278
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL APRIL 3, im
tions, and by at least fourteen publishers
in England alone ; the author (rarely, if
ever, named on the title-page) was J. D.
Wyss (see 2 S. vi. 289). In this an episode
is introduced of the killing of an iguana
(" laguana or yguana ") by means of whist-
ling, which is evidently based, directly or
indirectly, on Labat ; it is in chap. xxi.
THEO. GILL. Cosmos Club, Washington.
[There is a conflict of opinion as to the author- ship of ' The Swiss Family Robinson.' Halkett and Laing (vol. iii., 1885) and W. Davenport Adams's ' Dictionary of English Literature ' (c. 188990) state that the author is Joachim Heinrich Kampe ; in The Athenceum of 26 March, 1887, p. 416, the issue of an edition " by J. R. Wyss, edited by A. Gardiner," and published by J. Heywood, is recorded ; while the 1903 edition of the London Library Catalogue agrees with ' N. & Q.' in attributing the work to Johann David Wyss, and not to Johann Rudolf Wyss.]
NOTES ON BOOKS, &a
The English Catalogue of Books for 1908. (Samp- son Low & Co.)
THIS summary of last year's books in a single alphabet is a work which we prize as much as any for reference. The entries are full and clear, and the printing approaches as near to the im- peccable as that of any volume we know. The labour of compiling and verifying these records must be severe, and the editor, who remains anonymous, deserves our warm thanks.
The Analysis of the year's output at the begin- ning is not exactly cheering reading for the scholar. Fiction, in particular, still holds an absurdly preponderant place, and with juvenile books and new editions reaches a total of 2,787. We should view a considerable decrease in this section with equanimity from every point of view. The total of the year's books is 9,821, the months of June, July, and August being the slackest for publication. Over 1,000 books appeared in each of the three months September, October, and November ; while December sinks to 644. We cannot believe that this crowding of books into one season has advantages which make up for the confusion it causes to the serious booklover, and hope that publication may be gradually spread more evenly over the whole year. Reviewers will then, at any rate, have a better chance of appreciating the works put . before them.
A careful survey ot the names of living authors which most freqiiently occur in the Catalogue shows that fluency is not exactly the same thing as merit. If some of the writers who present us with old stuff ill sifted, and worse exhibited, were seriously treated by reviewers, they might be forced to a hie-her standard of research and style. But this seems impossible so long as publishers expect notices on the day of publication, and the public (which is really at fault) is satisfied with a review which merely quotes a few readable stories, or, if
the work is critical, relies on its introduction for a>.
Few words of apparently learned comment.
The abundance of reprints of books which have established their reputation is a promising feature of the day. We only hope that some of them are read, but we do not at present see many signs of it.
COLERIDGE'S BiograpMa Liter aria, 2 vols.,. edited by J. Shawcross (Oxford, Clarendon Press ) r comes somewhat late into our hands, but is well worth notice. We are, indeed, of opinion that bhis edition of the ' Biographia ' and sesthetic fragments is the weightiest contribution by an Englishman to the positive or fruitful criticism of Coleridge since the appearance in The West- minster Review, January, 1866, of Pater's erudite study of the man and his writings. In an Intro- duction of 90 pp. Mr. Shawcross sketches broadly Coleridge's relation to German thought, and establishes the continuity of his views on art,, showing his theory of the imagination, as distinct in nature and function from the fancy, to have been " a natural growth of his genius, fostered, as every growth must be, by such external influences as it found truly congenial." Over this per- plexing ground Mr. Shawcross travels with the ease and rapidity of one thoroughly familiar with its difficulties ; though to some it may seem that he is warily and dexterously picking his steps, rather avoiding the obstacles in his path than confronting them and breaking them down. But in this connexion it is fair to remember that the editor makes no claim to deal in detail with the plagiarisms alleged against Coleridge by De Quincey, Ferrier, Hutchison Sterling, Ingleby, and others. Indeed, he observes that " an investigation of the exact amount and nature of Coleridge's debt to German contempo- raries would be a task of but doubtful value or success." And he is right ; for surely what primarily concerns us is the question, What has Coleridge the critic to teach us ? what message has he for us ? and not, Where did he find the message ? The truth is that, as Garnett and others have pointed out, Coleridge's intellect, potent as it was, needed to be waked into activity by contact with another mind. His spirit was receptive and susceptible ; it required impregna- tion. Again, Coleridge's command of his thoughts,, at all tunes imperfect, was gradually sapped by the use of opium ; and if he was to pursue a train of ideas to any solid result, he must have some external aidance " something to bite on," as Mr. Mackail puts it to keep him to the point : lacking this, his rudderless thought drifted aim- lessly about, for the inward steerage of the will was wanting. Now it was just this stimulus- and curb from Avithout that the Germans Kant, Schiller, Schelling, and the rest supplied.
As an annotator, Mr. Shawcross is diligent, conscientious, and acute : he evades no difficulty, and often renders serviceable help in disentangling the knotty points in which the ' Biographia ' abounds. Some notes, indeed, are of capital importance as, for instance, that (ii. 293) on Coleridge's remark that Wordworth's imagination " does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects
add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream."
On the whole, the commentary may be said to be
stronger on the philosophical than on the literary
