Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/39

 9 th S. XI. JAN. 10, 1903.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

31

rect, and that all the errors were due to hi: " reviser."

There is no need to go into the history pi the revision; but the broad fact is that in undertaking it I was bound by certain con ditions, of which the main one was that i was to remain MR. SHEPHERD'S bibliography and not mine. Had I been my own master in the matter, I should have compiled it on very different lines. All that I really under- took to do was to see the work through the press and correct the more obvious oversights To build up a complete Coleridge biblio- graphy on the shaky foundations laid by MR. SHEPHERD was not within the scope of my undertaking, and I do not hesitate to say that any one would have found it an impossible task.

I explained in a former note (9 th S. x. 310) that there were certain errors of fact in the bibliography that came from a too implicit trust in MR. SHEPHERD'S accuracy, and I corrected one or two of them. Those pointed out by MR. HUTCHINSON belong to the same category. Any one who will take the trouble to refer to MR. SHEPHERD'S "respectable attempt" in the columns of 'N. & Q.' will find them all there. It may be said that it was the duty of a "reviser" to correct them. But where is the immaculate editor who never overlooks an error ? Mistakes are to be found in the notes to Mr. Dykes Campbell's edition of Coleridge, but this fact is not held to vitiate the value of the work as a whole. I do, how- ever, claim that, within reasonable limits of research, the revised edition is an improve- ment on the original, and 1 think that any fair-minded person will support this con- tention. MR. HUTCHINSON points out, as an error "of the kind most fatal in biblio- graphy," the omission of some letters of Coleridge on Maturin's tragedy of ' Bertram,' which appeared in 1816 in tho columns of the Courier. Now, if the reader will refer to MR. SHEPHERD'S 'Notes' (8 th S. vii. 402), he will see that in this "respectable attempt" that bibliographer merely says that Cole- ridge sent some contributions in prose and verse to the Courier, signed "Esteesi" or "Siesti," and that a file of that newspaper is in the Library of the British Museum. Not a single one of these contributions is mentioned. But if the reader turns to the "revised" edition, p. 36, he will see that I have specified several of the pieces in prose and verse that were contributed by Coleridge to the Courier. When I undertook the revision of the ' Bibliography,' I certainly never contemplated the inclusion of every piece in prose and verse contributed by Cole-

ridge to the newspaper press. And yet the omission of a few letters is characterized by MR. HUTCHINSON as a "fatal error "! I should be glad if MR. HUTCHINSON would refer me to the bibliography of any voluminous writer which is entirely guiltless on this score. I may add that it gave me some trouble to compile the chronological list of Coleridge's contributions to the Morning Post on pp. 20- 24, but I guarded myself by stating that the list did not claim to be exhaustive. This proviso is generally understood by biblio- graphers to apply to contributions to periodi- cals.

I am afraid I cannot follow the ingenious argument by which MR. HUTCHINSON seeks to justify his statement that the title-page of ' Christabel ' as given by H. T. was "correct." To a simple-minded person there are no degrees in correctness, and it is for the readers of 1 N. & Q.' to judge whether a different standard of accuracy should be applied to this journal from that which is obligatory in the case of a " formal bibliography." It is all very well to argue that the culinary standard which does well enough for the mixed company at Todgers's is of a different order from that which meets the requirements of a private family ; but I fancy, nevertheless, that the readers of ' N. & Q.' prefer to have their mutton pro- perly roasted. W. F. PRIDE AUX.

KIEFF, KIEV, KIEW (9 th S. xi. 8). Kief would be lucky if spelt in only three ways in ' European tongues." Most such words have
 * our common forms as, e.g., Popov, Popow,

Popof, Popoff. Turgeniew, like many other Russians, was not uniform in the " European " spellings of his own name. How can there be an "ought" when the Russian letters which 3xactly represent Russian sounds do not answer either to the sounds or to the letters )f other tongues ? The English translator of Resurrection ' calls the author Tolstoy, and >ne of his characters Bay. The French trans- ator calls the author Tolstoi, and this cha- racter Be. Why should one be " right " and he other " wrong " 1 D.

AN HEUSKARIAN RARITY IN THE BODLEIAN ^IBRARY (9 th S. viii. 377 ; ix. Ill, 415 ; x. 14, 97, 191, 496). I find the line that I quoted in all the editions to which I have access ; so I hink that it must be Shakspeare's own. If '. remember rightly, there is in Gibber's version the spurious line,

Off with his head ! So much for Buckingham. That is not in the editions to which I refer.

I dare say that the question of a or an before