PRESENT PROBLEMS IN ROMANCE LITERATURE 469 



The three great sciences auxiliary to literary history are biblio- 

 graphy, lexicography, and the preparation of texts. M. Lanson 

 says that bibliography has lately made great progress, but that 

 there is still lacking a general bibliography of French literature. 

 The same remark may be made about the other Romance literatures. 

 There should be also complete bibliographies of works of individual 

 authors, of the different literary ages, of the principal magazines 

 and reviews, of publishers and printers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, 

 and seventeenth centuries. Catalogues of the libraries of writers 

 are also very important, such as those of Montaigne and of Racine, 

 made by M. Bonnefon; for, "those inventories," adds M. Lanson, 

 "at a time when the use of public libraries was almost unknown, 

 help us to know what books were read by the great writers, what 

 were their instruments of labor and their tastes." Good lexicons 

 of special writers, such as that of Moliere by Livet, are needed, and 

 also good dictionaries of the different Romance languages. The 

 dictionary of the French language by Darmesteter, Hatzfeld, and 

 Thomas is admirable, and similar works should be produced for the 

 Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese languages. 



Bibliographies and lexicons are useful tools to the student of 

 literature, but accurate texts are indispensable, and the publication 

 of incdits has added greatly to the literary treasures of nations and 

 to the better knowledge of the character and disposition of authors, 

 whose letters and memoirs have been discovered and given to the 

 world. However unsavory it may appear to some persons, the recent 

 publication of the letters of Alfred de Musset and of George Sand 

 has made us understand better the complicated problem of Lui ct 

 Ellc and of Ellc ct Lui. There is no more fruitful theme in the field 

 of Romance literatures than the proper preparation of texts and 

 the publication of incdits. The study of medieval French literature 

 \vas only possible after Paulin Paris had published in 1832 his 

 edition of Bcrtc aux grands picds, and the admirable Chanson dc 

 Roland, the witty Avocat Path din, and other interest 11112; works of the 

 Middle Ages, could be fully appreciated only when good critical 

 editions were published by distinguished Rouuince scholars in 

 luirope and in America. The field is here immense ami is yet hardly 

 explored, in spite of the excellent work of Gaston Paris. Paul Meyer, 

 Grober, Suchier, Schuchardt, Pio Rajna, A. .Marshall Elliott, H. A. 

 Todd. Adolphc Cohn, and many others. 



The biographies of writers are so important for a proper under- 

 standing of their works that no pains should be spared to produce 

 accurate biographies, which should be psychological as well as nar- 

 rative, and many biographies considered complete thus far should 

 be rewritten. It is important, in many cases, to determine exactly 

 in what province of a country a writer was born. Michelet , in the 



