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NOTICE OF

BIBLIOMANIA; A Bibliographical Romance. By the Rev. T. F. DIBDIN. 8vo. pp. 790.

ALTHOUGH critical strictures upon works of entirely modern composition do not fall exactly within the plan of our Journal, yet we deem it consistent with justice to say a few words upon the publication whose title is above specified.

The author's plan is perfectly new. Within the space of five days, he contrives to bring together certain characters, who are called LYSANDER, PHILEMON, LISARDO, and LORENZO, to discourse expressly upon bibliographical topics. The conversation is carried on during an Evening Walk, in a Cabinet, Library, Drawing-Room, and Alcove; these, with another running title, called the Auction Room, comprise the SIX PARTS into which this BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ROMANCE is divided. The plot is sufficiently simple: Lisardo, a wild prattling companion, but possessed of equal enthusiasm and good-nature, becomes a 'thorough convert to the pursuit of bibliography, which, at setting out, he had so determinedly ridiculed. He accompanies Philemon and our author to the Auction Room; and there is made acquainted with a great number of our distinguished collectors, who are accustomed to attend booksales. All these seem to be marshalled in formal array before Lisardo, by the magical wand of Philemon or our author; the latter of whom describes the peculiarities of each, under feigned names. In this motley group some notorious bibliomaniacs are introduced; but, as we conceive their resemblances speak for themselves, without our pointing out, we shall only invite our readers to enter Mr. D.'s Auction Room to become acquainted with them.

On the return of Lisardo to our author's house, the party sit down to a grave discussion concerning some of the most celebrated patrons of literature and lovers of books. Lysander uniformly takes up the thread of the narrative; while the author himself is supposed to sit in a retired part of the room, and make notes upon his guests' conversation. These notes are, in fact, the main props of the work; and, in general, they exhibit much curious research and happy illustration. A great deal of new and stubborn ground is broken up; and sources of information are sought after and discovered, which tend at once to fertilise and embellish. Mr. Dibdin begins with Bede, and concludes with the latest of our patrons of literature and bookcollectors. His biographical sketches are made subordinate to those of bibliography; but both are blended in a manner to us new and entertaining.

The party afterwards dine at LORENZO's; and the Library and Drawing Room are made the scenes of Lysander's discourse

there. During this discourse a great variety of bibliographical intelligence is imparted; and the names of Dee, Bodley, Abp. Parker, Cecil, Cotton, Ashmole, Anthony Wood, Hearne, and Lewis, among forty more similar characters, teach the reader what he has to expect during a perusal of the pages of this romance. It seems to have been the author's object to blend such information with his account of his characters, as treats of book-anecdotes; and his remarks upon book-binding, prices of books, and the origin and progress of sales of books of auction, will be found both amusing and instructive to the curious bibliographer.

The sixth part, entitled the Alcove, is of a different complexion. In this we are introduced into the mysteries of rare and curious prints, large paper copies, unique copies, books printed for private distribution, Strawberry-hill lucubrations, and other similar bibliographical hobby-horses! To the miscellaneous reader, the Alcove may be the most agreeable place to lounge in; but to us, who love something of that graver cast of character, which is connected with classical literature, we confess, the Library and Drawing-Room are more congenial places of resort. We should add that this thick octavo volume is very neatly printed, containing a full honest page; and is embellished with a profusion of well-executed wood-cut ornaments. There are also three indexes; of which the two latter are copious and useful.

Upon its merits we invite the reader to decide, by a diligent and impartial perusal. In such a vast and difficult field of observation, untrodden by any foreign or domestic bibliographer, it is probable that Mr. Dibdin has made many slips, which future research, or a more nice attention, may correct or efface.' It is also probable that the vehicle of information, in the form of dialogue, may not be quite generally relished; but it must be remembered, that the subject itself, without some similar allurement, would not have attracted that notice which seems to have been bestowed upon the work. That it has errors of commission and omission' cannot be denied; but it is the province of genuine and manly criticism to point these out with temper and sincerity. The question with all similar publications should be, What is the amount and the worth of the truth imparted?' Upon the issue of this question we sincerely wish the merits of the work to rest.

**

** It might have been observed that, in the course of one note, of nearly forty pages, Mr. D. has contrived to insert a very copious alphabetical list of FOREIGN and ENGLISH CATALOGUES, Occasionally enlivened with curious bibliographical

notices.

Thus the splendid Library at Blenheim, which is said to have been collected by the Duke of Marlborough, was formed by the taste, wealth, and industry, of Lord Sunderland.

Sir,

CLASSICAL CRITICISM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL.

IN the tenth Epistle of Horace, where the poet gives so agreeably to his friend Fuscus Aristius his reasons for preferring the country to the town, it appears that the following passage has no satisfactory interpretation.

Non, qui Sidonio contendere callidus ostro
Nescit Aquinatem potantia vellera facum,
Certius accipiet damnum, propiusve medullis,
Quàm qui non poterit vero distinguere falsum.

