No. 24.] JV 9 1886 [November, 1886. BOOK-LORE: A Monthly Magazine of Bibliography. ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. NEW YORK: DAVID G. FRANCIS, 17, ASTOR PLACE. ii ELLIOT Book-Lore Advertiser. [November, 1886. STOCK'S NEW LIST. THE BOOK-LOVER'S LIBRARY. In fcap. 8vo., cloth, price 4s. 6d. ; Roxburgh, 7s. 6d. ; large paper copies, 21s., post free, each volume. Vol. 1.-HOW TO FORM A LIBRARY. BY HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A. CONTENTS: How Men have Formed Libraries. -How to Buy.-Public Libraries.-Private Libraries.-General Bibliographies.-Special Bibliographies.-Publishing Societies.-Child's Library.-One Hundred Books. "An admirable guide to the best bibliographies and books of reference. . . . It is altogether a volume to be desired.”—Globe. Vol. 2.-OLD COOKERY BOOKS AND ANCIENT CUISINE. By WILLIAM CAREW HAZLITT. "Full of curious information, this work can fairly claim to be a philosophical history of our national cookery."--Morning Post. Vol. 3-THE LITERATURE OF LOCAL INSTITUTIONS. By G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A. The work is divided into the following Sections: 1. Local Government generally.-2. The Shire.-3. The Hundred.— 4. The Municipal Borough.-5. The Guilds.-6. The Manor.-7. The Township and Parish. "A handy and useful guide to the study of a vast subject. The writer's experience in bibliography and index-making is fully reflected in the descriptive lists of works appended to each section of an excellent exposition of the antiquity and growth of local institutions. Saturday Review. In crown 8vo., cloth, price 6s., post free. LETTERS OF FREDERIC OZANAM, Professor of Foreign Literature in the Sorbonne. Translated from the French, with a connecting Sketch of his Life. By AINSLIE COATES. "Mr. Coates has succeeded in writing a good translation, and in preserving the freshness of style, which, blended to the maturity of thought, is the great charm of Ozanam's letters."-Morning Post. In crown 8vo., cloth, price 7s. 6d., post free. Translated by the Baroness THE LADY WITH THE GARNETS. By E. MARLITT. LANGENAU. "The story is a prose poem which every reader will acknowledge to feeling the better for mastering."-Whitehall Review. "This fascinating tale."-Morning Post. In demy 8vo., cloth, price 7s. 6d. ; Roxburgh, 10s. 6d. ; large paper copies, 21s. net. A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE. By JOHN PENDLETON. "An entertaining and very instructive guide to all that is most interesting in the county."-The Times. Just what a popular county history should be."-Retford Times. In crown 8vo., cloth, price 6s., post free. UNDINE, the Spirit of the Waters. A Poem, containing a Version of the Narrative by Baron FOUQUE. BY WILLIAM HIPSLEY. Crown 8vo., cloth, price 6s., post free. A HEART'S OBSESSION: Sonnets of the City, and other Poems. By ROBERT STEGGALL, Author of "Evensongs," "Jeanne d'Arc," etc. "It will be strange if the volume does not produce a vivid impression."-Illustrated London News. "His descriptive sonnets are singularly fine."-Vanity Fair. "His poems have charm of feeling and expression."-Morning Post. In demy 8vo., tastefully printed, with many Illustrations, price 10s. 6d., post free. THE HISTORY OF STREATHAM. Being an Account of the ancient Parish of Estreham, with the History of the Manors of Tooting Bec, Leigham and Balham, and a short Sketch of the County of Surrey. By F. ARNOLD, Junr., F. R. H.S., etc. "Admirably executed, and bears marks of patient research."-Echo. In crown 8vo., tinted wrapper, price 6d., post free. THE LATE RIGHT HON. HENRY FAWCETT, M.P. A Lecture delivered at the Weymouth Working Men's Club. By HENRY PETO. "A boon to very many who cannot afford to purchase the biography of this remarkable man."-Christian Leader. "Will serve as an introduction to the study of his writings."-Literary World. LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. HE man with a theory is met with in every department of literature, Though sometimes a nuisance, and more frequently wrong in his surmises than right, yet we must not forget that in a few rare instances the crotchet-monger stumbles upon the truth, and proves without doubt that the world has made a mistake. Under these exceptional circumstances, he is transformed into a "discoverer" or " inventor," according to the particular path his labours have traversed. Galileo himself was a crotchet-monger to a certain point, but when his telescope usurped the place of the astrolabe, and his Copernican theory that of the Ptolemaic, he was one no longer. As in Galileo's day, a radical innovation invariably engenders ridicule and social persecution even in our own, and this is because, in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, the experiment militates against a standing belief which has over and over again been tested with perfectly satisfactory results. One enthusiast, who has not yet succeeded in resuscitating a very old and decayed belief, persuaded himself that the earth was flat, and actually betted and staked a very large sum of money on the truth of his theory. He was proved to be wrong by the simple experiment of measuring an extended strip of water; but for all that he was not convinced, and brought an action for the recovery of his money. That he did not get it goes without saying; but to this day, if he be still alive, he will doubtless consider himself a much-abused man, and prove to you in theory that the surface of the world is as level as a plank. This is a very fair example of what a scientific crotchet-monger will do rather than abate a fraction of his untenable position; he will argue and fight, and when the fortunes of war are against him, still hold to his belief with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. In literature the crotchet-monger flourishes like a green bay-tree, and as argument cannot be met in this instance by practical demonstration, he has a wide and extended field wherein to disport himself. If he is a man of ingenuity, he will infallibly succeed in persuading others in addition to himself, and he must NOVEMBER, 1886. 