On the Difficulty of Correct Description of Books/On the Difficulty of Correct Description of Books
We have often had occasion, in articles contributed to this work, to notice error and difficulty arising out of incorrect or insufficient description of books. The study of bibliography, that is, of books as books, in all matters which are requisite to avoid the errors and difficulties just alluded to, has been left to librarians and to bibliomaniacs, as they have been called. Recent events, however, have brought bibliography into collision with the want of it, in a remarkble way.
The year 1850 turned the attention of literary men to the subject, both in England and France; but in very different ways in the two countries. In England, the report of the Royal Commission appointed to examine the state of the British Museum became public, and with it the evidence on which it was founded. This report and evidence contained the details of a severe contest between bibliographers on the one hand, and literary men opposed to bibliography on the other hand, as to the mode in which book-catalogues should be made. The report of the Commission, the comments of the leading reviews, and the subsequent silence of the journals which had for years attacked the librarians of the Museum, gave the victory to the advocates of detail sufficient for accuracy, as one side called it, or of unnecessary minuteness leading to confusion, as the other side called it. And the great extent to which both the antagonist philosophies taught by examples, makes this report, with its evidence, an excellent collection of exercises, and a manual, so far as that term can be applied to a blue-book, of practice for the young bibliographer.
The corresponding display made in France was not altogether so creditable to the literary aspirations of the nation. In the year 1850, appeared the act of accusation against M. Libri,(1)[1] an emi-[6] nent mathematican and bibliographer, and a member of the Institute, charged with robbing the public libraries to the value of many thousand pounds; on which, by default of appearance, he was condemned. The amount of incapacity which either belong to the framers of this indictment, or was presumed by them to belong to the courts and the literary public before which it was to come, far exceeds all that was exhibited by the ignorers of bibliography in England. None of these last ever thought, or wished to make others think, that the stamp (2) of a convent library, imprinted on the front of an old book, is evidence of an intention, on the part of the Stamper, to pass the book off as printed in the town where the convent is.
Except, however, to express our belief that these recent events in France and England will be of some effect in widening the circle within which bibliography is studied, we have nothing to do with them here, though we may cite them as among our encouragements for presenting an article on the subject. Our intention is to show, by instances, to how great an extent inaccurate bibliography prevails, both in the descriptions which are given of books, and in those which they give of themselves. We began, in pursuance of this intention, and that we might produce a new case (3) or two, by taking the first four old books that we happened to lay our hands on, the selection being dictated by the mere accidental proximity of the volumes on our shelves. If no one of these four volumes had given us either error produced, or difficulty likely to produce it in time to come, our associations would have been rudely invaded; for we have been accustomed to consider it almost impossible to take two old books at hazard without encountering one or the other. It happened that all the four gave us what we wanted to illustrate.
The first book was a collection of four geometrical and two astronomical treatises by John Werner of Nuremberg, quarto, 1522, beginning "In hoc opere haec continentur. Libellus Joannis Verneri Nurembergen. Super vigintiduobus elementis conicis . . ." [7] lt is said that this book was so rare in the time of Tycho Brahé, that he could not find it in all Germany, though he secured a copy at last in Italy. The two last treatises being astronomical, we turn to Lalande's 'Bibliographie Astronomique,' and we find at the right year, 1522, that this book consists of the two astronomical treatises, followed by an epistle of Regiomontanus to Cardinal Bessarion on the meteoroscope {instead of preceded by four geometrical treatises of Werner himself]. The authority is Weidler, who, says Lalande, adds two other tracts as contained in this work, of which Scheibel observes that they have never been printed at all. Here is a heap of confusion, in which three noted writers of mathematical history are concerned. Looking at Weidler (at the page cited), we find reason to think the case stands as follows. Weidler, after hinting that Werner printed the works of others as well as his own, gives a list as extant, in which he takes no care to distinguish between what Werner only printed, and what he both wrote and printed. In the middle of this list comes the letter to the cardinal. The last five of the list are five of the treatises which really are in the work before us, the sixth being omitted. Then, says Weidler, these last five works appeared at Nuremberg in 1522. From this it would appear as if Lalande had selected two astronomical works of Werner, the letter of Regiomontanus, and two others which he does not name because Scheibel said they were never printed.
