Edward Spencer Dodgson an Hugo Schuchardt (140-02523)

von Edward Spencer Dodgson

an Hugo Schuchardt

Porto

12. 07. 1894

language Englisch

Schlagwörter: The Academy Revue des bibliothèques (Paris) Collins, Viktor Vinson, Julien Linschmann, Th. Thomas, Thomas Llewellyn

Zitiervorschlag: Edward Spencer Dodgson an Hugo Schuchardt (140-02523). Porto, 12. 07. 1894. Hrsg. von Bernhard Hurch (2015). In: Bernhard Hurch (Hrsg.): Hugo Schuchardt Archiv. Online unter https://gams.uni-graz.at/o:hsa.letter.3493, abgerufen am 28. 03. 2024. Handle: hdl.handle.net/11471/518.10.1.3493.


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Dear Dr Schuchardt,

I send you my English version of your article on Victor Collins. If you like it, put your name at the end and send it to the editor of The Academy, 27 Chancery Lane. London. W. C. You may introduce any improvements you think necessary into the wording. I like your German very much. I mentioned your writings in the third part of my supplement to Vinson which appeared in the Revue des Bibliothèques for December 1893 of which I had only one proof to correct and no tirage à part. I am going to send Linschmann a list of corrigenda in Capanagae Editione Viziense – Only norçuc is right in those which he proposed himself in Euskara 15. My article on Capanaga in Revue de Linguistique is full of Vinsonian |2| blunders. I had no proof for it, but Vinson says I shall have a corrigenda. At Lares near Figueira da Foz the land is partly & must have once been altogether what a Basque coud & would call larre -

I have long since abandoned all belief in any radical difference between r and rr in Basque. I am sorry that you are still unwell, with gout added to nerves. C’est dégoûtant ça! I feel better now that I am to be busy in getting Ste Hélène through the press, but it will not enrich me at all I fear, and that is what I most need, for this life at least. Please let MrThomas know that you are not unfriendly to me. The Academy of July 7 announces Websters pension from the English throne for his ”researches into the language, literature and archeology of the Basque” – As for the1 language & literature they have not been very deep, as you know, and for archeology little that is original.

|1|2Yours truly
E. S. Dodgson.
12 July 1894. Address P. R. Oporto till 20th then Santiago de Galicia, España.

3 I contemplate an edition of Vinsons 93.a which I possess.

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To the Editor of The Academy.

Attempt at a Catalogue of the Library of the late Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte.

By Victor Collins. Henry Sotheran & Co., 140, Strand, W.C., and 37, Piccadilly, W. 1894.

Price one guinea. The Catalogue of the Bonaparte Library which has at last appeared has undeceived me very much on its own account, and in a measure also in respect of its contents. It has been made in no way as it should have been made, and as on German soil it also surely would have been made. Indeed, the author himself confesses it, his work was “hurriedly compiled by one who lacked the necessary qualifications for the task”. But why was the work given to him? Why did he undertake it? “Chance threw the work into my hands”. Is chance a satisfactory reason? He asserts that for the classification he followed Hovelacques book; but does this, one may ask, attribute the Friuli to the “Venetian dialects”, Gallego to the “Spanish Languages”, and so forth? One may pardon his not distinguishing the several Roumauntsch Dialects; but ought he also to have associated the Semitic Aethiopian with the Hamitic Aethiopian? The words “Aryan Polyglot and general” stand at the head of a great lumber-room into which chiefly such matter is cast as should have formed a special section, that of universal linguistic lore, but also very much that belongs to one of the divisions actually adopted; a good deal occurs in a double position, or is cut in turn, thus for instance the Corona pretiosa of 1527, that of 1543, an that of 1549 are to be found under “The Hellenic branch” (N. 2348-2350), that of 1567 under “Aryan” (N. 1681); the three first volumes of Lindes Polish Dictionary, 2nd edition, under “Polish” (N. 12854), the three last under “Aryan” (N. 1899). There is however besides a 2nd big lumber-room: “German”, with altogether corresponding universal and special contents; hither for example has B. Bodenstedts “Die Völker des Kaukasus” been banished (N. 9148), but the French translation of this book (N. 1411) is under “Caucasian Polyglot and general”. Various things which from correspondence by letter with the Prince I had guessed to be in his possession I have not been able to find in the catalogue, full certainty as to this would only be given by a general alphabetical index. We are not however quite so poor in linguistic Bibliographies that such a work coud afford us real service; for anyone who does not contemplate the acquisition of this Library, the guinea which he pays for the catalogue is thrown out of the window. The Library is a very comprehensive one, it consists of 13699 numbers. But it does not embrace the globe in an even manner. The European languages are more especially represented, and of course the Basque part might the most nearly approach completeness, unless perhaps it be that of the English Dialects containing about 800 numbers. But so much the more, and in contradiction to the words of the author (“he hoped to gather together specimens of every known language which possessed even the most rudimentary literature” p. VI), are the extra-European languages neglected; 9 numbers are put down as Arabic, 8 as belonging to the general Malay-Polynesian stem (and on page V one reads: “he valued a specimen of a South Pacific dialect, hitherto unrepresented in his library, more highly than a rare edition of the classics”!), 9 to Chinese, 2 to Tibetan, to Burmese, Siamese, Annamese etc: none. And that which does exist by no means represents the most essential. Even if accident rather than any deliberate effort has been at work here, one does not comprehend how under the given circumstances it has not had a more fruitful influence. The Bonaparte Library has recalled to my memory that of Dr Hermann Lotze which was sold by auction at Leipzig in 1876. It was certainly only about half as large (7203 items) as the other; but in the fulness of the separate departments had no such striking inferiority to undergo. Nay leaving aside altogether the astounding multitude of the Hebraica, especially the german-jewish writings, it was superior to the Bonaparte library even in many branches of the European tongues (Turkish & Maltese). However many |2| sacrifices the Prince imposed upon himself for the sake of his books, they are not to be compared with those of Dr. Lotze, who spent the greatest part of his life in correcting misprints; and while the latter “far removed from incommunicativeness or even loathing in in [sic] lending out, as is [sic] wont to be the special fault of Bibliomaniacs, lent all that he possessed, even the most costly, willingly, even joyfully, concealing nothing, grudging nothing” (Fr. Delitzch), the other, who was generous enough with his own publications, would not let those he had acquired pass out of his own hands. It is to be feared that his Library will be even for the future more or less withdrawn from general use so far as scientific workers are concerned, and yet it should belong to the heart of Europe, (Paris) the cradle and even now the chief fostering-place of linguistic science and at the same time the district where alone the majority of the public Libraries enjoy a really liberal administration. Prince Bonaparte had the intention himself to compile the catalogue of his library upon scientific principles. The author thinks that that would have been a work of the greatest importance for philology, that above all things he would have laid down therein the final results of his enquiries into the great mystery of Basque. I remark upon this, that the Princes classification of the Romance languages has found no adhesion among the Neo-Latinists, and just as little among those who know Basque his reckoning this language with the Ural-Altaic; that he would have proved its relation to Hamitic, is, to judge by the condition of his library, in which even Hanoteaus two Grammars are wanting not very likely. E. S. Dodgson. 12 July 1894.

translated with the permission of the author from an article by D r. H. Schuchardt in the Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie.


1 Fortsetzung den linken Rand hinauf und am oberen Rand weiter.

2 Randnotiz auf der linken Seite und danach oben weiter.

3 Randnotiz auf der rechten Seite.

Faksimiles: Universitätsbibliothek Graz Abteilung für Sondersammlungen, Creative commons CC BY-NC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (Sig. 02523)