Editing Eighteenth Century Novels ed. by G.E. Bentley, Jr (review)

400 LETTERS IN CANADA hypothesis. His study consists of a brief summary of medical knowledge about colour-blindness followed by an exhaustive survey of colour refer' ences in the writings of and about Goldsmith. Because colour-blindness was virtually unknown as a medical phenomenon before the chemist Dalton described his own condition in 1794, 'Goldsmith's color blindness (if it existed) was never directly mentioned in his writings or those of his contemporaries.' Mr MacLennan's study produces primarily negative evidence; he finds the few references to colour in Goldsmith's work conventional, derivative, or occasionally incorrect. (References to colour are not more frequent in Gray or Johnson.) A 'positive answer' appears in a passage in Letter 44 of The Citizen of the World: 'If I find pleasure in dancing, how ridiculous would it be in me to prescribe such an amusement for the entertainment of a cripple! - should he, on the other hand, place his chief delight in painting, yet would he be absurd in recommending the same relish to one who had lost the power of distinguishing colours.' Only a person with first-hand experience, Mr MacLennan argues , could know of colour-defective vision. He proceeds to speculate on the effects of Goldsmith's secret concluding that 'Goldsmith's career would have been entirely different if his color vision had been normal.' MacLennan's is not a scholarly book. He uses an inferior Victorian text (ignoring Arthur Friedman's edition) and thus discusses a number of works no longer considered Goldsmith's. His investigation of the medical theory of colour blindness ends in 1946. He ignores most modern Goldsmith scholarship, including Ralph Wardle's biography. And he tends to speculate, sometimes wildly, on matters far beyond his subject or evidence. His hypothesis, however, is an interesting one that is not disproved by methodological weakness. Nevertheless, I remain unconvinced for the following additional reasons: Mr MacLennan relies heavily on unsubstantiated anecdotes and, as Wardle observes, 'from the dozens of anecdotes that survive, one could prove almost anything about Goldsmith'; it seems unlikely that Goldsmith's colour-blindness, especially the very rare cone monochromatism (that limits colour vision to black, white, and gray) ascribed to him by Mr MacLennan, would have gone unobserved, especially by close friends like Sir Joshua Reynolds; similarly, it seems unlikely that the indiscreet Goldsmith would not have revealed his affliction; and, finally, the standard interpretations adequately explain Goldsmith's eccentricities. (BRIAN CORMAN) G.E. Bentley, Jr., editor, Editing Eighteenth Century Novels. Toronto: A.M. Hakkert for The Committee for the Conference on Editorial Problems 1975,124, $9.00 The 'Conferences on Editorial Problems' held annually since 1965 at the University of Toronto have effectively demonstrated that the seemingly HUMANITIES 401 'dull duty of the editor,' although arduous and demanding, is in fact a fascinating and fundamental scholarly art. The volume of papers on Editing Eighteenth Century Novels presented in November 1973 maintains the high standard set by its predecessors. As the editor of this collection, G.E. Bentley, Jr, notes, until quite recently none of the great eighteenthcentury novels were available in reliable editions. The vigour and assiduity with which this anomaly is in process of being corrected is attested in essays by the editors of works of Fielding, Lesage, Richardson , Sterne, and Smollett which are included. Martin Battestin outlines the multifarious problems that have faced the editors of the Wesleyan edition of Fielding's works, with particular attention to Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, while Roger Laufer describes his editing of Gil BIas de Santillane for Editions Garnier, and reflects on the crucial question of finding a publisher and a market for the completed text. Having discussed textual considerations on a previous occasion, John Carroll chooses to indicate the challenges that Samuel Richardson's Clarissa offers to the annotator. Melvyn New, general editor of the Florida Sterne, in his turn concentrates on the text of Tristram Shandy, while a.M. Brack, Jr, deals with the origins and fluctuating fortunes of the Bicentennial Edition of Smollett's works. We must await the appearance of the finished products for full enlightenment, but meanwhile these papers tell us of iconographic effects achieved by typographical variation in Fielding...