We had turned to Weidler's History, because Lalande cites it (p. 334 ). We then turned to Weidler's Bibliography, and here we really find that the Nuremberg quarto of 1522 is said to contain five treatises, the three given by Lalande, with two others by Werner, not any of those yet named. And Weidler refers to p 334 of his own book, in which, as already seen, he gives a very different and more correct account. So that the confusion is as follows. Weidler describes the book in his History with nothing but an omission. In his Bibliography he gives a totally wrong description, for which he refers to his own more correct History. Lalande adopts the account given in the Bibliography, and joins to it the reference to the History, without stating that his reference to the History is only a copy from the Bibliography. No one, without the book before him, could have unravelled this skein of mistakes. We took the word of Lalande because it is decidedly the best piece of scientific bibliography which, at its appearance, had ever been in existence, and therefore gave the best chance of a correct description. But, like other descriptive works which make a commencement of correctness upon books which the authors had examined for themselves, it relies in a great degree upon works prior to the introduction of any effort at minute description.
In the last instance, it happens that the mistake can be traced to its source in a manner which leaves no doubt that it is a mistake. But the unpracticed reader must not come to such a conclusion too rapidly. If Lalande had not named his authority, as often happens with him, we should have had three alternatives to consider. 1. A mere mistake. 2. The circumstance of his having happened [8] to fall in with a book in which someone had bound together some astronomical tracts of Werner with a copy of Regiomontanus's epistle. 3. The possibility that Werner made two distinct publications at Nuremberg in 1522, one containing his own six tracts, the other joining the last two, which are astronomical, with the astronomical epistle in question. Either of the first two hypotheses is credible enough. The third looks very unlikely. But it must be remembered that it is utterly imimpossible to enumerate the number of odd things which occurred in the first century of printing, before authors and publishers had fallen into a common understanding upon their modes of proceeding. Any thing imaginable may have taken place in one or more instances; and it happens sometimes that the unlikely thing, stated by a writer who is frequently inaccurate, turns out to be the truth, in spite of the more probable account of a generally more accuarte writer. And a strange assertion, which appears to be an obvious distortion of one which is known to be true, may nevertheless be one separate truth, with or without some admixture of the matter of the other. For instance, a poor authority on books, Granger, says that Roger Palmer, afterwards the notorious Earl of Castlemaine, husband to one mistress of Charles II., and ambassador to the Pope of James II., invented and wrote on a "horizontal globe." Now since John Palmer, in 1658, did certainly write on the 'Catholique Planisphær,' and since the phrase horizontal globe looks very much like an awkward rendering of the the word planisphere, we at one time took the liberty of thinking that Granger or another had confused the two Palmers; and we were not without our suspicion that the Catholic planisphere had perhaps assisted in the transfer of the book to a Catholic author. Nevertheless, we afterwards found (4) that Lord Castlemaine published in 1679, a work on what he called the 'English Globe.' Again, the rule of three, in middle Latin, is regula detri, so that, seeing Detri mentioned among arithmetical authors, we took it to be pretty certain that, as has sometimes happened, the name of a subject of a book has been substituted for that of the author. Nevertheless, we have since seen in a careful sale catalogue, the description of the work of N. Detri: in which we believe, in spite of the existence of another work by N. Petri.
The second of our four instances is the Cosmographia of the celebrated Maurolycus, 4to. Venice, 1543, the year of publication of the great work of Copernicus. At the end it is stated that this work was finished in 1535, and the preface is dated 1540. It is in dialogue; and the teacher says (p. 12) that nothing more need be said about the earth, unless diversity of opinion and human fickleness should so far increase, that there should be ground to suspect some one of believing and maintaining that the earth turns on its axis. I should hardly think, says the pupil, that such a strange opinion would enter the head of any one. Why not, rejoins the teacher, many teach themselves greater absurdities; but be this as [9] it may, to remove all possibility of such opposition, I will demonstrate that the earth cannot move. If all this were first published in 1543, in spite of the date of the preface, we should reasonably presume that the intention of Copernicus had reached the ear of Maurolycus, and had given rise to the introduction, at the last moment, perhaps, of what precedes. For in 1540, Rheticus (5) published at Dantzig his account of the forthcoming work of Copernicus. In much less than two years, this might be circulated over Europe, for everything found (6) its way easily to and from Rome, and opinions travelled by epistolary description much more than now. But, if what precedes were written before 1540, it shows that, anterior to the publication of Rheticus, there was a feeling that discussion on the earth's motion was at hand. This would be worthy of note, for no one has hitherto shown that, in the case of the earth's motion, there was that previous expectation of change which has marked the approach of most other new doctrines. Had there been, no doubt the work of Copernicus would have given the signal for that sort of opposition which was reserved for Galileo. All this would lead us to suppose that the remarks of Maurolycus were suggested by the special publication of Rheticus, and not by any knowledge, on the part of Maurolycus, of a diffused disposition to think about the actual question (7) of the earth's motion.
