34 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



t2nd S. No 106., Jan. 9. '58. 



southey's cowper. 

 (2°d S. iv. 101. 152.) 



S. R. M. did not advert that the American re- 

 prints of the Private Correspondence of Cowper, 

 issued by Dr. Johnson, alone were in my mind. 

 The Philadelphia and the Boston impressions were 

 each a single volume ; the former, 385 pp. 8vo., the 

 latter, 312 pp. r2mo. Considering the mania for 

 compression, long so prevalent among publishers 

 in this country, it would be natural enough to 

 infer that the English work (unseen by me as yet) 

 could not well fall short of two in extent. The 

 hint of my respondent touching the bibliography 

 of Cowper's writings in the United States shall 

 receive attention at an early day ; meanwhile the 

 Bibliotheea Americana of O. A. Roonbach (from 

 1820 to 1852), with a Supplement extending three 

 years later, may' contain what will imperfectly 

 meet his inquiry ; provided those volumes are to 

 be found with London booksellers. 



But, alas ! the reply of S. R. M. touches not at 

 all upon that which makes the gist of my diffi- 

 culty. Would that it had ; or that some evidence 

 were furnished me from some quarter where it 

 Lad received attention, that another mind (If no 

 more) at least, on that side the water, had not 

 escaped the maze of wonder which still enwraps 

 my own. It is pleasant to be so easily enabled to 

 correct my first statement as \o Mr. Southey's 

 near approach to " completeness." To correct Is 

 to intensify, of course ; and to mention four-fifths 

 of the Johnson series as taken, so far as then exa- 

 mined, was a figure too small indeed by far. That 

 approach was to the very verge of completeness, 

 though who, from the expressions of Mr. S., and 

 of all connected with him, would ever infer so 

 much ? My collating, since writing before, has 

 been pursued to the end: the totality of letters in 

 the collection just named is two hundred and 

 twenty-three ; and the editor's inclusion of the 

 entire body, here or there, in his fifteen vols., 

 might be called complete, but for two exceptions. 

 The proportion, then, of that forbidden fruit which 

 the salutary fear of the law before his eyes kept 

 him from seizing, was — though not very easy for 

 arithmetic exactly to hit — somewhat more than 

 an hundred and tenth part; surely a homoeo- 

 pathic measure, when set against the whole 

 garnered orchard ! Who is not curious to know 

 those exceptions ? One, a letter to Mr. King 

 (Sept. 23, 1791), the husband of Cowper's cor° 

 respondent, not elsewhere addressed in the volume, 

 and this only a brief and anxious inquiry after 

 the health of his lady. The other is to John 

 Newton (Dec. 1, 1789). Bohn, in his late issue, 

 recovers this last, and takes no notice of the other. 

 Of the grand total derived from Dr. Johnson, as 

 above given, an hundred and fifteen letters appear 



in that supplemental volume (the 15th), which one 

 is led to deem the last in-gathering of materials 

 received too late for their proper place. Some 

 few are wrought into the Memoir, and not again 

 repeated ; _ while the residue he who will seek 

 may find in their chronological position, vols. I v. 

 to vli. and the last part of vol. ill. 

 _ Mrs. King, before referred to, was one of the 

 circle of correspondents unknown to Mr. Hay ley 

 and to his collection ; the only such case indeed. 

 Her letters, some thirty in number, first saw ihe 

 light in Dr. Johnson's pages, and make nearly a 

 seventh part of that interdicted book, the with- 

 holding of which explains "wherefore the present 

 edition Is not complete " (the opening words of Mr. 

 Southey's preface). Fancy, then, the amazement 

 with which we open upon the following note at 

 that point in the Memoir (178G), where Mrs. K. 

 is first ushered in as having been a coi-respondent 

 of the deceased brother: — "The Rev. Dr. Gur- 

 ham of Maidenhead, to whom appertain at this 

 time" the aforesaid letters, " has obligingly en- 

 abled Mr. S. to print them fi-om the originals cor- 

 rectly and without mutilation, adding to them two 

 yet unpublished." But for thirteen years these 

 letters had been in all hands, and whence did Dr. 

 J. print them, if not from the originals ? lie an- 

 ticipated Mr. S. thus long ; moreover, his heirs 

 have disposed of these letters, and very many 

 more, to a publishing house uncordial to himself, 

 which notifies any similar firm that it will use 

 them at its peril ! 



Enough has been said of the discordant tone of 

 Mr. Southey's preface. Mr. Bohn, following suit 

 while he had got for a song the " Private Corre- 

 spondence," allows that "still it could not be 

 omitted in a complete edition of the author's works" 

 (the copyright must have expired within those 

 seventeen years), " and is therefore " — mark now 

 what follows, — "so far as it was deemed of value, 

 included in the Memoir or the Supplementary * 

 volume." To mystify the reader, one might fear, 

 was the very end aimed at. They are to be in- 

 cluded for completeness' sake ; but stay — so far 

 only as they are deemed of value in the publish- 

 er's eyes, whose judgment in the case nobody asks 

 for, and with whom, by his own showing, value is 

 not the rule of decision. As to that same valua- 

 tion, it may suffice to say that Messrs. Baldwin 

 and Cradock would fain have had them (as the 

 preface of Mr. S. cannot conceal), and negotiated 

 for them long, but in vain. The American agent at 

 New York for the edition of 1837 (whose notice, 

 directly upon its being received, is before me) 

 brings up the rear. He, too, opens with the ad- 

 mission that " the present edition, though con- 

 taining all the available matter that could be 

 collected, is not complete, because there is a cer- 



♦Is there any voluine thus styled in Mr. Bohn's edi- 

 tion? 



