Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/267

 10*8. 1. MARCH 12, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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between dialect and slang. To which category is rhino=coin to be assigned, or rumbo as a satis- factory answer to an inquiry after health or an expression of the sense of comforting surroundings ? Raddled, as applied to a woman's face, has the same signification as when used of a sheep. Under rack we may notice the existence fifty years ago it may still be there at Headingley of a tavern called "The Sky-rack." jRamshackle=rickety has the authority of Thackeray. The meaning (3) assigned rash seems the same as in 'Hamlet,' " splenitive and rash." Scrannel, Milton's "scrannel pipes," extends in use from Warwickshire up to Yorkshire. Sculdudry, which has the sanction of Scott, seems confined in use to Scotland. Shanks' mare as equivalent to " on foot " is familiar. Less so are such phrases as shanks' nag and shanks' galloway. Among words kept back for want of further information is rambunkshus or rambunctious. With this word we are unfamiliar, but rambunctious, equalling impudent, forward, and wanton, we recall in the West Riding a couple of generations ago. Salopcious = delicious, might be a mistake for galopcious. Spoon seems to have meanings in addition to those given, and spoony has the sense of silly. Socket-brass might be better described "a fine demanded of a young man" than "a fine paid." It was seldom paid except in case of force majeure. We have glanced at a few words that recall distant recollections, but the subjects sug- gested are inexhaustible.

English Literature : an Illustrated Record. By Richard Garnett, (J.B., and Edmund Gosse, M.A. Vols. II. and IV. (Heinemann.) WITH the appearance of the second and fourth volumes the great task of producing an illustrated record of English literature from the earliest times until to-day, undertaken by Messrs. Garnett and Gosse, reaches a successful conclusion, and what is practically an encyclopaedia of English literature is brought within the grasp of the general reader, for whom it is principally intended. The division, so far as regards the share of the respective writers, is unequal, the contribution of Dr. Garnett em- bracing all to the death of Shakespeare that is, to the close of vol. ii. chap. vi. while the following period, occupying the remainder of vol. ii. and the whole of vols. iii. and iv., is assigned to his col- league. The fact that the task is well executed is involved in the mere mention of the names of its executants, and the owner of these large and com- prehensive volumes may boast the possession of an illustrated guide to our literature such as has not previously been accessible. Compared to the pre- sent work others sink into insignificance. The method of execution is acceptable ; and though some cavilling may be made, it is only against the last volume. In this it was necessary to use com- pression, and omissions of names judged important by many were to be expected. We are scarcely pre- pared to accept in such a case Mr. Gosse or any one else as pur caterer. No fault is to be found with the limits prescribed. It is inevitable that living poets should be omitted ; that such references as appear to the greatestof livingbards, Mr. Swinburne, should be merely incidental ; and that the name of Mr. William Watson should not appear. On the sound principle in criticism that a man of taste may have preferences, but no exclusions, we regret the absence of entire classes of writers on whom it is, of course, too early to pass a definite and final

opinion, but whose place in our literary history is already secure. In this case the omissions of which we are disposed to complain will in time be sup- plied, since Mr. Gosse himself concedes that there is no part of the work in which alterations and additions are so likely to be made as in the last chapter. Meanwhile we recede nowise from the high praise we bestowed upon the two earlier volumes when we said (9 th S. xi. 479) that the owner of the work will have within reach a mass of litera- ture such as the greatest clerks of past times might have envied.

It is a portion of the scheme so ably carried out that the illustrations shall be no less helpful than the letterpress. The frontispiece of vol. ii. supplies, accordingly, an admirable coloured reproduction of the Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare ; a delight- ful coloured miniature of Sir Philip Sidney, after Isaac Oliver, from the original at Windsor Castle, follows ; and is succeeded by portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Burgh- ley, Sir Walter Raleigh (by Zucchero), William Camden, Mary, Queen of Scots, Richard Burbage, the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke, and- scores of others, and reproductions innumerable- of spots of interest, facsimiles of title-pages, and other inexhaustible attractions. In this single volume there are between three and four hundred designs, all of incalculable interest to the student of literature and the drama. Among portraits that we have not previously seen reproduced is the magnificent likeness of George Wither by Hole, which forms a conspicuous ornament of ' The Booke of Emblems.' Not less full than the second volume is the fourth, and though Mr. Gosse repines because- in artistic value the designs are in this case inferior, the fault is nowise his, out is principally attribut- able to the necessary substitution, in many in- stances, of photography for picture or engraving. In this volume also are many interesting portraits of Burns, Carlyle, R. L. Stevenson, Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, Newman, Keats, Tennyson, the Brownings, Thackeray, Dickens, &c., together with reproduced MSS. of great importance and value. The completion of this monumental work is a matter on which producers and public are alike to- be congratulated.

THE opening paper in the Burlington is on ' The London County Council and Art,' a combination which suggests a smiling comparison with "Shake- speare and the Musical Glasses " or perhaps the old trade advertisement of " Godly Books and Mouse- traps." An announcement is made of the formation of a new institution to be named after a recently defunct society the Arundel Club. The aim of this is to supply photographs of works of art not easy of access. Three pictures in tempera of William Blake, presenting Scripture subjects, a-re reproduced. Further designs from the Bronze Relief in the Wallace Collection are given, and there is a good Watteau from the French Exhibi- tion at Brussels. Some illustrations have special interest for bibliophiles.

ONE of the earliest papers in the Fortnightly is- a wail by the Laureate over ' The Growing Distaste for the Higher Kinds of Poetry.' We see no signs- of such, and think that a fitter theme would be- the cessation of production of the higher kind of poetry. The best poetry will always be caviare to the general, but the works of the great poets^ of the last century are still loved and quoted f