tten well. I have acceded to
the hierarchy of good scribes and rather like my niche.

Chicago, 1895.

THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM A BIBLIOGRAPHY

By John Lane

PREFACE

After some considerable experience in the field of bibliography I cannot
plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be discovered in
this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult as I found my
self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy bibliographies,
here my labour has been still more herculean.

It is impossible for one to compile a bibliography of a great man's
works without making it in some sense a biography--and indeed, in the
minds of not a few people, I have found a delusion that the one is
identical with the other.

Mr. Beerbohm, as will be seen from the page headed Personalia, was
born in London, August 24, 1872. In searching the files of the Times I
naturally looked for other remarkable occurrences on that date. There
was only one worth recording. On the day upon which Mr. Beerbohm
was born, there appeared in the first column of the Times, this
announcement:

'On [Wednesday], the 21st August, at Brighton, the wife of V.P.
Beardsley, Esq., of a son.'

That the same week should have seen the advent in this world of two such
notable reformers as Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm is a coincidence
to which no antiquary has previously drawn attention. Is it possible to
over-estimate the influence of these two men in the art and literature
of the century?

Like two other great essayists, Addison and Steele, Mr. Beerbohm was
educated at Charterhouse, and, like the latter, at Merton College,
Oxford. At Charterhouse he is still remembered for his Latin verses,
and for the superb gallery of portraits of the masters that he completed
during his five years' sojourn there. There are still extant a few
copies of his satire, in Latin elegiacs, called Beccerius, privately
printed at the suggestion of Mr. A. H. Tod, his form-master. The writer
has said 'Let it lie,' however, and in such a matter the author's wish
should surely be regarded. I have myself been unable to obtain a sight
of a copy, but a more fortunate friend has furnished me with a careful
description of the opusculum, which I print in its place in the
bibliography.

He matriculated at Merton in 1890, and immediately applied himself to
the task he had set before him, namely, a gallery of portraits of the
Dons.

I am aware that he contributed t