Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/196

 160

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. AUG. 22, im

in the literary sense is first used, apparently, by Johnson in a letter to Mrs. Thrale of 12 Nov., 1781. "Reviewal" has, we think, gone out of fashion. "Reviewer" and "reviewing are illustrated by many excellent quotations, the latter ending with the melancholy statement from The. Idler of Sep- tember, 1894, " ' Reviewing' work is too badly paid for any reasonable being to think of making it either an art or a business." Fortunately, there are still a few people who regard the study of literature as something other than a means of making money. " Revolve "= ponder is classical in origin, as in Virgil, * JSneid,' ii. 101 : " Sed quid ego hsec autem nequicquam ingrata revolvo." Here to De Quincey and Arctic Kane in the nineteenth century we should add Tennyson's "Sir Bedivere, revolving many memories," in 'Morte D' Arthur,' 1. 27U. Darwin in his * Climbing Plants,' chap. v. p. 203 (Popular Edition, 1906), supplies a quotation of authority for a use of "revolving" which is hardly like any of those given: "Their revolving move- ment is often accelerated or retarded in travelling to or from the light." It would have been easy to add literary allusions to "rheumatism"; still we have an excellent reference to ' Adam Bede,' chap, xviii., "On wet Sundays, or whenever he had a touch of rheumatism, he [Mr. Peyser's father] used to read the three first chapters of Genesis. Johnson (Boswell's ' Life,' ed. Hill, ii. 361) at the age of sixty-six gave Bennet Langton a recipe "for the rheumatism." The dialectic form " rheu- matiz," though differently spelt, occurs in the rustic talk of ' Tom Brown's Schooldays,' chap. iii. : "There's only one thing, as I knows on, as '11 cure old folk like you and I o' th' rhu- matiz." Ruskin's " in melodious theology and beautifully rythmic and pathetic meditation," ' Pleasures of Faith,' II. (1884), is a better quota- tion than that given for the later use of the word we italicize. The use of " rial," a variant of "real" or " roial "= befitting a king, is amply testified to in early English for some three centuries. The same page of the 'Dictionary' gives us "rib" used for wife by Fielding, Sterne, Lamb, Byron, and Borrow. This is a good ex- ample of the way in which the * Dictionary ' traces the course of a vigorous piece of vernacular in writers of distinction.

The Tragedies of Sophoclts. Translated with a Biographical Essay by E. H. Plumptre. (Rout- ledge & Sons.)

THIS recent addition to "The New Universal Library" shows the enterprise of its promoters. The idea of an English Sophocles at a shilling would have seemed hopeless of attainment a few years since. Now, however, readers can have more than one translation at that price. Plumptre was a good scholar, and his essay on the poet is valuable. His renderings are generally lucid, though they somewhat lack poetic style ; and they are in accuracy much in advance of the earlier translators. The reader who peruses this little book will get at least some idea of the structure and purport of the plays of Sophocles, and see in ' (Edipus at Colonus ' a resemblance to 'King Lear.' The verse of Sophocles, like that of Virgil, is charged with a multitude of graces and subtleties that must evade the translator. In one direction, however, Plumptre gets the better of his rivals, in that he does not attempt rime in the choruses. Matthew Arnold showed what could be done in that way, and we

much prefer the simplicity of such a passage as this from the '(Edipus at Colonus' to the smooth inanities introduced by the necessities of rime :

Happiest beyond compare

Never to taste of life ;

Happiest in order next,

Being born, with quickest speed

Thither again to turn From whence we came.

While youth is with us still,

Bringing its follies light,

What sorrow stays away ?

And, closing life's long course, There comes the last and worst, An age of stubborn mood, Friendless and hard of speech, Where met in union strange, Evils with evils dwell.

Henslowe's Diary. Edited by Walter W. Greg.

Part II. The Commentary. (A. H. Bullen.) THE second and concluding volume of Mr. Greg's monumental edition of Henslowe's Diary appears after an interval of something like four years ; but in view of the extraordinarily complicated nature of the work, and the minute care with which it has been accomplished, it is impossible to say that the time is excessive. The present volume forms an exhaustive commentary on the text of the Diary, treating in detail the family and private affairs of Philip Henslowe, his connexion with the stage, and the history of the playhouses in which he was interested and the companies that performed in them. There are also complete lists of the plays and persons mentioned in the Diary, all available information relating to each being appended ; and the volume concludes with a series of elaborate Tables of Reference, arid an admirably full Glossary and Index.

The labour that has gone to the production of these last-named features can hardly be over- estimated, and although Mr. Greg informs us in the Preface that his aim has been to avoid writing a general history of the Elizabethan stage (an aim, be it noted, that he keeps steadily in view), this masterly edition is, nevertheless, likely to prove the most valuable extant encyclopaedia of the theatrical lore of the period. We observe that the Corrigenda include certain errors in the text of the Diary, discovered since the publication of the first volume.

We must call special attention to the following notices :

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately, nor can we advise correspondents as to the value of old books and other objects or as to the means of disposing of them.

A. C. H. and J. VENN. Forwarded.

J. T. (" Willow-Pattern China"). Anticipated by replies at 10 S. ix. 437.

C. H, R. PEACH ("Dago in American Slang"). Discussed at 10 S. ii. 247, 332, 351.