Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/494

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404 NOTES AND QUERIES. a is. xov. 19,1.21. some persons dressed in the same garb uttering stupidities ? At hearing them scorn all work and condemn works full of genius, of kindness, of learning merely because they don't happen to be published by one of our firms, at hearing them give an evil name to celebrated men merely be- cause they have heard that the latter are on friendly terms with an opponent, as 'if everyone should sever connection with those who do not bow where we bow ? At hearing them, term Atheists, and at least Jansenists, those who frequent other churches than our own ? At hearing them label as a convinced heretic Cardi- nal Noris, whose great piety and religion have earned him the purple ? * Maffei is purely modern is his attitude and his style has a peculiar sparkle, wit and irony combined, which makes the read- ing of his letters delightful indeed. In him Settecentescan journalism reaches its highest level and the preface to the Osserva- zioni letterarie only reaffirms the programme outlined in the Giornale de' Letterati. On this model the later journals are formed without any genuine development being noticeable until the time of the Fruslra letteraria and the Osservatore, where the influence of Addison's Spectator only brings the attention of Italian letterati to those ideals advocated by Maffei, even if, neither in the Giornale de' Letterati nor in the Osservazioni letterarie, with the possible exception of the criticism devoted to the ' Paragone ' of Calepio, realization is given to theory. In this sense literary dictatorship in the arly Settecento revolved round the two figures of Muratori and Maffei, and it might possibly have been in a spirit of rivalry that Maffei penned the essay on the poetry of Maggi as a counterweight to Muratori 's biography of the same poet f ; the dis- pute between Muratori and Maffei, forms a considerable part of the Osservazioni lette- rarie not a dispute on literary questions but rather on historical, with an occasional glance at criticism. The last journalistic contributions of Maffei were sent to Lami's journal. J With the Giornale de 1 Letterati the journalism of the early Sette- cento begins and ends, and its essential

  • The controversy between Maffei and

Bernardi is found in three letters written by Maffei, the second published in Mantua by the Eredi Osanna in 1712 and the third left in MSS. in the Biblioteca Capitolare Veronese ; and in P. A. Bernard! : * Lettere tre ad an Cav. E. sopra i due primi tornetti ecc. (Padova, c. 1711). t Gf. * Giudicio sopra le poesie liriche del sig. C. M. Maggi, steso in una lettera al sign or , conte Antonio Garzadoro ' (Venezia : Pavino, 1706). J Cf. Osservazioni letterarie (Verona : Vallarsi, 1737-40), vol. iv. I worthlessness from the purely literary point I of view can be seen when we consider that j it published no essay, no study which sur- i vived publication in its pages. It gave, | however, a bibliographical survey of the

eighteenth-century literature, a survey to

I all intents and purposes complete and of infinite value not only to the later Sette- ! centescan critics but to the literary historian of the entire century. Literary histori- i ography owes to it material if not inspira- i tion. HUGH QUIGLEY. GLASS-PAINTEKS OF YORK. (12 S. viii. 127, 323, 364, 406, 442, 485; ix. 21, 61, 103, 163, 204, 245, 268, 323, 363.) WILLIAM PECKITT (continued). THE writer's father, Mr. J. W. Knowles, when a young man, was taken and intro- duced to Miss Peckitt at her house on Friars Walls, which was all that remained to her of the property bequeathed to her by her father, the rest having been sold to form the present Peckitt Street. He describes her as a little woman of a thin, shrivelled appearance, but keen-sighted, dressed in a sort of dressing-gown with a cape to it made of stuff like printed chintz and with a frilled cap on her head. Though the catalogue of her effects sold by auction after her death shows she was possessed of furniture and articles of value, she had no ready money, and there can be little doubt she frequently suffered from sheer want. She was accustomed to give trades- men and tax collectors articles of jewelry, &c., to sell in order to satisfy their claims. On one occasion, in response to the im- portunity of a rate collector she gave him a pair of paste and silver shoe-buckles which the poor soul imagined was worth 100. It did not realize the amount of the rates. In his will Peckitt had directed that all his painted and engraved glass, " with fourteen oil paintings of figures as large as life and other cartoon drawings, also my receipts, colours, and instruments for painting and staining of Glass," should be " advertised and disposed of as soon as might be." That this was done as far as advertising is concerned is shown by an advertisement in The York Chronicle of July 7, 1796, which announced that " The sale of the Collection of Painted and Stained Glass and Royal Patent Engraved Glass is continued at Mrs. Peckitt's Frier Walls