But now comes a difficulty. A preface, dated in February 1540, of a work published in 1543, gives some presumption, not a very great one, of a previous edition in 1540 or 1541; rather too much (8) to neglect, though far from enough to pronounce upon. Lalande, relying again upon Weidler, affirms that this work of Maurolycus was first printed in 1540; and Weidler makes the statement both [10] in his History and in his Bibliography. And, what is more, Riccioli (in 1651) makes the same assertion. It matters little or nothing that the work of 1543 is not called a second edition, for it not unfrequently happens that a reprint shows no sign of that character. And though neither the Abbé Scina, in the life of Maurolycus, nor the compiler of the list of works presently mentioned, notes any edition earlier than 1543, yet neither seems to have made much search, and both, to judge by their modes of description, would rest content with the earliest edition they happened to have seen. Thus, though inclined (9) to believe that the edition of 1543 is really the first, and therefore that the remarks we have quoted are especially directed against Rheticus, we should not be at all surprised if an edition of 1540 or 1541 were to turn up.
It is known that there were among the ancients some who maintained the diurnal motion of the earth, and some who maintained the annual, at least as possible; Ptolemy alludes to them, and gives his reasons against them. Down to the time of Copernicus, we are not told of any (except Cardinal Cusa, (10) who is not worth alluding to on this point) who really thought anew on the subject, so as to produce fresh arguments either for or against. Nevertheless, it appears, though we cannot find it mentioned by any historian, that Regiomontanus had seriously considered the subject. One of the greatest preservers of his writings was John Schoner, of Carlstadt (1477-1547). In the collection of Schoner's works, first (11) published in 1551, Nuremberg, folio, is an Opusculum Geographicum, the first chapter of which is a disputatio of Regiomontanus on the subject of the earth's rest or motion. In this short discussion, while deciding the question against the earth's motion, on grounds resembling those of Ptolemy, he cites, as from the ancients, the comparison of the earth to meat roasting on a spit, and of the sun to the fire which cooks it; as also the argument that it is the business of the mutton, which wants heat, to turn round before the fire, and not of the fire to turn round the mutton. To what old writer he refers, we cannot tell, as we cannot find this simile in any of the passages which have been quoted from classic authors. We mention the discussion in which it occurs to point out that it would not be a very easy matter to ascertain whether Copernicus (who died in 1543) could or could not have seen it. [11] According to the preface, the date of composition of this Opusc. Geogr. is 1533; from which Lalande says it was printed in 1533; but we can find no notice of any impression previous to that in the collected works of 1551. Weidler says this collection contains some things which had not been previously published: but this can only mean that he had not found them.
