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.