“Scholia” to the Florida Tristram Shandy Annotations

103 the contrite Christie after he had married three women, fled to America, and been prosecuted in Derby for bigamy. A British university acquired from Lawson’s 302 the 1st ed. of Defoe’s Letter to a Dissenter from his Friend at the Hague, Concerning the Penal Laws and the Test (‘‘The Hague: Verdraeght,’’1688, in a colophon), 4 pp. 4to, Wing D.836A; Furbank & Owens #3, noting it was probably printed in London with ‘‘Verdraeght’’ suggesting the verb ‘‘verdragen,’’‘‘to betolerant.’’TheFolgerboughtfromXimenes’sM6Treasondetected, in an Answer to that . . . libel, entitled, English Advice to the Freeholders (S. Keimer, 1715), 8vo; Moore 292. Since Keimer published other Defoe works at this time and a page of advts. includes ‘‘five pamphlets by Keimer, all of which have been assigned to Defoe in the past,’’ Ximenes would consider Defoe the likely author (F&O reject it as below Defoe in quality). The Folger also bought from Ximenes’s M7 a rare pamphlet replying to speeches by William Shippen et al., attributed to Defoe by Max Novak in 1975: Two Arguments never brought yet [answering speeches] . . . against continuing the present establishment of the Army (Boreham, 1718). Assume London where no place is given. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Edward Bayntun-Coward, Stuart Bennett, James Burmester, Christopher Edwards, A. C. Elias, Jr., James Fenning, Alan Grant, Theodore Hofmann, Thomas Lawson, Hermann J. Real, Julian Rota, and Stephen Weissman. Penn State University—DuBois ‘‘SCHOLIA’’ TO THE FLORIDA TRISTRAM SHANDY ANNOTATIONS In what might be Tristram’s most telling anticipation of postmodernist theory, he assures us in chapter 5 of volume VI that he is ‘‘resolved never to read any book’’ but his own, as long as he lives. The Florida editors, who have noted numerous proverbial echoes in the pages of Tristram Shandy, failed to catch this one, and a new note is suggested: 661.17–18 I am resolved . . . my own] A proverbial indication of stupidity and ignorance, whether or not Tristram knows it. ‘‘Like the Parson of Saddleworth , who could read in no book but his own’’ is listed as a proverb of Cheshire origin (though Saddleworth is in Yorkshire ) in John Ray’s A Collection of English Proverbs (Cambridge, 1670), 209. An earlier instance is in The Experienc’d Angler (1662) by Colonel Robert Venables , forwhomanyambitiousanglermust spend time in all kinds of waters: ‘‘otherwise (through want of experience) he will be like the man that could read in no book but his own’’ (82–83). Cf. also Sir Charles Sedley’s comedy Bellamira; or, TheMistress(1687),I.iii.16–17,inwhich a confidante declares to the heroine of her gulled lover: ‘‘Sure you think he can read in no Book but hisown, oryoudurstnever use him so.’’These are all Restorationexamples , but the proverb was alive and well in Sterne’s day, when Fielding plays on it with reference to Blifil’smaliciously affected piety: ‘‘Some People have been noted to be able to read in no Book but their own. On the contrary, from the Time when Master Blifil was first possessed of this Bible, he never used any other’’(Tom Jones, ed. Martin C. Battestin and Fred- 104 son Bowers [Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975], 144 [III.9]). Thomas Keymer St. Anne’s College, Oxford In volume VII, chapter 41, Tristram alludes to the proverbialwindinessofAvignon ; the editors note (3:492–93) that this refers to the mistral, ‘‘the northwest wind that sweeps down the Rhone valley’’and quote the one proverb they were able to locate, ‘‘Avignon venteuse, sans vent contagieuse’’ (‘‘Avignon is windy, without being contagious’’). A second proverb , perhaps more apropos, should be added to the present note. 644.25–26 and hearing . . . as a proverb ] The 1911 edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica, s.v. Avignon, offers the following as a ‘‘popular’’ if ‘‘somewhat exaggerated’’ proverb: ‘‘Avenie ventosa, sine vento venenosa, cum vento fastidiosa ’’ (‘‘windy Avignon, pest-ridden when there is no wind, wind-pestered when there is’’). Melvyn New University of Florida SCRIBLERIANA Three associates on The Scriblerian have stepped down: Cedric D. Reverand III (to whom we extend congratulations as the new editor of EighteenthCentury Life), Kathryn Temple, and Robert M. Phiddian (our Australian advisor). Their contributions will be...