The third of the books in our list is a quarto printed at Leyden in 1649, the title of which tells us that it is the Geometry of Descartes, first printed in French in 1637, and now rendered into Latin with notes, &c., by Francis Schooten. This is then certainly a second edition, at least. Now we learn in many places that in the second edition of Descartes's Geometry, by Schooten, the additions contain papers by Van Heuraet, Hudde, &c. of the greatest note in the early history of the differential calculus. Not the smallest trace of these things appears in the book before us. Some persons must have been puzzled by this: the truth is, that instead of naming the second edition of Descartes, by Schooten, writers should have named the second of Schooten's (12) editions of Descartes, Amsterdam, 1659, which has on the fly title, "Renati Descartes Geometria, Editio Secunda"—a wrong description. Thus it appears that the titles of the books themselves may contain the very errors which it is the tendency of bad catalogues to create when they do not exist, and which is very difficult to avoid, or to correct, even in good ones. This instance is particularly appropriate, for it is of the simplest kind. "It may help to enforce a truism which seems of late years to have been almost entirely lost sight of"—[a gentle mode of expression for vigorously denied and opposed]—"that the making of catalogues correctly, like the making of dictionaries, requires in the 'harmless drudge' who practices it an amount of qualifications which those who despise him are often far from possessing." This quotation comes out of the review of an attempt to catalogue the library of the linguist Mezzofanti, made by a Roman bookseller (13), who entered a Cingalese grammar, printed at Colombo, under the United States of America, and a Gaelic translation of Thomas à Kempis as a work of Chr[istopher?] Leanmhuinn, the words Leanmhuin Chriosd being Gaelic for De Imitatione Christi. It is not necessary to choose collections of so recondite a character before the opinion we have quoted can be given: if it were, it should then be added that a great public library like that of the museum is not [12] only a larger collection of languages than that of Mezzofanti, but of all other special pursuits as well. And the instance of which we have spoken is a better illustration than any blunder which detects itself by its own absurdity. The English or the Gaelic scholar will not be deceived by the cases we have quoted: the worst that can happen is, that the inquirer who looks under Ceylon for Cingalese misses a book. But if, as might possibly happen, Schooten's Descartes of 1649 were entered as what it really is, the second edition; and if that of 1659 made part of a set of Descartes's works, as it often does; and if, as is very common, the Opera omnia were insufficiently detailed in the catalogue; and if, as generally has happened, a mathematical historian were somewhat easy on the point of bibliography—the works of Hudde, &c. might disappear from history, as other works have done in a similar way, without disappearing from libraaries.
The fourth book in question is another work of Maurolycus, the Opuscula Mathematica, Venice, 1575, 4to. On the title it appears that this collection was then published for the first time. It consists of a collection of tracts, and a work on arithmetic with a second title page of the same place and date as the first. Here, as often happens, is a source of confusion: in binding, these works are separated, each title page being made the beginning of a separate work. Two things are very common at the date now before us, the binding up of different publications in one, and the distribution of one publication under different title pages, often without any mark by which to know that all the titles belong to one work. Hence catalogues sometimes represent different publications as one, and sometimes represent one publication under several heads; the binder being the authority in both cases. On looking (14) more narrowly, to see whether the work itself gives any information on this point, we find, on the verso (15) of the first title page, a table of contents, at the end of which is "Quibus omnibus arithmeticorum libri duo demum accesserunt." This is conclusive as to one difficulty, but it introduces another. The word demum usually indicates that the edition in question is not the first; at last, we are told, the two books of arithmetic are added. Either then there are previous editions without the arithmetic, or at last the arithmetic is added, and a new title-page, probably of later date, printed before all. Nevertheless, we can find no indication of any earlier edition or earlier title-page. None is mentioned; the arithmetic [13] now under consideration has in it a list of works, distinguishing and dating those which were printed, but not containing anything to our present purpose. The maker of a catalogue would be compelled to raise the doubt of a second edition, or of a title-page with a new date, unless he happened to know that Maurolycus died in 1575. We now learn the meaning of demum: the work had been waiting for the arithmetic, which the author could not or would not finish, and his death at last enabled the publisher to obtain the manuscript, and complete the undertaking. This view of the case is enforced by our finding the arithmetic wholly destitute of preface or introduction, and with some gaps in the manuscript.
These circumstances, apparently so unimportant, help to decide an historical question which is not without interest. We have seen that the Cosmographia has a passage which indicates a lurking fear that the doctrine of the earth's motion was likely to be maintained. Though, by 1543, there was plenty of time to become aware of Rheticus's announcement of Copernicus, yet Maurolycus tells us, with the utmost definiteness, at the end, that the work was "finished at Messina, in the straits of Sicily, on Thursday, October 21, indiction ix, in the year of grace 1535, being the day on which the Cæsar, Charles V., returned to Messina from his African expedition." May we, in the face of such an announcement, suppose that this work afterwards underwent augmentation? If not, we have such presumption of the doctrine in question being in agitation, as it might be difficult to find elsewhere. But this presumption is destroyed by the work on arithmetic, which though certainly unfinished, is terminated by the announcement, that it was finished "at the eighteenth hour of the Sabbath, July 24, when the viceroy Jo. Cerda was expected at Messina, cum multo pontis et arcus apparatu, indiction xv, 1557."
