Arabic Numerals.—In the lists of works which treat of Arabic Numerals, the following have not been noticed, although they contain a review of what has been written on their introduction into this part of Europe:—Archæologia, vols. x. xiii.; Bibliotheca Literaria, Nos. 8. and 10., including Huetiana on this subject; and Morant's Colchester, b. iii. p. 28.
T.J.
ERROR IN HALLAM'S HISTORY OF LITERATURE.
If Mr. Hallam's accuracy in parvis could be fairly judged by the following instance, and that given by your correspondent "CANTAB." (No. 4, p. 51.), I fear much could not be said for it. The following passage is from Mr. Hallam's account of Campanella and his disciple Adami. My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam's work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second. I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy.
"Tobias Adami, ... who dedicated to the philosophers of Germany his own Prodromus Philosophiæ Instauratio, prefixed to his edition of Campanella's Compendium de Rerum Naturæ, published at Frankfort in 1617. Most of the other writings of the master seem to have preceded this edition, for Adami enumerates them in his Prodromus."—Hist. of Literature, iii. 149.
The title is not Prodromus Philosophiæ Instauratio, which is not sense; but Prodromus Philosophiæ Instaurandæ (Forerunner of a philosophy to be constructed). This Prodromus is a treatise of Campanella's, not, as Mr. Hallam says, of Adami. Adami published the Prodromus for Campanella, who was in prison; and he wrote a preface, in which he gives a list of other writings of Campanella, which he proposes to publish afterwards. What Mr. Hallam calls an "edition," was the first publication.
Mere accident enabled me to detect these errors. I am not a bibliographer and do not know a ten-thousandth part of what Mr. Hallam knows. I extract this note from my common-place book, and send it to you, hoping to elicit the opinions of some of your learned correspondents on the general accuracy in biography and bibliography of Mr. Hallam's History of Literature. Has Mr. Bolton Corney, if I may venture to name him, examined the work? His notes and opinion would be particularly valuable.
As a few inaccuracies such as this may occur in any work of large scope proceeding from the most learned of men, and be accidentally detected by an ignoramus, so a more extensive impeachment of Mr. Hallam's accuracy would make a very trifling deduction from his great claims to respect and well-established fame. I believe I rightly understand the spirit in which you desire your periodical to be the medium for emending valuable works, when I thus guard myself against the appearance of disrespect to a great ornament of literature.