NON-EXISTING BOOKS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16168, 23 March 1918, Page 7

NON-EXISTING BOOKS.

These are the days when fresh arrivals in the world of letters are nt their fewest, so what is the bird who lives upon books to do, poor 'thing? In the last extremity he can eke out an existence by the "Ersatz" of rhe books that have never been, written. Indirectly, I have been prompted to this resource by dipping into Mr W. F. Smith's "llabelais in His Writings," for it reminded me that Leigh Hunt, in his "Autobiography," described his father as a man who "wrote more titles of non-existing books than Rabelais." Perhaps I ought to confess that I should like to write aboit the titles of non-existing books to ho found in Rabelais, but I am deterred by a reason similar to that which Dr. Johnson told an enquiring ladv led him to define "pastern" as the linee of a horse—"lgnorance, madam, pure ignorance." I can only say that Mr Smith's book is an erudite commentary on the life and writings of Rabelais, and that a good working ignorance of Rabelaisian "research inclines me to believe it is likely to be welcomed by admirers of that coarse but hearty and instructive writer. Dorine reminds Damis in "Tartuffe"' that On n'cxecute pas tout ce qui m propose; JU to chemm est long du projot a ]a chose, —a truth that has been onlv too well verified in the world of letters What a library could be made of the books that have peen planned but never written ! A whole section of it wouid be needed to contain Coleridge's unwritten works, beginninc with the ' 'Specimens o» Modern iTatiu Poems," which was to pay his passage to America* and "for which he printed

firoposals and obtained a _ respectable ist of Cambridge subscribers. ' and ending with the epic poem on " 'The Wanderings of Cain," which he offer-id to a bookseller two days before his death. He once read out to Cottle a list of eighteen works which he intended to write, not one of which -vsis ever begun. And in Southey's tiosraphv there is a letter from Coleridge planning a "Historv of British Literature," bibliographical, biographical, and critical, to consist of at least- a dozen volumes. No wonder that Soutbev told him: "You spawn plans like a herring; 1 only wish as many of the seed were to vivify in proportion." De Quincey lias called Coleridge ' a man of infinite title-pages," and ! e says he heard Coleridge admit that a list of the books he meditated but never executed would fill a large volume. In this respect the two opiumeaters were rivals. Perhaps their fertility in projects was due. as Coleridge fancied., to an of thought, "modified by a constitutional indolence," and had nothing to do with opium. On the other hand, De Quincey believed that his opium-bating prevented him from writing the book 1 e intended to make his life-work, tho slow and elaborate result of years of toil, to which he had "presumed to give the title of an unfinished work of Spinoza's—viz., 'De Emendatione Human! Intellectus.' " In a later mood he devised a "Prelegomena to all Future Systems of Political Economy," and made arrangements with. a provincial printer for its production. An extra compositor was engaged, and the book was advertised, but in spite cf preparations its author never even got as far as the preface. These unwritten books by Coleridge and Do Quincey arc not. indeed, the volumes which I should like most to possess. I would exchange them all for the cookery book which Dr. Johnson did not write. "I could write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written ; it snould bo a book on philosophical principles. ... I tvould tell what is tho best butcher's meat, the best beef, the best pieces; how to choose young fowls; the proper seasons of different vegetables; and then how to roast and boil, and compound. . • • You shall sen what a Book of Cookery 1 shall make!" Alas! we have not seen it: nor have we seen the biography of Oliver Cromwell ho once contemplated, which, as Malonc observes, would undoubtedly have been "a most valuable and curious history of Cromwell's life," nor the work he projected "to show how - small a quantity of real fiction there is in tho world; and that the same images, with very iitt-le variation, have served all the authors who havo ever written." These, as well as the "History of War," which he seems to have thought of writing are inaccessible to Johnson's admirers. For, as Johnson himself commented on tho fact that Mallet never wroto a line of his proposed "Life of Marlborough," "it sometimes happens that men entangle themselves in their own schemes."

Which of Scott's novels would you bo willing to exchange for "The Story of the Fair Venetian," or the "Private Letters," supposed to have been discovered in tho repositories of a noble English family, and giving a picture of manners in town and country during the first part of the reign of James 1., which he abandoned for 'The Fortunes of Nigel"? I find it hard to decide, though tho fair Venetian promised to bo attractive. But I could easily spare one of Anthony Trollope's failures if I could exchange it for the history of English prose .fiction that ho intended to write. "The snbject is so good a one," he says in his "Autobiography" • —a hook, by the way that seems to have fallen into an undeserved neglect

—"that I recommend it heartily to some man of letters, who shall at the same time be indefatigable and lighthanded/' Stevenson is another writer who makes me hesitate. Sometimes I feel inclined to barter one of his books for the lore-story to be called "Canonmills," about "which he wrote to Mrs Boodle, "everybody will think it dreadfully improper, I'm afraid." Most people wish they had the chance. His projected biography of Hazlitt is another unwritten book that one would like to possess. And imagine the satisfaction (or the disgust) of schoolboys if they were presented with a new volume by the author of "Treasure Island," but which turned out to be "An English Grammar: Illustrated by Examples from the English Classics." Yet they are only saved from that disillusion by Stevenson's failure to accomplish what he planned. There are several other contemporaries who have cheated us o\it of books that existed in their minds. Rusk in thought of writing a "Life of Sir Walter Scott'' as well as a book on modern landscape art. George Meredith contemplated a novel that was to have the title "The Journalist," and had it been published it might, have become the classic of our craft. Lord Morley has lately told.us that when he had finished his biographies of Gobden and Gladstone, he began to wonder "whether it would not be a natural continuance in the line of European Liberalism to attempt an estimate of Cavour." Some preliminary work was .done upon the task, but it was soon abandoned. Mr Balfour was to have written a study of John Stuart Mill for Blackwood's "Philosophical Classics" series, but that, too, remains unwritten; nor are we likely to have Lord Bryce's "History of Germany," which was announced some years ago by Messrs •Macmillan, We have to regret, too that Andrew Lang never wrote "The Whiteley of Crime," which was io have been so full of moving incidents, or that other novel, based on a dream, and bearing the enigmatic title, "In Search of Qrart.'' Of qrart we know no more than that it -was "a product of the civilisation that now sleeps beneath the pole."—"Penguin," in the '"Observer."