Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/195

 w* s.-i. FEB. 20, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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IMAGINARY OR INVENTED SAINTS (9 th S. xii. 127, 215, 369, 515). May I add to the list San Remo, the homonym of the town from which I write? The name is a corruption of San Romolo, the original missionary of Western Liguria, whose name is still pre- served intact at San Romolo, a village at the foot of Monte Bignone, an hour from this.

H.

San Remo.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. Lives and Legends of the English Bishops and Kings,

Medieval Monks, and other Later Saints. By

Mrs. Arthur Bell. (Bell & Sons.) WITH this handsome, finely illustrated, and inter- esting volume Mrs. Arthur Bell completes what may perhaps be called her trilogy on " The Saints in Christian Art." Previous volumes of the same series were duly noted in 'N. & Q.' 'Lives and Legends of the Evangelists, Apostles, and other Early Saints,' 9 th S. ix. 339, and ' Lives and Legends of the Great Hermits and Fathers of the Church,' 9 th S. xi. 99. Special interest is offered to English readers by this third and concluding portion, seeing that the number of Anglo-Saxons who, during the period dealt with, have been admitted to the celestial hierarchy is exceptionally large. It is to be regretted, as Mrs. Bell points out, that there are but few works of art in which they are introduced, the blame for this state of things being due, not only to the ignorance prevailing, among the great European painters, concerning the heroes and mar- tyrs of Britain, ' ' divided from all the world," but also " to a great extent to the ruthless destruction after the Reformation of all that could recall the memory of the men who had upheld the rights of the Church." The volume opens with an account of the early Bishops of Canterbury, first of all coming, naturally, St. Augustine, of whom a long account j is given. Lives follow of St. Paulinus, the first j Bishop of York ; St. Edwin, the first Christian King of Northumbria; St. Oswald ; and St. Aidan. Ford Madox Brown's picture of ' The Baptism of St. Edwin by St. Oswald ' is the first illustration in ' the volume after the frontispiece, which presents \ ' The Coronation of the Virgin,' with Saints Francis, Dominic, Antony of Padua, Bonaventure, Peter Martyr, and Thomas Aquinas, by Fra Angelico. Another English picture which follows is that from a window in Christchurch, Oxford, presenting ' St. Frideswide in the Swineherd's Hut.' ' St. Edith of Polesworth reproving Two of her Nuns ' is also by Ford Madox Brown. Yet other English designs are from a window in St. Neot's parish church, Cornwall, and from a MS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The last -mentioned, which is striking, shows a very small St. Dunstan at the feet of a colossal Christ. When we come to the later por- tions of the book, the designs are from Andrea del Sarto, Giotto, Donatello, Sodoma, Fra Angelico,. Filippo Lippi, Pacchiarotto, Pinturicchio, Murillo, ; and others whoso works adorn the previous volumes. We may not enter further into the con- ! tents of the book, but must congratulate Mrs. Bell \ upon her successful and earnestly accomplished j task. To have produced within little more than a ]

couple of years three volumes such as those she has given to the world is no small accomplishment, and proves the whole to be a labour of love. As in most modern work, the criticism remains enlightened, and sight is not lost of the fact that some saints are obscure and some legends apocryphal. In addi- tion to the learning displayed, however, the text is informed by a spirit of faith and devotion.

John Dryden. Edited by George Saintsbury. 2 vols.

(Fisher Unwin.)

To the "Mermaid Series" of Mr. Fisher Unwin has been added a selection of the best plays of Dryden. If there is a dramatist whom we are con- tent to accept in such a form it is surely Dryden, who at his best, as in ' All for Love' which, as he says, " he wrote for himself " approximates Shake- speare, and at his worst, as in ' Limberham,'_comes in indecency not far short of Wycherley. Of ' The Conquest of Granada,' in two parts, Johnson says : " The scenes are for the most part delightful ; they exhibit a kind of illustrious depravity and majestic madness." ' Aurengzebe,' in the prologue to which Dryden owns that he begins to grow sick of his long-loved mistress Rhyme, is perhaps the best of his so-called heroical tragedies. ' Marriage a la Mode' has some excellent comic scenes and a love song of extreme indelicacy. ' The Spanish Friar T was constantly acted till near the close of the eighteenth century. In ' Don Sebastian ' Johnson- rather quaintly praises "sallies of frantic dignity.'^ These plays, with ' All for Love ' and the opera of ' Albion and Albanius,' constitute a judicious selec- tion. Mr. Saintsbury's introduction and notes are- excellent. Dryden's plays, apart from collected editions of his works, are not easily accessible. We remember more than half a century ago pur- chasing them in two folio volumes, now scarce. A more convenient edition, in 6 vols. 12mo, with plates by Gravelot, was issued by J. & R. Tonson in 1762. This, though not high priced, is also un- common. The reprint is, accordingly, judicious. Many of the other plays are curious, the altera- tions from Shakespeare doing Dryden little credit. Portraits of Dryden and Nell Gwyn accompany the present work.

TIIE English Historical Review contains an inter- esting article on Clarendon's ' History ' by Mr. C. H. Firth. The net result is very much to- Clarendon's credit, for it testifies to his extreme desire to find out the facts, and, though no one- ever denied the bias with which he writes, this investigation shows how far removed he was from being a mere liar, as Prof. Thorold Rogers thought him. On the eternal question of hides and virgates we have a note from Mr. Salzman controverting the views of Prof. Tait. Dr. James Gairdner prints - an abstract of Bishop Hooper's 'Visitation of Gloucester.' The reviews are dull and unimportant, the notice of the American volume of the ' Cam- bridge History ' being meagre.

THOSE given to exaggeration have been known to liken folk-lore to the contents of an eighteenth- century museum, made up of a collection of curio- sities here a stuffed tiger, there a few bronze celts, with a charter of Henry II. in close proximity to a Whitby "snake-stone" and an African war- club. There is wild exaggeration in this, but some truth lies at the bottom. It is yet too early to classify the facts of this new science in a way satis-