;

"He, who knows not how to distinguish skilfully the cloth dyed at Aquinum from the Sidonian purple, will not incur a more certain or more serious loss, than the man who cannot discern truth from falsehood." To say that the person who is unable to distinguish truth from falsehood is as unhappily circumstanced as one who sees no difference between the true purple and its counterfeit, is to speak without energy; to utter a mere truism and to corroborate the more prominent branch of a proposition by that which is less striking and significant. It would be difficult to find in all the writings of Horace a similar instance of careless composition. Some of the translators have told us, that qui nescit contendere means the merchant who cannot distinguish but the poet alludes to merchants no where, as far as I can observe, in the whole Epistle, and seems rather to have in view the reges et regum amicos, the great men of Rome and their friends, who were the wearers of Sidonian or Tyrian purple. Fuge magna, he tells Fuscus immediately after. There is something satirical in propiusve medullis as applied to merchants, which little with a familiar letter in verse, appears to accord very written throughout with inimitable ease; the uniform character of which is a charming simplicity preserved in a remarkable manner to the concluding line.

The alteration, which I would propose, Sir, is to read noscit instead of nescit, and to place a note of interrogation at falsum.

Non, qui Sidonio contendere callidus ostro
Noscit Aquinatem potantia veliera fucum,
Certius accipiet damnum, propiusvè medullis,
Quàm qui non poterit vero distinguere falsum?

"Will not the luxu

Falsum agreeing with fucum understood. rious Roman, who knows how to distinguish accurately the Aquinian from the Sidonian purple, feel any reverse of fortune

"They that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses." St. Matth. ch. xi.

more deeply, than the man who cannot discern the true dye from the counterfeit?" That is, than the plain man who lives in the country, and knows nothing of such refinements. This sentiment appears consonant to the argument which precedes it in the Epistle, and is likewise illustrated by the lines which follow : Quem res plus nimio delectavere secundæ, Mutatæ quatient: si quid mirabere, pones

Invitus.

"Him, whom prosperity has immoderately delighted, adversity shakes to the soul: if you take up and admire any thing,' you lay it down again with reluctance."i

Another objection to the usual reading arises out of its inconsistency with that politeness which prevails through the tenth Epistle. The whole of the poet's reasoning is conducted with the temperance, which is characteristic of good taste in writing. Would it not have been abrupt to insinuate so openly that Fuscus was unable to discriminate truth from falsehood in this question? Besides, no man more than Horace was alive to the advantages of the capital: its superior conveniences, its instruction, its liberal conversation. The preference of a town or a country life, in the advanced state of civilisation to which Rome had then, and London is now, arrived, is of no obvious decision: much may be pleaded on either side; and there seems no good reason why a man of education, whose circumstances give him the choice, should entirely renounce the capital. Not to lay any stress upon Horace's phrase in one of his odes, beatæ Roma, there is enough in the epistle before us to convince any unprejudiced person that the author was not likely to be intemperate in his argument. He addresses himself to Fuscus, in answer, it should seem, to a letter from him, in which he had pressed Horace not to withdraw himself entirely from Rome, and had stated his own reasons for preferring it, as a residence, to the country. Horace almost begins his epistle by insinuating, that he has quitted the city as a sated guest, and compares its pleasures and conveniences to rich cakes of which he has so long partaken, that he now prefers household bread. After the six charming lines beginning at purior and ending at victrix, he confines himself to counselling Fuscus to shun grandeur and luxury. Placing this opinion in various points of view, agreeably to his general practice, he relates a pleasant fable of man's conquest. over the horse, which conducts him to the moral of his poem.

How much more reluctantly then do you resign what possessed.

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Sic qui pauperiem veritus, potiore metallis

Libertate caret, dominum vehet improbus, atque

Serviet æternum; quia parvo nesciat uti.

I have said more, Sir, than I at first intended, on the reading, which I have proposed, because I know how natural it is to adhere with pertinacity to what we have been accustomed to read and translate in a certain manner from our boyhood. The advantages hoped to be attained by this change of a single letter are, that instead of a passage which, after all that the commentators have said, still remains obscure and feeble, we should have a sense more consistent with the context; which would connect the preceding and subsequent parts of the Epistle; and of which there could be but one interpretation.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

Chester Street, 4, Grosvenor Place,

Nov. 16. 1811.

N.

NOTICE OF

SERMONS, preached on Public Occasions, with Notes, and an APPENDIX, on various important subjects, by R. VALPY, D.D. F.A.S.-2 vols. 8vo.

WITH the Doctrines and the Duties inculcated, or the Charities recommended, in these Discourses, or with the Political, Patriotic, and Polemical Subjects, which form the Articles of the Appendix in the Second Volume, we have no concern. These we consign to the general Reviews. But the author has a claim to our notice from the Classical and Historical disquisitions, with which he has diversified a publication in the preface to which he seems to bid adieu to Political and Polemical objects.

The greatest part of these occur in the Notes and Appendix to his first Assize Sermon; and we shall select one for our examination. His chief object in that discourse is to show, from historical evidences, that the human race have been, and still are, progressively improving; and consequently, that the dispiriting doctrine broached by certain moralists and religious enthusiasts, respecting the constant and regular degeneracy of mankind in every succeeding age, cannot be true. Among a great number of learned, curious, and interesting facts, which he has embodied in support of his proposition, he has adduced the inhuman and sanguinary codes of antiquity, as proofs of the backward state of civilisation among those nations, before VOL. IV. No. VIII.

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