Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/373

 ii. OCT. is, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

305

SOUTHEY'S ' OMNIANA,' 1812.

IN the * Bibliography of Coleridge,' which was published by Mr. Frank Rollings in 1900, and lor which I was in part responsible, this book was described not de visu, but on excellent authority as having been " Printed for Gale & Curtis, Paternoster Row." This description was followed by Dr. John Louis Haney in his recently issued * Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,' Philadelphia, 1903, p. 39. It has, however, been characterized as an error in the notice of Dr. Haney's book which appeared in the Athenaeum for 16 April, p. 498, the reviewer saying by way of correction that ** * Omniana ' appeared anonymously and from the house of Long- man, Hurst, Rees, Orme <fe Brown."

There is no doubt that the majority of copies of ' Omniana ' bear on the title-page the statement, " Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster Row." Nevertheless, there are grounds for thinking that that firm were not the original pub- lishers of the book, and that the biblio- graphers may after all be right.

If a copy of * Omniana ' in the original boards is carefully examined, it will be seen that the half-title and title-page of the first volume, and the title-page of the second volume, do not form part of the first octavo sheet, but have been separately pasted in. Had these been the original half-title and title-pages, it is reasonable to suppose that they would have formed a part of the preliminary sheet, which contains the table of " Contents." The second volume does not possess a half-title.

Further inspection will show that while the imprint on the last page of the first volume is " Pople, Miller, & Co. Printers, London," the imprint on the verso of the half- title is " W. Pople, Printer, 67 Chancery Lane." This latter imprint appears on the verso of the title-page, and at the bottom of the last page, of the second volume. Had the two volumes been printed at the same time, they would naturally have had the same imprint. The fact that W. Pople's imprint is on the verso of the title-page of this volume, instead of, as in the first volume, on the verso of the half-title, affords strong evidence that the second volume never had a half-title. And it is pretty clear that originally the first volume had no half-title, because in both volumes the " Contents " begin on p. [iii], the title- leaf consisting of pp. [i, ii]. Had there been originally a half-title to the first volume, the

half-title, one unnumbered leaf; title-page, pp. [i, ii] ; "Contents," pp. [iii]-ix.

From these facts it may be inferred that after the first volume had been printed off, and while the second was passing through the press, Pople dissolved partnership with Miller, and that during the same period the original publishers transferred the book to Messrs. Longman, whereupon the old title- pages were cancelled and new ones substi- tuted. A few copies with the original title- pages may have got into circulation.

There is independent evidence in support of this view. 'Omniana' was published in October, 1812, but it had been under way for considerably over a year. A month after its publication, Southey wrote that "Coleridge kept the press waiting fifteen months for an unfinished article, so that at last I ordered the sheet in which it was begun to be can- celled, in despair" ('Letters of Robert Southey,' ii. 299, 5 November, 1812).

A shaky firm like Gale & Curtis probably could not support this long interval of wait- ing, and so the sheets were made over to Longmans. Not long afterwards Gale dis- solved partnership with Curtis, who took up an independent printing business. Gale entered into partnership with Rest Fenner, who was the publisher of 'Zapplya' and ' Sibylline Leaves,' but this association did not last long. Coleridge's tragedy 'Remorse,' which appeared in 1813, was printed "for" and " by " the same William Pople who had printed 'Omniana' the previous year.

With regard to the question of anonymity, it is true that Southey's name does not appear on the title-page of the book, but the printed back-label in both volumes reads : "Southey's | Omniana. | Vol. I. [II.]." A book which bears the name of the author on the back can scarcely be said to have appeared anonymously.* W. F. PRIDEAUX.

SPELLING REFORM. This is a subject which bristles with such enormous difficulties that success is practically impossible. I refer, of course, to (using a now misleading phrase) the "vulgar tongue," and the reference is prompted by a perusal of the useful and interesting little volume 'Rules for Com- positors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford,' by Mr. Horace Hart, M.A., under the sanction and with the aid of Drs. Murray and Bradley. The booklet is in its seven-

'N. & Q.,' but it differs in this particular: that there is perhaps more learned nonsense in it than can be found in any other book, except Southey'a Commonplace Books.
 * 'Omniana' bears a distant resemblance to