Eirionnach.
P.S.—Can I get a copy of the Catholic Friend, which is referred to in the preface of the Catholic Florist as a scarce and valuable work; and also a copy of the Catholic Instructor: London, 1844?
March, 1854.
Footnote 1:[(return)]
[The Truthteller was discontinued at the end of vol. i. The first number was published Sept. 25, 1824, and the last on Sept. 17, 1825. The publisher and editor, W. A. Andrews, closes his labours with the following remarks: "Having given The Truthteller a year's trial, we feel ourselves called upon, as a matter of justice to our family, to discontinue it as a newspaper. The negligence of too many of our subscribers, in not discharging their engagements to us, and the indifference of others of the Catholic body, to support the vindicator of their civil and religious principles, leave us no alternative but that of dropping it as a newspaper, or carrying it on at a loss." Only two of Crito's papers on Botany were given in The Truthteller, viz. in No. 15., p. 115., and No. 16., p. 123. He probably continued them in The Catholic Friend, also published by W. A. Andrews.
The following extract from a letter signed F., and dated Jan. 4, 1825, given in The Truthteller, vol. i. No. 16. p. 126., recommends the publication, among other works, of a "Catholic Calendar. There should also be a Catholic Calendar, something like The Perennial Calendar, but more portable, and fuller of religious information, in which, under each saint, his or her particular virtues, intelligence, good works, or martyrdom, should be succinctly set forth, so as to form a sort of calendar of human triumphs, such as is recommended by Mr. Counsellor Basil Montagu in his Essays." In a note the writer adds, "This I believe will soon be undertaken." This letter seems to have been written by Dr. Forster.—Ed.]
Thanks to Mr. Pinkerton, I am enabled to turn my surmise into certainty, and have the pleasure of clearing up a literary hoax, which has, it seems, passed without challenge till my note of interrogation appeared in these pages. The Anthologia and the Florilegium are purely imaginary titles for certain pieces in prose and verse, the production of Dr. Forster, and have no existence save in the Circle of the Seasons.
In the Autobiography of the eccentric Doctor—which is entitled Recueil de ma Vie, mes Ouvrages et mes Pensées: Opuscule Philosophique, par Thomas Ignace Marie Forster: Bruxelles, 1836—at p. 55. he enumerates the Anthologia and Florilegium among his "Pièces Fugitives," and ends the list in the following words:
"Encore je me confesse d'avoir écrit toutes ces essais détachés dans le Perennial Calendar, auxquels j'ai attaché quelques signatures, ou plus proprement des lettres, comme A. B. S. R. etc."
In the solitude of his garden at Hartwell he conceived the idea of making a Floral Directory, which he eventually carried out, and published under the title of the Circle of the Seasons. See p. 21.