These four books, taken down for a first chance merely to make an opening, have caused great inroad on our space. We shall take a few other illustrations. Publication is now commonly counfounded with printing, though history swarms with instances in which the first was long prior to the second. There are those who would contend for the equivalence of the two words; but perhaps there is no instance more to the point, in proof of the general aptitude to distinguish between the two, than the case of the Academy of Sciences. This body did not begin to print its periodical volumes of transactions, in the manner done by the Royal Society from 1665, until after the renouvellement in 1699. It was not until 1729-1733 that the Academy published the collection in eleven volumes (fourteen parts) containing the memoirs from 1666 to 1699, which is now considered as a commencing part of the series. Nevertheless, no one ever referred to the memoirs therein contained, as published at any other date than that at which the subsequent printed volumes showed them to have been communicated to the Academy. The real earlier publications made at the instance of the Academy are the 'Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique,' in two parts, Paris, 1692, 1693, folio; the 'Divers Ouvrages de Mathématique et de Physique,' Paris 1693, folio; and [14] the 'Regiae Scientiarum Academiae Historia,' by J. B. du Hamel, of which the second (16) and enlarged edition is Paris, 1701, quarto.
The time at which the confusion between publication and printing is most injurious is that at which the printed book was not the exclusive medium, and the manuscript had not altogether disappeared; a period which includes at least a century after the invention of printing. For so long, at least, did writers who had no particular pretension to be antiquaries, cite manuscripts and printed books indiscriminately; and very often without distinction of character: so that subsequent writers, who thought only of printed books, have taken as printed all they could find cited as published. In this way we have the two unprinted works of Werner, as already mentioned, incorporated by Weidler with the printed ones.
We have noticed, as an introduction, and by way of amusement, the manner in which the French experts, as they are called, made the bibliographer forge a title at the beginning of an old book, by way of altering the edition, forgetting the description at the end. Those who have experience in books, even of a very moderate extent, know that they must always look at the end; because publishers of a former day did sometimes change the venue: not indeed by stamping in the names of convent libraries, but by printing special title-pages. We have before us a folio which, according to the title-page, is Candalla's Euclid, Paris, 1602. Though a tolerably good copy, and in old morocco, with guilt leaves, it was picked up on a mean stall in the open air, at a very low price. The fact is, that in its descent, it did not meet with any real expert, who looked at the end, where it appears that it is the Lyons edition of 1578, and that the Parisian title-page is a substitute. It is the only edition of Candalla that contains all the three books which he added. We have not called such a proceeding a trick or a forgery, because it was often some— thing else. A long time elapsed before the characteristics of a book became matter of settled convention. At first there were no title-pages; all the description came at the end; and a word or two after the publisher's preface, if any, such as, "Joannis de sacrobusto anglici viri clarissimi Spera mundi feliciter incipit," was the reader's introduction to his subject. Afterwards, very short fly-titles or half-titles, as they are now called, were introduced in a blank leaf. Thus in one book we have, "Ad inveniendum novam lunam et festa mobilia. Liber perutilis;" in another we have, "Questo e ellibro cbe tracta di mercatantie et uzanze de paesi." As regular title-pages were introduced, the full descriptions at the end still being generally retained, the publishers seem to have frequently made use of them as a kind of advertisement prefixed to the book, of which then were hardly yet considered as a part: just as, in our time, we do not consider the lettering at the back as part of the book. Hence, when a stock of any book came into the hands of a bookseller who was not the original publisher, be frequently printed a new title-page to [15] attract attention to the place of deposit, the original place, date, &c., being still to be read at the end. But the same practice continued when the colophon, or final description, fell into disuse, and the practice then ceased to have any justification, since the title-page had become the principal direct means of identifying the book. And thus it happens that, in all time, difficulties occur with titles. Nor do we see any hope of their final disappearance, as to books yet to be published; unless indeed an increased taste for bibliography should direct opinion against the following practices.
First, new titles are frequently printed, with new dates, sometimes with, and sometimes without, the words second edition. Sometimes the words revised and augmented are added without any change whatever in the book. An author may thus lose his priority of discovery, of adaptation, or of introduction. A printer may thus lose his character as an artist; he may be judged in 1852 by his type of 1842; similarly, the skill and knowledge of the author in 1852 may be set down as being what they were in 1842. It often happens that the author has no knowledge of what has been done: the edition may pass from the hands of the original publisher into those of another, with whom the author has nothing to do. Sometimes the alteration is made by the original publisher. (17)
Secondly, a title sometimes undergoes alteration which, whether by intention or carelessness, gives an account very different from the truth. We have before us a book, in which the genuine title describes it as containing matter from 1700 to 1846, mostly German; the substituted title describes it as containing all matter up to 1846, in Germany and the adjacent countries.
Thirdly, even in the original title, it is not uncommon to make the date a year later than the actual date of publication. When the book is published in the last months of the year, so that the right date will soon make it appear a year old, the next date is frequently used. Authors should look to this practice, by which their priority may be seriously compromised. Fifty years hence, a discovery, or other matter of merit, under the date 1851, will certainly be held to have preceded the same under the date 1852. But if a publication made in September 1851, be dated 1852, there is time for another to republish it under the date 1851, and thus, with or without intention, to secure it in future history. From the preface of a Latin edition of Wallis's Algebra, it appears that this practice of advancing title-pages was common in the year 1685. The truth is, that the year alone is not now definite enough: every title-page should bear the month of publication, as well as the year. It would also be of much advantage, if there were an understood place, as at the end of the preface, where the author should mark the last date at which any matter was added to the work, not including the verbal alterations which take place in correcting the press.
[16] Fourthly, it is becoming common to publish books without a date, whenever they are of a species which rapidly grows old, as in the case of atlases, and of popular astronomical books.
All these things are objectionable, and will certainly cause confusion. The accurate date of any book, no matter how obscure in its own day and in that which follows, may become of importance at a still later epoch.
But though title pages have frequently made erroneous announcements, still more frequently have their contents been misrepresented; in no particular more frequently than as to the name of the author. There is a loose system of description, under which any prominent proper name is taken for that of the author. If the modesty of a commentator should lead him to print his own name in smaller capitals than that of his original, it is very possible that his comment may be entered as the original work. If a friend or patron should contribute a preface, he will perhaps get credit for the whole; thus Billingsley's English Euclid has been entered under the works of John Dee, who wrote the introduction. The inventor of logarithms has before now figured as the author of the Bloody Almanac, which to an unattentive title reader is "by the noble Napier." The reason is that John Booker, the real author, announces his work to contain an "Abstract of the prophecies . . . . by the noble Napier." The Latin forms of names do their parts we remember to have noted some confusion between the contemporaries, Francis Patrizi and Francis Barozzi, arising out of their descriptions as Franciscus Patricius and Franciscus Barocius Patricius Venetus. Must a librarian set down J. Ralphson, F. R. S., the author of a mathematical dictionary in 1702, as a different person from J. Raphson, F. R. S., who wrote at least four books of a contemporary date? He will be wrong if he do; but nothing except an examination of the lists of the Royal Society will enable him to be certain. Out of such trifles as these spring many mistakes, such as can hardly be avoided, except by knowledge beyond what the books themselves can give. And as to the books themselves, nothing short of a studied examination will show the difference between a perfect and imperfect volume. A folio collection of astrologers (1533) which has at the end of the contents 'Postremo Othonis Brunfelsii . . . . .' has the work of this Otho first instead of last. We have seen many volumes which were really perfect marked imperfect, on the assumption that the contents and their table of contents must tally in order, as in a modern work. But there is a source of confusion about very old books which has not been much noted hitherto, and which promises to give rise to much inquiry. The copies of the same edition of the same work do not agree with one another. Sometimes there is a discreprepancy of this kind. The impression seems to have been printed without any of the large and ornamented capital letters: these were stamped into a part of the impression afterwards, leaving the remaining copies with empty spaces for those who preferred to have these letters wholly the work of the illuminator. Sometimes different headings were put in to suit dif[17]ferent tastes. For example, we have before us the first printed edition of the Alphonsine Tables, Venice, 1483. The heading or title is in red ink as follows,—'Alfontii regis castelle illustrissimi celestium motuum tabule: . . . . . .' Hain's description (Repert. Bibliogr.) shows that he had inspected a counterpart of this. But Captain Smyth (Cycle, &c., vol. ii. p.215) has given a facsimile from another copy of this same edition, by which it appears that the heading is in black ink, having a picture of some astronomers looking at an armillary globe, imbedded in the following inscription, 'Tabule Tabularum Celestium Motuum Divi Alfonsi Regis Romanorum et Castelle illustrissim.'
Again, the Summa de Arithmetica, &c., of Lucas Pacioli, 1494, has the first pages (18) differently printed in different copies, ending with different words. This one book begins in three different ways, certainly; perhaps in more.
