CLASSICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Mr. Editor—The following list of the editions of the classics fittest to enter into a literary collection of the Roman and Greek authors, was drawn up, a little while since, at the request of a friend, who is beginning to appropriate, out of his income, an annual sum to the forming of a private library. The series indicated is such as is recommended by the convenience of their form, the general goodness of their typographical execution, the correctness of their text, and the usefulness of a commentary, from which all that sort of erudition is excluded, which perpetually misses or goes beyond the mark. In such a plan, the mere luxury of editions—the pursuit of the rare, or curious, or costly, apart from more serious excellence—is, of course, to be disregarded. Beyond mere uniformity of size, I would make no sacrifice to the Graces; nor this, but that the octavo form combines the differing advantages of compactness and bulk. It neither forbids, by its diminutiveness, all explanation of the text; nor confounds you, like a folio, with the trivialities of an eternal erudition. It is, too, the form in which editions have been multiplied the most; so that it can offer, in a cheap but agreeable dress, almost every thing with which learning has elucidated the ancient writers.
I myself do not slight the passion of the mere book-fancier. In a country where the wealthiest and best-born of the land lavish their annual thousands, for the praise of possessing stud horses of the most honorable lineage, or that they may enjoy, through life, the society of grooms and trainers, it would be, perhaps, not amiss if, for mere diversity's sake, some less illiterate follies were introduced. Are the brawling and boorish fox-hunter, or the super-subtle man of the turf (races rapidly becoming the reproach of English manners and tastes) all that our men of fortune can imitate among the English gentry? Their ancestral mansions, adorned with whatever art or science can accumulate of beautiful or curious: their delightful pleasure-grounds, where the picturesque creates a thousand charmingly disposed landscapes: their museums of antiquities—their rich galleries of pictures—their master-pieces of sculpture—their noble and learned private libraries, the chief pride and ornament of every wealthy residence—when, alas! shall we, instead of what is coarsest and most immoral and least intellectual in the habits and amusements of English life, rise to even the idler and more puerile parts of Taste and Letters—the follies of the Virtuoso and the Bibliomaniac?
But “revenons à nos moutons:” let us get back to our ancients; of whom, I believe, you will find the annexed list a careful and a copious one. I have consulted, in compiling it, the following leading authorities: Morhof, Polyhistor Literarius; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca; Idem, Bibliotheca Latina Vetus; Idem, Bibliographia Antiquaria; Idem, Historia Bibliothecae suae; Saxius, Onomasticon Literarium; Saldenus, De Libris corumque usu et abusu; Panzer, Annales; Renouard, Annales des Aldes; Cave's Chartophylax; Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle; Idem, Bibliothèque Choisie; Bayle, Dictionaire historique, &c.; the great French Biographie Universelle; Barbier, Dictionaire des Anonymes et pseudonymes; Cailleau, Dictionaire bibliographique; Harwood, View of the Classics; Adam Clarke, Bibliographical Dictionary and Miscellany; Dibdin, Guide to the Classics; Moss, Classical Bibliography; Dunlop, Roman Literature; Schoell, Littérature Grecque; Hartshorne, Book rarities of the University of Cambridge; Bent's London Catalogues; Idem, Literary Advertiser; Anthon's Lempriere's Dictionary; Watts's Bibliotheca Britannica; Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual; but, much more than all, Brunet's excellent, exact, eminently useful Manuel du Libraire—a book which should be in the hands of every man attempting to pursue any thing like systematic study.
Editions of a series of Greek and Roman classics, 8vo. cum notis selectis variorum.
Achilles Tatius, (Clitophon et Leucippe) Heliodorus, (Æthiopica) Longus, (Daphnis et Chloe) et Xenophon, (Ephesiaca.) Bipont, 1792-4. Four parts in 3 vols. 8vo. 25 francs.
Ælian I would omit—both his Historia Animalium and his Variae Historiae.
Æschines—in the Greek orators; which see.
Æschylus, Tragædiae, (à Schutz.) London: 1823, 5 vols. 8vo. 2l. 12s. 6d. It has the Scholia, and Schutz's Notes.
Æsop, Fabulae, Gr. et Lat. Leipsic: 1810, 8vo. Cum notis vario. et de Furia: accedunt dissertationes Tyrwhitt de Babrio, Huschkii de Archilocho, et Bentleii de Æsopo. There is a cotemporary, and perhaps more esteemed edition, by Coray, (Paris, 8vo.) but I should prefer the first, for the Accessus.