NOTES AND QUERIES
153
For once Hotten had backed a loser with the publication of Under the Peak; certainly no further edition or impression was called for by a panting public. We do not know whether Mercer continued to write verses until his death at Reading on 23 May, 1879, but it seems likely for Mercer had all the enthusiasm of the bad poet.11
NOTES
1 One would like to cite P. G. Wodehouse, the son of H. E. Wodehouse, a Hong Kong Cadet Officer; but P. G. Wodehouse was born at Guildford, Surrey, and did not spend much time in Hong Kong. After leaving Dulwich College he worked for two years at the London branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
2 London, 1930.
3 For biographical information on Mercer see particularly G. B. Endacott, A Biographical Sketch-Book of Early Hong Kong, Singapore, 1962, pp. 79-83. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, 2 vols., Hong Kong, 1898, provides many details about Mercer's official career.
4 For information on Hotten see especially Ronald Pearsall, The Worm in the Bud, London, 1969, pp. 387-90; and Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians, New York, 1966, pp. 68-75. Hotten was born in Clerkenwell, London, and showed an early interest in books and bookshops and achieved the dubious distinction of having been struck in a bookshop by the irate historian Macaulay. In 1848 Hotten went to America and there acquired a good knowledge of American literature. On his return to London he published the works of a number of American authors, including Bret Harte's 'heathen Chinee' poems.
5 An account of Swinburne's dealings with Payne of Moxon's is given in Humphrey Hare's Swinburne, London, 1949, pp. 109-134.
6 Written by Richard Payne Knight in 1786 but reprinted by Hotten in 1865.
7 Written by John Davenport and published in 1873. In 1872 Hotten reprinted seven works on flagellation alone.
* Copies of both Under the Peak and Addresses are in the British Museum. The Library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, London, has a copy of Under the Peak, now a very scarce book.
9 p. 4. 10 p. 6.
11 Several cadets maintained their interest in classical studies after reaching Hong Kong, notably (later Sir) Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). In 1911 Clementi published his translation, with apparatus criticus and explanatory notes, of the Pervigilium Veneris. In a preface to a later edition of this work, published by B. H. Blackwell of Oxford (3rd edition, 1936), Clementi tells us that he worked on his manuscript in Hong Kong and during periods of leave in England and Europe.
Hong Kong, March, 1973.
HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE