Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/419

 ii s. v. MAY 4, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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coupled with the extraordinary force and vividness of his power of visualizing, as shown in his work, seems to warrant a con- jecture that, to himself, words were not the primary representation of an idea. It might explain, too, both his occasional rather curious neglect of dramatic propriety in the use of words and phrases ; and also the splendid completeness with which, not rarely, word and image are fused into one. This, for instance, of bells :

I say that from the pressure of this spring Began the chime and interchange of bells. Ever one whisper, and one whisper more,* And just one whisper for the silvery last, Till all at once a-row the bronze-throats burst

Into a lamm

Something longer sustained, but also more obviously onomatopoeic, is to be found in ' How They brought the Good News from Ghent.' An old friend of mine, to satisfy her children, once wrote to Browning, and asked him whether the famous ride had any historical origin ; and he answered No, but that it was suggested to him by the racing of waves past his porthole in the Bay of Biscay. For the direct, half -mystical realization of the ultimate unity of all sense-perceptions, he has found for us the classical expression :

I know not if, save in this, such power lie allowed to man,

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.

Nor. surely, will time ever abrogate anything of the value to the world of those love poems which were the outcome of his own one adventure. However many scribblers may scribble about them, their uniqueness remains safe alike from the impertinence of criticism and the worse impertinence of praise, enslirining as they do that highest kind of secret which by being told is most securely kept.

PEREGRIXUS.

THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LONDON.

THE January number of The Library con- tains a suggestive article by Mr. Thomas W. Huck on this subject, which, as that gentle- man points out, as a practical scheme owes its inception mainly to some writers in ' X. cV Q.' Mr. Huck gives a general view of the principles on which he and his assist- ants are working in order to give effect to tliis great project. Those principles seem to me to be generally excellent, and it is pleasant to see that the services of so many ladies have been enlisted in the task. There are. however, some points of detail, especially

in regard to classification, which Mr. Huck admits are subject to revision and expan- sion; and as I have been a collector of London books for the last forty years, and' during that period have written sufficient papers on this topic, in this and other journals, to fill a good-sized volume, and have, moreover, served an apprenticeship in the art and mystery of bibliography, it is on these points that I venture to offer a few remarks.

The Bibliography is divided into six main classes, which, in the " present state of" development r; of the scheme, are as follows : I. Ecclesiastical ; II. Historical and Admini- strative ; III. Social, Economic, and Indus- trial ; IV. Geographical, Geological, &c. ; V. Sources ; VI. Topographical. These classes are subdivided into various headings., each dealing with a separate phase of the main subject. Mr. Huck also quotes a system of classification which was drawn up some years ago by Mr. Charles Welch, and seems to me in some respects superior to that which has been adopted. The first question that suggests itself is why ' Sources ' should be relegated to the fifth place in the classification. One would naturally think that this class should hold the first place,- as being the jons et origo of all subsequent literature on the subject. The principal sources of the history and topography of London are the archives that have been preserved in Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Guildhall, the British Museum, and other depositories. But Mr. Huck leDs us that though the original idea was to work up these manuscript collections, it was decided after considerable discussion to deal with the printed matter first. There may have been good reasons for this deci- sion, but, in the interests of scientific biblio- graphy, I think it is to be regretted. Re- search amongst original records is the foundation of historical and topographical' knowledge, and it is his reliance on this material that lends so much of value to Mr. C. L. Kingsford's work on Stow and the Clvronicles.

A class of books that strikes one by its absence is that of the General Surveys and Descriptions of London that have been written from the days of Stow to those of Sir Walter Besant. It is stated on p. 47 of Mr. Huck's article that Stow's ' Survey ' is a ' Source,' and I presume that this book, together with the others to which I have

i referred, comes under the heading of ' De- scriptions.' But Stow's book is only a

! ' Soxirce ' to a verv limited extent. His