20 C be as dead as Mrs. Girling before his disciples begin to realize that perhaps, after all, they may be in error. If anything in this world can be thought more absolutely certain than any other, it will be that Judas Iscariot was a wicked and depraved man, who did not scruple to sell his Master to gratify his own greedy love of filthy lucre; yet there are some theorists who maintain, and doubtless thoroughly believe, that he was actuated by the purest of motives. They can produce arguments, culled from De Quincey and elsewhere, which exhibit him in the light of an angel, the only one of the twelve who did what he thought to be his duty. There is, in truth, no proposition whatever which cannot be confronted by some specious negation; the more obvious a conclusion may appear to be, the greater is the ingenuity brought into play for demolishing it, and the more eager is the crotchet-monger to distinguish himself in an assault on the orthodox belief. As might have been expected, Shakespeare has been and is daily subjected to the adverse criticisms of the followers of Thomas called Didymus. They say his plays are very good, for which we beg to thank them heartily; but that they are all, or most of them, plagiarisms of a very bad description. Another section of this school of theorists assert, and attempt to prove, that not one of the plays was written by Shakespeare at all; and ever since Colonel Joseph Hart, the United States Consul at Santa Cruz, first endeavoured to rob the great dramatist of his laurels, and place them on the unworthy brows of Tom, Dick, and Harry, there have been periodical outbreaks of Shakespearian hydrophobia of one kind or another, which are seemingly as impossible of extirpation as the genuine rabies itself. The good people who think they can place their fingers with unerring accuracy on the lost tribes, or demonstrate by the length of the main corridor in the great Pyramid of Cheops that the world will certainly come to an end during the course of the present year, are no harder of belief than the detractors of the Swan of Avon. Each and every one of these enthusiasts is morally persuaded that he is right; he scoffs at, or, what is worse, treats with a supercilious smile the accepted belief of the whole civilized world, and drives in his wedge of heterodoxy with the most annoying coolness and self-possession. We say annoying, because it is exceedingly unpleasant to be expected to listen and also to refute; for the crotchet-monger, of whatever species or grade, is always oblivious of the fact that the onus or burden of proof lies upon the assertor, and never upon him who defends. This healthy rule is ignored as much as possible by all supporters of strange beliefs; but the Shakespearian crotchet-monger has an especial loathing for inconvenient rules and orders, and, like "the chameleon that doth feed on air," changes his front to suit the circumstances in which he finds himself placed. Sisyphus-like, he rolls his stone to the very brow of the hill, and when it rolls down, goes through the operation again and again, heedless of obstacles, and never for an instant doubting that he will sooner or later reach the summit of his ambition and toil, and be able to gaze upon the discredited shade of one who was the delight of millions. We believe-Heaven forbid the news to be true, but we have read somewhere-that a being of this class intends shortly to leave his native America, with the object of explaining a theory that Lord Bacon was the actual author of Romeo and Juliet. This tragedy, we presume, is to be singled out as a fit subject of attack, much in the same degree as the old action of ejectment "Doe on the demise of Titmouse v. Aubrey " was intended to settle much larger issues than the one involved in the particular instance, and we do not doubt that if the sanguine American can induce anyone to listen to him, he will, in his own way and to his own satisfaction, conclusively show that Shakespeare is wearing the plumes of Bacon, and that he wears them, moreover, uncommonly ill. The Baconian theory is not of course a novel one; it has often been advanced before, though in a different way. The usual practice has been to attack the authorship of every one of the plays in the mass, thereby exposing the argument to a divided rejoinder, based upon a number of independent instances. This latest attempt is to be directed against one play only, and if that is successful, the others can be dealt with at leisure. It is a mistake to admit anything in controversies of this nature, but we think it would be very hard to maintain a firm position with regard to any one of the plays, if the accepted authorship of Romeo and Juliet should ever come to be universally discredited. With the exception of a few, some of which are doubtful, the plays accredited to Shakespeare were either written by him or they were not; the time is not yet come, nor are there sufficient materials at hand, to justify a serious proposition that he is the author of one or more, but not of all. It is of course quite impossible to say what will be the nature of any fresh attempt to disgust the English people with the brightest star that has arisen from the horizon of letters since the days of Homer; but we may be quite certain that no compunction for the memory of the illustrious dead will be allowed to stand in the way; ability and character will be both assailed, and what capital can be made will be made even at the expense of cherished traditions and popular belief. Judging, however, from the procedure in the past, we may expect to meet the same old arguments dressed up to suit the fancy of the crotchet-monger of the hour; and at the risk of exhausting the patience of those who have listened to them before, we will analyze very shortly the position as it stands with regard to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, as is well known, died on the 23rd of April, 1616, and the first quarto edition of this play bears date 1597. The second edition was issued in |