2"'i S. No 84., Aug. 8. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



101 



LONDON. SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1857. 



southet's edition or cowpee. 



The revived interest in this work, growing out 

 of a copy of Bohn's reprint lately coming into my 

 possession, led to the sifting with somewhat more 

 than ordinary care both that re-issue and the 

 original edition. The result of this pains-taking 

 is to leave behind a problem altogether too diffi- 

 cult for me to solve. 



Twenty years and more had elapsed from the 

 publication by Mr. Hayley of his friend's letters 

 and poetry, when an additional volume of the 

 former appeared, from the hands of the Rev. John 

 Johnson (1824) ; that nephew whom Cowper used 

 to address, then quite a youth, in terms of collo- 

 quial and even childish endearment. The new 

 series presented within itself the most curious con- 

 trast. One set of letters rather too painfully in- 

 teresting, breathed out, one might think, from the 

 very abyss, written in the forlornest and gloomiest 

 mood of the writer's soul, had been set aside by 

 Hayley (as some critics at the time suggested) 

 from fear of the bearing they were likely to have 

 on the vexed question of the exact relation be- 

 tween Cowper's insanity and his religious faith. 

 Almost, if not quite, as many were in his usual 

 vein ; and than several of these, none are more 

 engaging that came from his pen. To this John- 

 son collection, the publishers of a rival and simul- 

 taneous edition to that now under notice laid 

 claim as property. Their New York agent here 

 confidently called it, on this score, the only com,' 

 pleie edition of Cowper, which the agent on the 

 other side freely admitted, while deeming the ad- 

 vantage offsetted to his own article, by " numerous 

 letters of C. unpublished till now." How this 

 copyright was derived, it is foreign to our purpose 

 to inquire ; but in such ambiguous phrase does 

 Mr. Southey in his preface now concede and now 

 scout the pretension in question, that he could 

 hardly have taken, it would seem, a more unwise 

 course, or one less fitted to do away the suspiciohs 

 of the reader. 



He, in the first place, asserts the poor success 

 and heavy sale of the Johnson collection, — "a 

 thousand copies remaining in the publisher's ware- 

 house " at the time his work was projected ; and 

 Mr. Bohn, who echoes this story in the advertise- 

 ment to his late reprint, intimates that these " were 

 sold to him for little more than waste paper." The 

 reader almost inevitably infers — it was expressly 

 meant that he so should — that the letters them- 

 selves justified this public neglect. It may chance 

 however, on the other hand, that some sagacious 

 heads may think of the ancient fable, and surmise 

 that, it being impossible to clutch them, the grapes 

 were sour. If the alleged fact is to be received, it 



presents certainly an enigma beyond solution : the 

 solution of Mr. Southey will satisfy nobody. It is 

 not easy to light upon a sentence or a clause even, 

 favouring this disparaging estimate in either of the 

 five reviews * of Dr. Johnson's volume which my 

 diligence has hunted out ; a coincidence among so 

 many judges not very easily disposed of Two of 

 these notices coming from Reginald Heber and 

 Henry Wane, Jun., may well assert some title to 

 respect ; and, better than all, such an authority as 

 Robert Hall (can we go to an higher court of ap- 

 peal ?), after expressing his admiration of Cowper 

 as a letter-writer, writes to Dr. Johnson, " These 

 appear to me of a superior description to the 

 former." Let me not forget to add, there were 

 both Boston and Philadelphia reprints of the vo- 

 lume in debate, and it will be news to most of us 

 to learn that they turned out to either firm little 

 better than waste paper. 



Again, — in the spirit of his insinuation, Mr. 

 Southey's preface contains statements, which for a 

 veteran editor, than whom no man better knew 

 what the office demands, sound very odd and 

 startling. " He has made such use of the letters 

 in Dr. Johnson's collection as he had an unques- 

 tionaUe right to do ; he has extracted (!) from them 

 as largely as suited his purpose, and brought into 

 his narrative the whole of the information they 

 contain." But an author who, like Cowper, has 

 been consecrated as a classic of the language, may 

 expect in any issue, so strongly styled as that of 

 his Works, to be made literally complete, — his 

 readers will not fail to expect it, and will, of all 

 things, eschew " extracts," as any compensation 

 for the want of it ; and what will those literary 

 exquisites say to such a course, who run this prin- 

 ciple of " completeness " under ground, who are 

 jealous of every omission, on moral pleas even, — 

 of which Swift, unexpurgated yet, may serve as 

 a standing monument down to this day. Mr. 

 Southey (as before said), after admitting in his 

 preface the copyright bar as to the Johnson series 

 of letters, in the warmth of defiance towards his 

 rivals, half unsays it before he concludes. Be- 

 yond all dispute, he virtually undoes it in the con- 

 tents of his volumes. For one, my mind was not 

 at ease until some patient collating was made (it 

 exercised that virtue a little) of this despised vo- 

 lume with the original Southey. This was done, 

 by way of specimen, only for the period down to 

 the close of 1782, within which, from 1765, 

 eighty-three (out of two hundred and twenty) of 

 the Johnson letters date. The development 

 brings at once to our lips the query, What can the 

 law of copyright amount to in England ? Will it 

 be believed, that the edition which confesses to 

 these same letters being out of its reach, and pro- 



* The London Quarterly, Westminster, Christian Ob- 

 server, Gentleman's Magazine, and our own North Ame- 

 rican, 



