F.Q.

Coins of Gandophares.—­Coins of Gandophares, an Indian prince, are described by Prinsep, Jour.  Asiatic Soc.  Bengal, and in Wilson’s Asiana.  The name is met with in the legends of St. Thomas can it be found elsewhere?

F.Q.

Satirical Medals.—­Is any printed account to be found of a very elaborately executed series of caricature medals relating to the revolution of 1688?

F.Q.

* * * * *

REPLIES.

GAUDENTIO DI LUCCA.

(Vol. ii., p. 247.)

The work entitled The Adventures of Sig.  Gaudentio di Lucca was published at London in 1737, in 1 vol. 8vo.  It purports to be a translation from the Italian, by E.T.  Gent but this is a mere fiction.  The work is evidently an English composition.  It belongs to the class of Voyages Imaginaires, and its main object is to describe the institutions and manners of the Mezoranians, an Utopian community, supposed to exist in the centre of Africa.  Sig.  Gaudentio is able, by an accident, to visit this people, by the way of Egypt, and to return to Europe; he resides at Bologna, where he falls under the suspicion of the Inquisition, and having been brought before that tribunal, he describes his former life, and his adventures in the country of the Mezoranians.

A second London edition of this work, of the date of 1748, is mentioned in the Gentleman’s Magazine for Jan. 1777.  There is an edition in 12mo., printed at Edinburgh, 1761.  And there is another London edition, in 8vo., of the year 1786.  Copies of the editions of 1737 and 1786 are in the British Museum.

There are two French translations of the work.  One is of the date 1746, under the title of Memoires de Gaudentio di Lucca.  The second, of 1754, by M. Dupuy Demportes, speaks of the first having been made by an Englishman named Milts; but the person and name appear to be fictitious.  The first translation is said by Barbier, Dict. des Anonymes, No. 11,409, to have been revised by the Chevalier de Saint Germain, who made additions to it of his own invention.  The second translation is reprinted in the collection of Voyages Imaginaires, Amsterdam et Paris, 1787, tom. vi.

An anonymous writer in the Gent.  Mag. for Jan. 1777, vol. xlvii., p. 13., speaking of Bishop Berkeley, says that “the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca have been generally attributed to him.”  The writer of the note added to the Life of Berkeley in Kippis’s Biogr.  Brit., 1780, vol. ii. p. 261., quotes this statement, and adds that the work is ascribed to him by the booksellers in their printed catalogues.  This writer thinks that the authorship of Bp.  Berkeley is consistent with the internal evidence of the book but he furnishes no positive testimony on the subject. {299}