278
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io< s. m. APKIL s, 1905.
DICKENS OR WILKIE COLLINS? (10 th S. iii.
207.) MR. FIRMAN will find conclusive proof
of the collaboration of these writers in ' The
Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices' if he
will turn to the close of the second section of
Book ix. of Forster's ' Life of Dickens.' The
separating of the two shares is not possible ;
indeed, some of the "authorities" are at
variance on the subject so far as it has been
roughly attempted. Several pages of the
late Mr. F. G. Kitton's recently published
volume on 'The Dickens Country' are
occupied with notes on the 'Tour.'
WALTER JERROLD.
Edited by
(Methuen
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
The Work* of Charles and Mary Lamb.
E. V. Lucas. Vols. VI. and VII.
& Co.)
WITH two volumes of the letters, that definite and handsomest edition of the works of Charles and Mary Lamb which we owe to the zeal and erudi- tion of Mr. Lucas and the taste and enterprise of Messrs. Methuen is completed, and all for which the subscriber has now to wait is the promised
Leigh Hunt, only four to Hood." That any great*
find is to be anticipated we do not believe, though-
occasional discoveries, bringing with them a further
extension of copyright, are probable enough. Many
risks attend letters. Even if we settle the great
question of the expediency of keeping them,,
the mere instinct of cleanliness and order in the
feminine mind leads sometimes to the destruction
of letters for a while jealously guarded. No man,,
and perhaps no woman though of this we are less
sure would now consciously destroy a letter of
Lamb's. In early days scores, and possibly hundreds,
may well have been the victims of neglect or in-
difference. The collection now supplied is, it may
safely be asserted, the largest in existence. Among:
those by whom it has been enriched are Sir Charles
Wentworth Dilke and the late W. S. Ayrton. Im-
portant additions of letters to members of the
Wordsworth family now appear, and the Moxon
correspondence, in the Rowfant Library, has been
entrusted to the editor. All additions are, of
course, welcome. We can never have too many
letters of Lamb, and no reader of taste will ever
weary of their perusal. New matter is comprised
in the appendixes, which, among others, give letters-
and passages of letters omitted from the body of
the book, and now supplied in part from the col-
lections of the late James Dykes Campbell. Three
further portraits appear. The frontispiece to
vol. vi. is the reproduction of the likeness by Henry
Mayer, painted in 1826, when Lamb was fifty-one.
,
biography, which will occupy two further volumes, and now preserved at the India Office. That to Reference to the indexes of l N. & CJ.,' 9 th S. xi. and | vol. vii. is from an original pencil drawing of a
xii. and 10' h S. i., will show with what patience and
fidelity the progress of the work has been followed,
and how warm recognition has been awarded
separate volumes. The completion of the task
merits special acknowledgment, and the owner of
year earlier. Yet a third portrait reproduces the
well-known and striking etching by Brook Fulham
in its first state. There are many pictures of resi-
dences of Lamb, facsimiles and designs after Cris-
pin de Pas, Thomas Hood, and works to which
the completed work may boast the possession of Lamb refers. It is seldom that the completion of
the goodliest as well as the most authoritative a task of the kind is more welcome or M'ill be a
edition extant. "After much consideration," as j greater acquisition to the book-lover.
we are told, the disposition of the notes has been '
changed, and the comments of the editor are now
placed at the close of each letter, instead of at the
end of the volume. How far this is an improve-
ment or the reverse is not easily decided. A gain
to convenience attends increased facility of refer-
Diartj and Letters of Madame D'ArUay. 177S-1SM.
Vol. IV. (Macmillan & Co.)
THE fourth volume of Mr. Austin Dobson's brilliant and authoritative edition of Fanny Barney's diary finishes tenderly with the 'acceptance by the
ence. Whether this is more than proportionate to king and queen of her resignation of her post of
the break in continuity which is involved we are j Second Keeper of the Robes, the last words being,
not prepared to say. The illustrations contained
in the notes are on the same ample scale as before.
Mr. Lucas expresses a fear such as he has previously
uttered, that they may in some cases be found
redundant. Having begun, however, his edition
with the resolution where possible to explain every-
thing concerning which the average reader may
possibly be in doubt, he has felt compelled to
stick to his guns. His explanations remain ample,
and are perhaps to some readers superfluous.
They are, nevertheless, in every case acceptable and
readable, and we have never in our study often
close of the volumes felt disposed to skip. An abso-
lutely complete collection of Lamb's letters is not
yet possible. Such has been the popularity of
Charles Lamb that letters when found have not
seldom been issued in works still copyright. The
absence of such letters is inevitable, and, as
the latest editor thinks, many remain yet to be
discovered. It is held incredible that Lamb wrote
only seventy letters between the years 1807 and
1820, and only four in 1811-13. "It is incredible,
also, that he wrote altogether only three letters to
Here, therefore, end my Court Annals : after
having lived in the service of Her Majesty five
years within ten days from July 17, J786, to July 7,
1791." Apart from the revelation of character on
the part of the heroine, there is in the volume
much of great interest. What is most striking,
and perhaps most valuable also, is the description-
of the trial of Warren Hastings, at which, at the
expressed wish of the queen, she was frequently
present. Fanny was thoroughly loyal to Hastings,
and did not spare to " rub it in" to Windham, and
even to Burke. At the outset the volume is much
occupied with the proceedings of Mr. Fairly, other-
wise Col. Stephen l)igby, a vacillating gentleman
who sought the heroine out diligently, enjoyed her
conversation, andseems to havecontemplated marry-
ing her. That Fanny would have accepted him there
seems to be no reasonable doubt, and those around!
her hesitated to tell her of his marriage to Miss
Charlotte Gunning, of whom she always speaks
as Miss Fuzilier. The royal family, even, discussed
this matter in German, for fear of wounding her.
Fanny is scarcely at pains to conceal hep annoyance*
