Leicestershire,' published by the Harleian Society in 1870. Nichols's ' History of Leicestershire ' and Burton's ' Description of Leicestershire ' also give pedigrees of it. There is a pedigree of one branch of the family in the ' Visita- tion of Northamptonshire,' edited by W. C. Metcalfe in 1887, and in Miscellanea Genea- logica et Heraldica, 4th series, i. 182, is a continuation of the pedigree from the time of the above Visitations to about 1660. H. J. B. CLEMENTS. PYE HOUSE (12 S. viii. 490). This was probably some venerable tuck-shop. There is nothing more recondite about it than there is in Eel Pie House or Chelsea Bun House, &c., &c. ST. SWITHIN.
