THE "BIBLIOGRAPHIE BIOGRAPHIQUE."
A lover of literature, and aspiring to promote its extension and improvement, I sometimes form projects for the adoption of others—sensible, be it also said, of the extent of my own engagements with certain learned societies.
One of these projects has been a tabular view of the literary biography of the British Islands. In the midst of my reflections on the plans of Blair, Priestly, Playfair, Oberlin, Tytler, Jarry de Mancy, &c. I received a specimen of a Bibliographie biographique, by Edouard-Marie Oettinger, now in the press at Leipzic.
As books multiply, the inexpediency of attempting general bibliography becomes more and more apparent. Meritorious as are the works of Brunet and Ebert, and useful as they may be to collectors, they are inadequate to the wants of men of letters. Henceforth, the bibliographer who aims at completeness and accuracy must restrict himself to one class of books.
M. Oettinger appears to have acted on this principle, and has been happy in the choice of his subject—
"The proper study of mankind is man."
The work is comprehensive in its object, judicious in its plan, accurate in its details, as far as the specimen proceeds, and an unquestionable desideratum in literature.
Ainsi, vive M. Edouard-Marie Oettinger! Vive la Bibliographie biographique!
BOLTON CORNEY.