Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/175

Letters of Gabriel Peignot. 163 after which it will fall for ever into the gulf of eternity. Let us endeavour to bury thirty years more." He was unconsciously prophesying truly, for he died in 1849. " Adieu!" he continues, " let us meanwhile laugh, drink I was going to say eat, but my grumbling stomach warns me that that is not given to everybody in the world." Our letter writer seems to have generally a good opinion of Englishmen. He gives due credit in one of his epistles to an Englishman who sounded the Lake of Geneva and found that it was 900 feet at the deepest part ; 430 feet near shore and 36 feet in places near the centre. Among Peignot's intimate friends was the poet Armand Gouffe who lived at Beaune. He was a popular writer of songs, bacchanal and otherwise. Charles Nodier was also a friend mentioned in these letters as crying out for a third edition of " Peignot's Bibliographie." It must be noted here that Peignot's first publication was anonymous, and appeared in " L'an IV.," under the title <3f " Opuscules philoso- phiques et poetiques du frere Jerome mises au jour par son cousin Gabriel P.," i8mo, Paris. It is generally admitted that his works did much to popularise the study of bibliography. The list of Peignot's publications which appeared in 1830, was privately printed and distributed among friends as a warn- ing against literary poachers who adopted his titles and not unfrequently the matter of his books. He dubs offenders of this kind with the title of " ostrogothiques," which sounds more terrible than our word "vandals." It is amusing to read of the excitement caused among Peignot and his friends both at Dijon and at Vesoul by the appearance of Henry Bonn's huge " Guinea Catalogue." One instance more of the action of the whirligig of time occurs in one of Peignot's letters where a particular hybrid of umbrella and parasol, now named in London shops "en tout cas" was fifty years ago styled in Burgundy " si tu veux," e.g. : S' il fait beau, Prends ton manteau ; S' il pleut, Prends le si tu veux. ROBERT HARRISON.