Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/484

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. L MAY u, 190*.

elusions. Of course we must admit that the line taken by George III. and his advisers was technic- ally defensible unanswerable, indeed, from the pedant's point of view but this affords no justi- fication whatever for a reversal of the verdict which posterity has almost unanimously given against it. Our Civil War of the seventeenth century had then been fought out little more than a hundred years. Now it has become a mere matter of history, like the Crusades or the Plantagenet wars in France, known to the non-reading class from school-books or, it may be, university lectures ; but then many men were alive whose grandfathers had suffered in the contest, and traditions were living in every ounty nay, in alniost every village of the sorrows and hardships which Englishmen had endured. We are aware that the issues on the two occasions were by no means strictly parallel, but they were nearly eo, and to the American mind as well as to the sympathizers at home they presented a far closer analogy than they now do to the student who views them in the dry light of history. The hiring of German soldiers, also, to slaughter our own people across the Atlantic was an unpardonable outrage, which it is hard to forgive even now, though far more than a century has passed away ; but an even deeper stain rests on the rulers of those German states, who saw no harm in selling " their subjects to be slaughtered in hundreds or thousands in a cause of which they had no knowledge, and in which they had no concern." ' The Women of the Renaissance,' so far as it treats of its birth-land Italy is exceptionally good ; but we can say little in commendation of the latter part, wherein the ladies of France are noticed. In France a move- ment which, on its inception, was distinctly a matter of culture only, soon became so blended with narrow theological schemes that it lost its humanistic flavour. The Renaissance in its purity was to be found in Italy, and, as it seems to us, nowhere else, though in diluted, and often cor- rupting, forms it spread its influence over the whole of the west of Europe. We hear much of Isabella d'Este, a stately and lovable figure, of whom we can never tire, though, with all her learning and attractiveness, there were traits in her character which give pain to the modern mind. For example, when the wife of her brother Alphonso died her "only idea was to send him her dwarf for consolation." This was perhaps not so strange as it seems. There may have been reasons which, could we know the details, would change the aspect of this grotesque incident into a real act of thought- ful kindness ; but it is impossible to find any excuse for her treatment of the painter Mantegna when old, poor, and in debt. To take from him his greatest treasure, "an antique head a Faustina which he loved more passionately, perhaps, than any human being," and then not to fulfil the terms of her cruel contract, was a piece of heartlessness which it is impossible to excuse. Yet she was a woman of deep and constant affection, as is shown by her treatment of her husband when she had much to complain of. It is indicated also, as some will maintain, by her having a cypress-shaded cemetery for her favourite cats. ' The Letters of Horace Walpole' relate to a fascinating subject. What the writer stigmatizes as "Lord Macaulay's fierce assault on Walpole "we admit required an answer, and here we have it executed with great care and discretion; but as the Whig historian failed in one direction, so the present writer has

done in another. No one will question that the Walpole correspondence is valuable on account of the multitude of social facts embedded therein ; so, for that matter, are Tom Hearne's diaries ; but there are persons who, not content with this, regard Walpole's carefully elaborated style as a something good in itself. He was a man of moods and feelings, and his attitude to many of his contemporaries shows an incapacity for appreciating characters different from his own. Had this arisen from political prejudice many excuses might be made, for -we all know how very far political hatreds reach ; but we are convinced that Walpole's ani- mosities arose from far shallower motives. ' The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer ' is one of the fairest articles we have encountered on a subject which is now undergoing discussion everywhere.

To the " Little Library" of Messrs. Methuen has been added a complete edition of The Poems of Henry Vaughan (the Silurist), edited by Mr. Edward Hutton. It includes ' Silex Scintillans,' 'Olor Iscanus' (1651), 'Thalia Rediviva' (1678), 'Pious Thoughts and Ejaculations,' 'Hymns,' and other writings o_f an author whose works are not, easily accessible in so comprehensive and convenient a shape. Messrs. Methuen have also issued a useful and well-illustrated guide to Hampshire, by Dr. J. Charles Cox, F.S.A.

To Bell's "Miniature Series of Musicians" have been added satisfactory lives, with portraits and other illustrations, of Mendelssohn and Handel.

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Hie ET UBIQUE ("Rime v. Rhyme"). Because the former, invariably used by Shakespeare, is correct, and the latter an error, based on a mis- conceived analogy with rhythm.

Q. E. D. ("Women and Crests''). See the long discussion on the right of women to arms, 9 th S. ix., x., xi.

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