11 NOVEMBER 1893, Page 23

Anonyms. By William Cushing. (Sampson Low and Co.)— With these

two volumes, constituting "a dictionary of revealed authorship," the great bibliographical enterprises of Mr Cushing have been brought to a close. It is a work of the Bort which one might take up and revel in owing to the now open secrets of authorship which it reveals. How odd it seems at this time of day to come upon such an entry as "Ivanhoe a Romance. By Eclinb. ; 1820," and to be told that the author was Scott, Sir Walter, Bart, 1771-1832 " ! It is, of course, easy to indicate the extreme value of a book of this kind; but it is not ac easy to indicate its note, or even its characteristics. Perhaps one would be safe to say that if it demonstrates one thing more than another, it is the weakness of Anglo-Saxon disputants for writing pamphlets and refraining from putting their names to them. Mr Cushing completes his work in his second volume by giving an alphabetical list of the names of the authors found writing anonymously.