The reader who wishes to find more extensive accounts of bibliographical difficulties is referred to the report of the Commissioners mentioned at the beginning of this article, and (19) to its appendix. He may also consult the Quarterly Review, No. 143, May 1843, or the Dublin Review, No. 41, September 1846. We need not add more examples; we content ourselves with the production of enough to show those who have only seen the popular view of the the controversy, that there is a case on the other side which it is easy to support by instances. And this case might be much strengthened by having recourse to examples from literature instead of science: the former subject presents a wider field, more causes of accidental confusion, and more cases of intentional obscurity.
Much of the misapprehension which has prevailed on the question of library catalogues in this country, has probably arisen from the anomalous position in which the Museum library has been placed. On the one hand, it is the resort, daily or occasional, not only of those who know what accurate research is, but also of those who are learning it, who arrive thither to make some investigation, and are lead on, by the genius loci and the temptation of ready means at hand, until they attain a depth far beyond their first intention. It is difficult to overrate what this national library has done, and is doing, for the cause of accuracy. And though a certain writer who describes himself, by implication, as of delicate intellect, sneers at the manufacture of the stuff called useful knowledge, which is carried on at the Museum, yet all whose understandings deserve a sounder title will see how much better that indispensable manufacture must go on, with such a library at command of the workman. This workman, fifty years ago, could obtain nothing but what his publisher could lend him [18] in nine cases out of ten. To all of whom we have hitherto been speaking, a correct description of books is most essential: and by half of them, at least, old books, such as we have been examining, are frequently consulted. On the other hand, the library is frequented by many who only acquire the books of most easy description, and by many who come but for books of amusement. These classes might be suited by a very easy catalogue, as to most of the books which they want; probably such entries as 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' and 'Guy Mannering' would serve their usual purposes. But these classes have not been useless. It may be suspected that the respect with which the House of Commons has treated the Museum library is due to the system under which most voters may obtain admission; and also that, if a library of research had been set apart for men of research, its interests would have been joked, yawned, or sneered out of the House by the unlearned majority. Nevertheless, so soon as literature can run alone, there are many and obvious reasons why a separation should take place between the libraries of the reader and the investigator.
The mistakes into which professed bibliographers once fell have been illustrated in this article, but not their application; for which, at length, we had not room. We had, however, no doubt that, before our conclusion arrived, we should casually meet with something new and striking on this point, which might serve as an instance; and we are not disappointed. The 'Bibliotheca Philosophica Struviana . . . .' Gottingen, 1740, 2 vols. 8vo., by L. M. Kahle, is a professedly bibliographical work; and dates from about the time when Newton's system began to find general favor on the continent. After describing Motte's English version (1730) of the Principia, Kahle adds that one instance will be quite enough to show the bad faith of the version. He then quotes the celebrated scholium in which Newton admits the claim of Leibnitz, and quotes Motte's translation, which is of course of a very different purport; adding that the English translator, in order to deprive Leibnitz of honour, has been impudent enough (eo usque procedit impudentiae) to alter Newton's words. Had the bibliographer remembered, or taken care to ascertain, that Newton himself published three editions, he would have found that Motte was correctly translating from the third of them, and that the substitution was made by Newton himself. At the same time, Kahle's blunder may serve to warn translators that they ought to be very precise in stating the editions on which their versions are made and the most important, at least, of the variations: together with a sufficient description of the previous editions. And further, foreigners should take notice that English writers are well able to pay in kind any confusion made among the writings of Newton. In proof of this, we have, since the preceding sentences were written, fallen in with a recent work in which Kahle is placed under suspicion of having, under the name of Kayle, answered Voltaire by plagiarizing an answer written by Kable seventeen years before Voltaire wrote.
[19] If we ourselves should have fallen into any mistakes, they will serve our purpose, as helping to prove the truth of our title. They will do us a service of the same kind which a lapse of memory of Mr. Macaulay's does for him. In his review (which, like the work itself, is much too short) of the Pilgrim's Progress, speaking of the tediousness of the Fairy Queen, he observes that "very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast." The reviewer himself, no doubt one of the few, was also one of the weary; for the blatant beast is not killed, and the very last verse extant of the poem shows us that Spenser kept him alive for good reasons of his own.
University College, London,
October 4, 1852.
- ↑ The numbers in ( ) refer to the notes at the end; those in [] indicate the original pagination.