Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/627

 io*8.LJrx E 23,i904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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by ' The Queen Mother and Rosamond ' and by ' 'Atalanta in Calydon,' it was the first purely lyrical offspring of Mr. Swinburne's invention. To j men of to- day the pother caused by its appearance j is a thing so wholly of the past that no further mention seems requisite or expedient. Men of yesterday can scarcely dispose of the question so placidly and with so much ease. Such remember the welcome awarded 'Atalanta in Calydon,' a work in its revelation of strength and beauty constituting the most remarkable poetic firstfruits that had been seen since the days of Milton. Neither the envy nor the hatred of dulness could deny the grace and glory of such work, and criticism grudgingly conceded that a new planet had swum into the world's ken. With the appearance of ' Poems and Ballads ' came an opportunity not to be missed of maligning genius and compensating j for enforced eulogy. From the recognized critical i organs of the day there went up a scream of con- demnation and execration, in answer to which the peccant volume was withdrawn by a publisher ': whose caution was in advance of his other gifts. ! To these things, to which we should not, probably, have recurred had not Mr. Swinburne himself re- ferred to them in combative fashion, the appear- ance of the first volume of the collected works constitutes a complete answer. No reply was, in J fact, needed, such having been brought about in the best and simplest fashion. The only effect of the spasm of indignation and affright on the part of Mrs. Grundy, and the subsequent action on the part of the publisher in question, was that a new name appeared at the foot of the title-page of a ' work in which no elision of any kind had been made, and that copies of ' Poems and Ballads' with ' the original title-page, differing in no respect what- j ever from the later issues, were purchased at an I enhanced price by a few guileless collectors. When j now, as the first volume of the new edition, ' Poems and Ballads ' is reprinted, our search fails ! to detect the slightest variation. The order of the j poems is the same, and the dedication "To my j friend Edward Burne- Jones " is retained. In type and format the editions are different, and the new volume ha?, in addition, a dedication of the col- lected poems to Theodore Watts-Dunton, together with a dedicatory epistle to the same writer, which is equally honouring to both. In these things is found the matter of most interest to the possessor of the earlier edition. In no sense can the preface be regarded as an apologia. It is to some extent, however, autobiographical and elucidatory, and it is in a high degree defiant. In the last lines the characteristic attitude of Mr. Swinburne towards critics and friends reveals itself: " It is nothing to me that what I write should find immediate or general acceptance : it is much to know that on the whole it has won for me the right to address this dedication and inscribe this edition to you." Else- where Mr. Swinburne says : "To parade or to dis- claim experience of passion or of sorrow, of pleasure or of pain, is the habit and the sign of a school which has never found a disciple among the better sort of English poets, and which I know to be no less pitifully contemptible in your opinion than in mine." Of the dramas (for the introduction covers the entire field of Mr. Swinburne's poetical works) the poet says that it is needless to remind Mr. Watts- Dunton that when he writes plays " it is with a view to their being acted at the Globe, the Red Bull, or the Black Friars," a piece of information

which tells the sympathetic critic little that he- does not know, but which will be of highest service to the but half-enlightened reader. The whole of the epistle dedicatory tempts to extract. For the- sympathetic, the cultivated, and the scholarly reader the book now reprinted contains more- exquisite poetry than is to be found in the writings- of any man of similar age. Such limitation, even, might be withdrawn, and we might repeat than in any firstfruits.

The GulFs Horn Book. By Thomas Dekker. Edited

by R. B. McKerrow. (De La More Press.) THE ' Gull's Horn Book ' is the most popular of Dekker's works, and was rendered accessible in an edition by Dr. Nott, in modern spelling, in 1812 r long before the rage for reprinting Elizabethan and Jacobean literature had set in. Published as it was at a price (36s.) all but prohibitive, this book became nearly as hard to find as the original edition. One or two reprints have since appeared, and the work has long figured on our own shelves in the reprint of Dekker's prose works issued by Grosarfc in " The Huth Library." In this the old spelling is preserved. In publishing the work afresh, in an eminently artistic shape, Mr. McKerrow follows pretty closely the edition of Nott, whose text (in the main), notes, glossary, and initial letters are preserved. An introductory chapter gives a brief life of Dekker and much bibliographical informa- tion, while a supplement supplies a chapter on ' How a Gallant should behave himself in a Play- house,' which was substituted for that of the original by Sam Vincent, in a curious and scarce imitation called ' The Young Gallant's Academy; or. Directions how he should behave himself in- all Places and Company.' Few books cast a brighter light upon life in Shakespearian time* than ' The Gull's Horn Book,' and the work is one that no serious Shakespearian student should be without. It is quaintly and fantastically written,, and may be read with amusement as well as studied with advantage. It can scarcely be desired in a more attractive shape.

The Rise of the Dutch Republic: a History. By- John Lothrop Motley. (Bell & Sons.) To the "York Library "has been added, in three pretty, artistic, and handy volumes, Motley's his- tory of ' The Rise of the Dutch Republic,' reprinted from the " Standard Library." This record now ranks as a classic, and in its present pleasing- guise is likely to attract thousands of readers. We owe an enormous debt to the " Standard Library," and are glad to welcome its masterpieces in so pleasing a garb. These books should find their way to every home that owns any cultivation.

A Dictionary of Names, Nicknames, and Surnames of Persons, Places, and Things. By Edward. Latham. (Routledge & Sons.) EVIDENCES of Mr. Latham's industry and zeal in- the compilation of his book have been frequent in our pages. So far as the general public is con- cerned, Mr. Latham has rendered a genuine service. We wish he had gone further and assisted the scholar, and we urge him to do so in the new edition soon to be demanded. We find here too many- names the significance of which is forgotten or, at any rate, expiring, such as the Modern Pliny, the- Modern Wagner, the Michelangelo of Music, the English Erasmus, &c., instead of which we should