Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/498

 490

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. DEC. 20, 1002.

here so much amiss? Does COL. PRIDEAUX really think that I either could or should have described as correct, without any quali- fication whatsoever, a bibliographical tran- script in which there are no fewer than five typographical errors ? In this transcript a semicolon is substituted for the original colon, a comma is intruded, another comma is substituted for the original full stop, and two hyphens are omitted. Whether these five errors, severally or collectively, are of much or little intrinsic importance is not the point. We are now dealing with biblio- graphy, which, as everybody knows, is largely concerned with such minutiae. COL. PRIDEAUX, who, in his reply of 15 November (ante, p. 389), is careful to note the omission of a colon in H. T.'s copy of the title-page (p. 326 \ is displeased with me for having failed to do so and for having described H. T.'s copy, wanting the said colon, as "correct." 1 may say that I too had observed H. T.'s omission ; but occurring as it did, not in a formal bibliography, but in the course of a query in this journal, I did not deem it necessary to prolong my reply by calling special attention to it. H. T. might not have seen a proof ; the colon might have been in his copy, and even in the proof, but might have been squeezed out, as so often happens with a point coming, as this one would, at the very end of the line. Any- how, I did not apply to H. T.'s copy the same standard of accuracy which students, one and all, would apply to the collations of a bibliography ; and if in so doing 1 erred, I cheerfully confess my fault. I characterized H. T.'s copy of the title-page, which lacks one colon, as "correct " ; and for this act, let us say, of misplaced leniency COL. PRIDEAUX jumps upon me, while at the same time he complains because I have indicated the five "errors of punctuation, &c.," in his transcript. I have transgressed, that is, by noting, and again I have transgressed by having failed to note, certain minute inaccuracies of tran- scription. I should have duly pointed out H. T.'s one error, and have discreetly winked at the ' Bibliography's' five errors, and then, no doubt, all would have been well. Whether these five errors are chargeable to COL. PRIDEAUX or to the compositor is a question which that stout scapegoat and the colonel must settle between themselves. I bring no charge against any man ; I simply observe that in the collation of 'Christabel' five errors occur in the transcript of the title- page alone.

But, objects COL. PRIDEAUX, just because of these five minute errors MR. HUTCHINSON

condemns the whole bibliography ! Not so ; I assert that the book is useless to the serious student because it exhibits many errors " of the kind most fatal in bibliography." COL. PRIDEAUX'S attitude compels me to point out one or two of these. Take, then, the section headed 'Contributions in Prose and Verse to the Courier' (p. 36). Not a syllable do we find here about Coleridge's letters on Maturin's tragedy of ' Bertram,' five in number, which appeared, at short intervals, from Thursday, 29 August, 1816, onwards, in the columns of the Courier ! These letters were, I may observe in passing, reprinted in 1817 (with some omissions from the first of the series) in 'Biographia Literaria.' Again, take the statement on p. 56: "An original poem of Coleridge's, entitled ' Water-Ballad,' was contributed to the Athenaeum in 1831." So far back as 3 June, 1893, I explained in the columns of the Academy (see also Athenaeum, No. 3656, 20 Nov., 1897, p. 702) that the ' Water-Ballad ' is a translation of Francois Antoine Eugene de Planard's ' Barcarolle de Marie,' an incidental song in that writer's opera of ' Marie ' (set to music by Herold). The 'Barcarolle' will be found on p. 189 of Masson's 'La Lyre Fran9aise.' Here, for the present, I must stop. In a future note I hope (Editor permitting) to deal with COL. PRIDEAUX'S positions touching Hazlitt and the -Edinburgh Jteview. THOMAS HUTCHINSON.

MR. T. HUTCHINSON merits our thanks for his account of the interesting textual varia- tion at 11 8-9 of ' Christabel.' However, his advice to H. T. to eschew Coleridge biblio- graphies and to consult Mr. J. D. Campbell's notes is rather inopportune in this con- nexion ; for some unapparent reason, Mr. Campbell's notes, usually precise and far- reaching, do not even allude to the important variation in the passage in question. In fact, Prof. W. M. Tweedie in Modern Language Notes, xii. p. 191, made an inquiry concern- ing the source of the reading adopted in Campbell's text without a word of explana- tion ; and apparently no response to the query was forthcoming at that time (1897). Moreover, MR. HUTCHINSON needlessly ques- tions the accuracy of the late Richard Herne Shepherd's citation of a third edition of 'Christabel' in 1816. There is now a copy of that edition in the British Museum, listed in the Supplementary Catalogue.

JOHN Louis HANEY.

Central High School, Philadelphia.

"BusiLLis" (9 th S. x. 384). The late Rev. G. G. Perry, Canon of Lincoln, &c., in his