thin the rules of the Fleet, and possibly
(though Mr. Cunningham does not corroborate this) at some period of her
life resident in the more genteel quarters which Curll assigns to her. To
speak more strictly, and make the matter intelligible to any one who may
look at it in the Magazine, I should add that the first paragraph
(seventeen lines, on p. 78., dated from "Sherdington," and beginning "I
dined," says the letter writer, "last Saturday with Sir John Guise, at
Gloucester") is part of a letter purporting to be written by her lover;
while all the remainder (on pp. 79-81.) is from Corinna's answer to it.
The worthless and forgotten work of which these letters form a part,
consists of two volumes. The copy which I borrowed when I discovered what I
have stated, consisted of a first volume of the second edition (1736), and
a second volume of the first edition (1732). The title of the second volume
(which I give as belonging to the earlier edition) is:
"The Honourable Lovers: or, the second and last Volume of Pylades and
Corinna. Being the remainder of Love Letters, and other Pieces (in
Verse and Prose), which passed between Richard Gwinnett, Esq.; of Great
Shurdington, in Gloucestershire, and Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, Jun., of
Great Russel Street, Bloomsbury. To which is added, a Collection of
familiar Letters between Corinna, Mr. Norris, Capt. Hemington, Lady
Chudleigh, Lady Pakington, &c. &c. All faithfully published from their
original Manuscripts. London: printed in the Year M.DCC.XXXII. (Price
5s.)"
The title-page of the first volume (second edition) differs principally in
having the statement that the book was "printed for E. Curll" (whose name
does not appear in the earlier second volume, though perhaps it may have
done so in the first of that earlier edition), and an announcement that the
fidelity of the publication is "attested, by Sir Edward Northey, Knight."
The work is a farrago of low rubbish utterly beneath criticism; and I
should perhaps hardly think it worth while to say as much as I have said of
it, had it not been that, in turning it about, I could not help feeling a
suspicion that Daniel Defoe's hand was in the matter, at least so far as
that papers that had belonged to him might have come into Curll's hands,
and furnished materials for the work. It would be tedious to enter into
details; but the question seemed to me to be one of some interest, because,
in my own
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