represent copies of undoubted merit. La Grange assures us, in the preface to his French translation of Seneca, that he never, in any case of difficulty, consulted the first edition of 1475, without finding a solution of his doubts. The fact is that each editio princeps must be judged by itself. It is to such scholars as Turnebus, Muretus, and Lipsius that we owe a juster estimate of their relative value, than prevailed in the early days of printing. Victorius has been called the " Sospitator Ciceronis ;" and the real restorers of Greek learning are to be found in Scaliger, Casaubon, Budseus, Camerarius, and Stephens. The text of the classics has been slowly and laboriously constructed, and in some cases, as with Aristophanes, Dion Cassius, and Pliny, among others, a manuscript, discovered in modern times, has superseded entirely the authority of early editions. This branch of the subject is fully treated in an article in the Edinburgh Review on " Classical Manuscripts and First
Editors" (Jan. 1873).Sets of the classics, more or less complete, have been published at different times, and for different purposes. Among the earliest and most important are the Delphin editions, prepared, by order of Louis XIV., at the instance of the duke de Montausier, for the use of the Dauphin. The duke had been in the habit of studying the classics on his campaigns, and the want of books of reference appears to have suggested to him the idea of a uniform series of the principal classics, with explanatory notes and illustrative comments. On his becoming governor to the Dauphin, the scheme was carried into execution ; and Huet, bishop of Avranches, a preceptor of the prince, was entrusted with the choice of authors and editors, and with the general supervision of the series. A list of the editors is given by Baillet in his Critiques Grammairiens. The collection, which, including Danet s Dictionary of Antiquities, extends to sixty-four volumes quarto, is of very unequal merit ; but the copious verbal indices, which were added by the direction of Huet, afford a useful means of reference to particular passages. Only Latin classics, however, are included in the series; and "it is remarkable," as Dr Aikin observes, " that Lucan is not among the number. He was too much the poet of liberty to suit the age of Louis XIV." The entire collection, enlarged with the notes of the Variorum editions, was republished in 1819-1830, by A. J. Valpy, forming in all 185 vols., 8vo. These Variorum classics number upwards of 400 volumes, and were edited in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. A complete collection is very rare ; Peignot mentions one belonging to M. Mel de Saint-Ceran, which was sold for oOOO livres. For the names of the authors and com mentators see De Bure s Bibliographic, vol. vii. p. 680, and Osmont s Dictionnaire, vol. ii. p. 411. The editions most prized by collectors are the Elzevirs and the Foulises. The Elzevirs, or properly Elseviers, were a family of famous printers and booksellers at Amsterdam, no fewer than fifteen of whom carried on the business in succession from 1580 to 1712. Their Pliny (1635), Virgil (1636), and Cicero (1642), are the masterpieces of their press ; the last of the family brought out editions in 12 mo and IGmo.[1] A full list of their publications is given in Brunei s Manuel, vol. v., ad fin. The Annales de VImprimerie Elsevirienne, by Pieter, 1851 and 1858, supersedes the authority of previous works on that subject, and contains much curious research. The project of reprinting the Elzevir editions, which originated in 1743 with the Abbe" Lenglet-Dufresnoy, led to the famous Barbou collection, commenced by Cou- stelier and continued by Joseph Gaspard Barbou, one of fhe family of Paris printers and booksellers of that name, and extending finally to 76 volumes in 12mo. Lemaire s BibliotJieca Classica Latina, 1819-26, which was dedicated to Louis XVIII., is one of the best collections of Latin classics which exists in France, although the list of authors is incomplete, and the notes far too voluminous. The whole series extends to 154 volumes* in 8vo. The editions of Robert and Andrew Foulis, printers at Glasgow, were the finest which Britain produced during the 18th cen tury. Their c/ief d oeuvre was the Horace of 1744, each printed sheet of which, probably after the example of Robert Stephens at Paris, was hung up in the college of Glasgow, and a reward offered for the discovery of any error.
Among the most useful bibliographical accounts of the classics may be mentioned the following: A View of the Various Editions of the Greek and Roman Classics, with Remarks, by Dr Harwood, this work, first published in 1775, is still a convenient manual of re ference ; Dcfjli Autori Classici, sacri c profani, Grocci et Latini, Blblioteca portatile, 2 vols., Venice, 1793, a compilation of the Abbe Boiii and Bartholomew Gamba, and containing a translation of the preceding ; Dibdin s Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable, Editions of the Classics, first published in 1802, and greatly enlarged in subsequent editions, containing a full account of Polyglot Bibles, of the Greek and Latin editions of the Septua- gint and New Testament, and of lexicons and grammars ; A Manual of Classical Bibliography, by J. "W. Moss, 2 vols., 1825, noticing at length the different translations of the classics, the prices obtained for the rarer editions at public sales being also specified; A View of the English Editions and Translations of Greek and Latin Authors, by Brugemann, London, 1797; Engelmann s Bibliotheca Scriptorum Classicorum, Leipsic, 1847-53, containing an account of German editions between 1700 and 1852, while Greek and Latin classics printed iu Germany and France are noticed in the Repertoire de la litterature ancienne, by F. Schb ll, Paris, 1808; Handbuch der Classischcn Litcratur, by G. D. Fuhrmann, Halle, 1807-10, 5 vols. 8vo. ; Hebenstreit s Dictionarium, "Vienna, 1828 ; and the Handbuch der Classischen Bibliographie, Leipsic, 1830-34, all of them works of considerable merit. The improved editions, by Harless and Ernesti, of the Bibliotheca Grccca and Bibliotheca Latina of Fabricius are well known as immense magazines of classical lore, but they extend over a much wider field of inquiry than is embraced by bibliography.
V. Anonymous and Pseudonymous Books.
from the necessities or the caprice of authorship.[2] Their number, however, has been such as to occupy, at an early time, the attention of bibliographers. In 16G9 Frederick Geisler, professor of public law at Leipsic, published a dissertation, De Nominum Mutatione, which he reprinted in 1671, with a short catalogue of anonymous and pseudo nymous authors. About the same time, a similar but more extensive work had been undertaken by Vincent Placcius, professor of morals and eloquence at Hamburg, which was published in 1674 with the title De Scriplis et Scriptoribus anonymis atque pseudonymis Syntagma, in which the writer invited information from learned men in Europe. Four years later, John Decker, a German lawyer, published his Conjecture de Scriptis adespotis, pseudepi- graphis, et supposititiis, which was republished in 1086, with the addition of two letters on the same subject, one by Paul Vindingius, a professor at Copenhagen, and the other by the celebrated Peter Bayle. In 1689 appeared the Centuria plagiariorum et pseudonymoru in of John Albert Fabricius, as well as a letter to Placcius from John Mayer, a clergyman of Hamburg, under the title Disser- tatio Epistolica ad Placcium, gua anonymorum etpseudony- morum farrago cxhibitur. The complete fruits of Placcius ; s researches were published after his death in a folio volume at Hamburg in 1708, by Matthew Dreyer, a lawyer of that city. The work was now entitled Theatrum Anonymorum ct Pseudonymorum ; and, besides an Introduction by Dreyer
and a Life of Placcius by Fabricius, it contains, in aii
