ANONYMOUS WORKS: "POSTHUMOUS PARODIES," "ADVENTURES IN THE MOON," ETC.
A remote correspondent finds all help to fail him from bibliographers and cotemporary reviewers in giving any clue to the authorship of the works described below. But he has been conversant enough with the "N. & Q." to perceive that no Query, that he is aware, has yet been started in its pages involving a problem, for which somebody among its readers and contributors has not proved a match. Encouraged thereby, he tenders the three following titles, in the full faith that his curiosity, which is pretty strong, will not have been transmitted over the waste of waters but to good result.
1. Posthumous Parodies, and other Pieces, by several of our most celebrated poets, but not before published in any former edition of their works: John Miller, London, 12mo., 1814. This contains some twenty imitations or over, of the more celebrated minor poems, all of a political cast, and breathing strongly the tone of the anti-Jacobin verse; executed for the most part, and several of them in particular, with great felicity. Among that sort of jeux d'esprit they hardly take second place to The Knife Grinder, the mention of which reminds me to add that it is manifest enough, from half-a-dozen places in the volume, that Canning is the "magnus Apollo" of the satirist. The final piece (in which the writer drops his former vein) is written in the spirit of sad earnest, in odd contrast with the preceding facetiæ, and betokening, in some lines, a disappointed man. Yet, strange to tell, through all the range of British criticism of that year, there is an utter unconsciousness of its existence. Whether there be another copy on this side the Atlantic, besides the one which enables me to
make these few comments, your correspondent greatly doubts. One living person there is on the other side, it is believed, who could throw light on this question, if these lines should be so fortunate as to meet his eye; since he is referred to, like many others, by initials and terminals, if not in full—Mr. John Wilson Croker.
2. Adventures in the Moon and other Worlds: Longman & Co., sm. 8vo., 1836. Of this work, a friend of the writer (who has but partially read it as yet himself), of keen discernment, says: "It is a work of very marked character. The author is an uncommonly skilful and practical writer, a philosophical thinker, and a scholar familiar with foreign literature and wide reaches of learning. He has great ingenuity and fancy withal; so that he is at the same time exceedingly amusing, and suggestive of weighty and subtle thoughts." This, too, is neglected by all the reviews.
3. Lights, Shadows, and Reflections of Whigs and Tories: Lond. 12mo., 1841. This is a retrospective survey of the several administrations of George III. from 1760 (his accession) to the regency in 1811; evincing much political insight, with some spirited portraits, and indicative both of a close observation of public measures and events, and of personal connexion or intercourse with men in high place. There is a notice of this in the London Spectator of 1841 (May 29th), and in the old Monthly Review; but neither, it is plain, had the author's secret.
Harvardiensis.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, N.E.
P.S.—Two articles of recent time in the London Quarterly Review, the writer would fain trace to their source; "The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey," edited by the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, No. 175. (1851), and "Physiognomy," No. 179. (1852), having three works as the caption of the article, Sir Charles Bell's celebrated work being one.