Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/45

 12 S.I. JAN. 8, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

A Bibliography of Unfinished Books in the English

Language, icith Annotations. By Albert E.

Corns and Archibald Sparke. (Quaritch, 10s. 6d.

net.)

COURAGE is a quality much needed at the present day, and the two contributors to ' N. & Q. whose names figure on the title-page of this volume must possess it in abundance, or they would never have ventured on the attempt to supply a record of all the authors who have set pen to paper in English, and failed to finish the works they had begun. Were they haunted by no fear lest they themselves should but add one more example for some bibliographer of a later day ?

Mr. Sparke contributes a somewhat slight but pleasant Introduction, which draws attention to the more picturesque or pathetic associations connected with some of these unfinished pro- ductions. In many cases failure was due to the fact that the work had been planned on too vast a scale for the physical powers of the author or even for the span of working life allotted to man, Buckle's ' History of Civilization ' and Macaulay's ' History of England ' being the outstanding examples of this ; in others, such as Thackeray with Denis Duval ' and Dickens with ' Edwm Drood,' the pen suddenly dropped from the hand of a writer who might reasonably have expected to " finish that stint."

The book is arranged as an Author Index, works being entered under the name or pseudonym of the author or editor. Where the work is without any indication of authorship it is placed under the first word of the title. Supplementary notes have been added under many entries, as, for instance, Diderot, E. A. Freeman, and Raleigh.

We are told concerning Solomon that " he spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall," and Messrs. Corns and Sparke are equally comprehensive in their scheme espe- cially as regards the hyssop including every- thing from unfinished encyclopasdias or bio- graphical dictionaries in several volumes to four- page poetical tracts at a penny each, such as Thomas Whittle's ' Light in a Dark Lantern.'

There are, however, some very noticeable omissions. Thus, for example, Tyrrell's ' Chris- tianity at the Cross-roads ' is not mentioned. Among pur English classics Jane Austen does not appear in the alphabet ; nor Keats, though he is mentioned in the Introduction ; nor Shelley, except as the author of the unfinished ' Essay on Christianity.' Again, the notice under Byron refers not to ' Don Juan,' as might have been expected this is not even mentioned but to an edition of the poet projected and partly carried put by Henley, which should surely have been indexed under Henley's name. The same remark would apply to Sala's unfinished edition of Lamb's letters. It would probably have been a good plan to make a separate alphabet of un- finished editions and translations. No doubt these and other examples we could mention were excluded upon some principle, but that principle should certainly have been exp lamed, and also, we may add, justified.

The volume before us is printed in good clear type, but it is inevitable that in thousands

of bibliographical descriptions and proper names some slips should occur. Thus the references under Doyle and Drayton to " 'N. & Q.,' 85, 5, p. 95," and "85, 5, p. 96," should be to 8 S. 5, 95 r and 8 S. 5, 96. " Berkenhont " on p. 22 should, be Berkenhout ; and on p. 25, s.v. ' Bible : Psalms,' " Harne " should be Home. In the ' List of Authorities Consulted ' Wood's ' Athense Oxoni- enses ' is printed " Oxoniensis," and similarly under the author's name. ' The Virgin Mary misrepresented by the Roman Church ' is on p. 176 rightly attributed to Dr. John Patrick,, but under ' Virgin Mary ' the reader is referred to Simon Patrick. Both brothers were con- troversialists. Two entries under Virgil are un- fortunate : " The JEnid [sic] of Virgil translated into Scottish verse by Garvin [Gawin] Douglas,. Bishop of Dunkeld," and " The ^Enid [sic] ? in English hexameters, rendered foot for foot,, for [by] W. Grist."

In spite of imperfections the work con- tains a very large number of rather obscure items, which it would be troublesome to hunt up for oneself, and the student who may chance to be in need of them may well be grateful to the compilers.

THE Fortnightly Review gives a good deal of space to literature, but we confess we found the productions in question rather thin. Thus Mr.. Walter Sichel's ' Byron as a War Poet ' praises without much discernment, neither allowing for Byron's rhetorical gift, which makes him apt to write brilliantly on any subject not specially upon war nor pointing out where he follows the fashion of the day which demanded of poetry a certain flash and speed, nor comparing him with the contemporaries nearest akin to him. Mr; W. W. Crotch on ' Dickens and the War ' treats an untoward subject with that futility which is apt to dog the ways of admirers, and befalls the admirers of Dickens more conspicuously than most. ' Anatple France as Saviour of Society ' is a title by which Mr. J. H. Harley does injustice to an interesting essay, for his views are better re- strained and justified than the reader might expect. Mr. Arthur Waugh writes with sympathy and good judgment on Stephen Phillips ; and Mr. Arthur A. Baumann has a good study of Dr. Johnson, the point of it being to show how much more thorough a cynic Johnson was than most of us remembered. There seems, however, a little exaggeration about declaring that the worthy doctor's " sane and stimulating cynicism . . . will outwear the world, "and hoping it will be "the dominant intellectual note of the century which lies before us." So much for literature ; the articles on the war and on the political and econo- mic problems connected with it are what con- stitute the real value of the number.

THE first Nineteenth Century of the new year has much to recommend it to readers' attention,, though little in the way of curious or literary interest. Capt. R. W. Hallows contributes a set of letters to and from one A. C. Stanhope, cousin of the Lord Chesterfield of the ' Letters,' and son of the man who succeeded to the title. These, tied up in a packet, fell out of a volume of sermons which was about to be thrown away with other volumes of the same kind as litter; none of them has been printed before. It cannot be said that their intrinsic value is very great,.