ndon, 1896, 16mo). A
contributor to the _Bulletin de la Societe des humanistes francais_ has
expressed, in this publication, a wish that a similar collection might
be compiled for modern French.

[73] Cf. _Revue Critique_, 1895, ii. p. 358.

[74] Quite recently our scholars used to neglect this elementary
precaution, in order, as they said, to avoid an "air of pedantry." M. B.
Haureau has published, in his _Notices et extraits de quelques
manuscrits latins de la Bibliotheque nationale_ (vi. p. 310), a piece of
rhythmic verse, "De presbytero et logico." "It is not unedited," says
he; "Thomas Wright has already published it.... But this edition is very
defective; the text is occasionally quite unintelligible. We have,
therefore, considerably amended it, making use, for this purpose, of two
copies, which, it most be conceded, are neither of them faultless...."
The edition follows, with no variants. Verification is impossible.

[75] "Textual emendation too often misses the mark through want of
knowledge of what may be called _the rules of the game_" (W. M. Lindsay,
p.v. in the work referred to above).

[76] It has often been asked whether _all_ texts are worth the trouble
of "establishing" and publishing them. "Among our ancient texts," says
M. J. Bedier, referring to French mediaeval literature, "which ought we
to publish? Every one. But, it will be asked, are we not already
staggering under the weight of documents?... The following is the reason
why publication should be exhaustive. As long as we are confronted by
this mass of sealed and mysterious manuscripts, they will appeal to us
as if they contained the answer to every riddle; every candid mind will
be hampered by them in its flights of induction. It is desirable to
publish them, if only to get rid of them and to be able, for the future,
to work as if they did not exist...." (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, February
15, 1894, p. 910). All documents ought to be catalogued, as we have
already pointed out (p. 31), in order that researchers may be relieved
of the fear that there may be documents, useful for their purposes, of
which they know nothing. But in every case where a summary analysis of a
document can give a sufficient idea of its contents, and its form is of
no special interest, there is nothing gained by publishing it _in
extenso_. We need not overburden ourselves. Every document will be
analysed some day, but many documents will never be published.

[77] Editor