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NOTES AND QUERIES, [u s. VHL NOV. s, 1913.
appearance of the fraud which I have subjected to so lengthy an examination. The spot, now marked by Charles I's statue, was very limited in area. Only Axtell and Hacker were executed at Tyburn.
It is much to be hoped that a really critical edition of 'State Trials' will some day be given to the world, in which not only the 'Speeches and Prayers,' 'Depositions about the Fire,' and other impostures will be wanting, but also the prefaces and conclusions of the really genuine documents will be given in their integrity as, for instance, the long introduction by the Rev. Wm. Hill, the informer, to the trial of Thos. Tonge and the rest, in 1662. There is not a volume but needs overhauling. J. B. Williams.
CHARLES LAMB'S "CANCELLARIUS
MAGNUS"
I.
For years students of Lamb have realized the need of an earlier authority for George Dyer's nickname, "Cancellarius Magnus," than Southey's letter to Grosvenor Bedford of 22 March. 1817. In W. Carew Hazlitt's 'Mary and Charles Lamb'[1] (1874, p. 202) this letter of Southey's is named as the authority, and the year as 1807 (sic). Mr. Lucas in his 'Life of Charles Lamb' (1905, i. 155) says that "Lamb called Dyer 'Cancellarius Major' [sic]"; and, in his 'Works of Charles and Mary Lamb' (1905, vi. 208), that " Southey tells Grosvener [sic] Bedford in one of his letters that Lamb gave Dyer the title of Cancellarius Magnus." Canon Ainger, however, in his 'Letters of Charles Lamb' (1891, i. 326), gives the above reference correctly, and acknowledges his indebtedness for it to that man of accuracy and many findings, J. Dykes Campbell. Canon Ainger's note runs:—
"Writing to G. C. Bedford, 22d March, 1817, respecting one of his books then printing, Southey says, 'Now, pray, be speedy with the cancels. On such an occasion Lamb gave G. Dyer the title of "Cancellarius Magnus"' (Letters of B. S., i. 428)."
In the thin quarto 'Biographical Memoir of John Rickman,' by his son, a few copies of which were made up in 1841 from proof-sheets of The Gentleman's Magazine articles, for distribution among friends, mention is made, on the last page, of Rickman's letters to and from Southey; and the recollection of Rickman's friendship for Dyer, and that Dyer had been the means of making Rickman and Lamb known to each other,[2] fitting in, as it does, with this allusion to Rickman's correspondence with Southey, is at least suggestive of a possible source of the information passed on by Southey to Bedford in 1817 that Lamb had dubbed Dyer "Cancellarius Magnus."
On 27 Dec., 1800, Lamb, it will be remembered, wrote to Manning:—
"At length George Dyer's phrenesis has come to a crisis; he is raging and furiously mad. I waited upon the heathen, Thursday was a se'nnight. . . .he could not maintain his jumping mind in a right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's Inn clock. He must go to printer's immediately—the most unlucky accident—he had struck off five hundred impressions of his Poems, which were ready for delivery to subscribers, and the Preface must be expunged. There were eighty pages of Preface, and not till that morning had he discovered that in the very first page of said Preface he had set out with a principle of Criticism fundamentally wrong, which vitiated all his following reasoning. The Preface must be expunged, although it cost him 30l.—the lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness. George is as obstinate as a Primitive Christian—and wards and parries off all thrusts with one unanswerable fence;—'Sir, it 's of great consequence that the world is not misled!'"
On this same 27 Dec., 1800, Rickman wrote to Southey:—
"G. Dyer has your letter. He dines with me to-day. I am about to attempt to persuade him not to cancel a long preface of 80 or 90 pages, which he has prefixed to a vol. of poems, printed but not published—and this, because forsooth, he thinks he has committed himself in some opinion given of some poet or other. Thus in this idle punctilio, he is likely to waste 20l. or 30l. . . . . But his exertion of a fanciful literary justice is honourable to him I wish it was not expensive. He exhibits an obstinacy on this point, which I fear I shall not conquer."
There days later, in a continuation of the above, Rickman returned to the Dyer episode:—
"I have a very pleasant neighbour opposite, C. Lamb. . . .G. Dyer is miserable about his unfortunate preface. [ am quite vexed at his obstinacy. Lamb calls him Cancellarius Magnus, The Lord High Canceller."
The Rickman letter from which I have taken the above extract is to be found in a volume of considerable interest to all lovers of Lamb, 'The Life and Letters of John Rickman,' by Orlo Williams (Constable, 1912); and it gives us what has been so long
