2n'J S. NO 86., Aug. 15. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



133 



I. niOGnAPIIICAL KICTIONAKIES. 11. THE BRO- 

 THERS HUGH JAMES AND HENKT JOHN ROSE. 



(2'"» S. i. 517.) 



Mr. a. Hossey kindly- undertakes to enlighten 

 iTie ns to the full names, honours, and titles of the 

 above brothers, wiiom, he says, I " have confounded," 

 and nobody has yet appeared to set me right. This 

 is his oversight. In tiie very next issue after my 

 original article, the Editor (fancying the same 

 mistake to have been made) says, in his "Notices," 

 &c., that " his attention has been called to it," and 

 wonders it could have escaped him at the time of 

 the article. But despite this repeated concern for 

 Harvardiensis's blunder, his friends on the other 

 side the water will learn, perhaps with surprise, 

 that he has not in anywise thus confounded per- 

 sons. Still their inference to the contrary is ex- 

 cusable enough, and can be easily solved. Har- 

 VARDiENSis did indeed write, and even print (P' 

 S. xi. 431., first col.), "the Dictionary ostensibly 

 in the name of Henry J. Rose," &c. ; surely, 

 however, in some strange absence of mind, to 

 which "Henry" being the prevailing christian 

 name under that initial, and the other somewhat 

 unusual, might contribute. His supposed error is 

 based wholly upon this. But had he have written 

 out the second name, it would not have been 

 "John ;" and good reason why, as will forthwith 

 appear. Since that "ostensible" name in ques- 

 tion was that of Hugh James R., and his only, 

 how could anything but a lapsus pennce have sub- 

 stituted another? And further, since the name 

 of Henry John R. is hunted for utterly in vain, 

 fi-om the first page to the last of this twelve- 

 volumed series : stronger than all, since the name 

 of this surviving brother was utterly unknown to 

 the writer at the date of his article, and was first 

 pointed out to him in the Boston AtliencBum, 

 months after, in the title-page of some learned 

 Cyclopcedia, which had (it would seem) the united 

 aid of both brothers, — must it not be a singularly 

 ingenious process which could make it out that 

 he had " confounded " them ? Were it not for 

 the drawbacks, obvious enough (for they are 

 other than those of distance merely), which damp 

 the ardour of a transatlantic correspondent, he 

 should not have waited for this second correction 

 of his imaginary mistake. 



What concern Arthur Husset may have had 

 with the Biographical Collection of the Roses, 

 Harvardiensis, of course, knows not ; but it seems 

 to be taken rather in dudgeon, that he does not 

 conceive of that work, as making a much nearer 

 approach for us than before, to that exceeding, 

 and not at all Utopian, desideratum, — a truly tho- 

 rough, scholarly, and comprehensive Dictionary of 

 Biography. He certainly counts it no " impossi- 

 bility," nor admits the hope of seeing it realised 

 to be something like that of " bridging over the 



Atlantic." How idle to say that no such work 

 can be made perfect ! It is not a whit more true 

 than of every other work, covering a broad fiehl 

 of inquiry, or a vast multiplicity of details. We 

 are content, if it approximate that perfection, and 

 if competent judges, rising from a severe critical 

 scrutiny of its contents, can complacently say, 

 " that it leaves little more to be desired ;" not an 

 every-day eulogium, it is most sure, yet a decree 

 which, every now and then, an aspirant mounts 

 up most worthily to claim. What forbids this 

 being uttered over a Gazetteer, a Dictionary (of 

 words), or Cyclopaedias of various name ? But 

 where is the "Universal Biography" that may 

 venture to come and put in pretensions to praise 

 like this? We confidently answer — nowhere. 

 There has been nothing assuming that name, for 

 the last seventy years, that has not been a 

 mockery and affront to an educated public. If 

 Arthur Husset is curious to know the judg- 

 ment held by some of us of the latest candidate 

 for so easy a prize — to wit, that issued from Glas- 

 gow in 1853 or 1854, under the auspices of some 

 twenty Scottish luminaries — we commend to his 

 notice a recent number of our North American 

 Review (Oct. 1856). Still to demand something 

 better than it has yet been our good fortune to 

 see, can hardly entail upon us the charge of cap- 

 tious or caviller, or it is one, at least, that can be 

 very comfortably borne. 



There is a random and most vague sort of talk, 

 very common to hear, of the endless varieties of 

 opinion, as to who have or have not a right to be 

 found in such a collection ; as if all guide to any 

 just decision in the case were wanting; and as if, 

 should the notes of all be taken, not much less than 

 that same all would see themselves there on some 

 authority — good, bad, or indifferent. This might 

 indeed be something like " bridging the Atlantic." 

 But happily all the world are not the court to 

 decide the question, nor would any public desire 

 that they should be. There is a basis upon which 

 eminence, or notoriety even (since both must come 

 into account), may obtain something like a fixed 

 standard, though, from the language of the class 

 of persons just referred to, it would never be 

 suspected. But to form any such basis implies 

 that the subject has been well considered and 

 turned over, so as to present all its bearings ; and 

 the reviewer of Gorton, and his fellow-compilers, 

 does not shrink from the vanity, be it more or 

 less, of believing that from few beside himself has 

 it of late received more minute, patient, deliberate 

 study. He is quite sure that the existing wants in 

 this department are not outside of the line of 

 computation ; that they can, in fact, be set down 

 with some tolerable precision in figures. What 

 limits, therefore, comprehensive justice to so mul- 

 tifarious a subject prescribes, let such a process be 

 pursued : that would occasion no wide difference of 



