Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/441

 10 s. x. NOV. 7,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

361

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1908.

CONTENTS.-No. 254.

NOTES -.Poor Eighteenth Century ! 361' Englands Par- nassus,' 362 Wake, Ellis, &c. " Away " : Unrecorded Use of the Word, 364 "Ga volt," Yiddish Term Swift and Suetonius Sampson Low Dr. Pena "The Bonnie Cravat," Tavern Sign Benjamin Vulliamy, 365 Arthur Pits Parapet, a Streeo Footway First English Bishop to Marry, 366.

QUERIES : Missing Wesley Letters Oxford Epigram- Stammering Eleanor Wood Law of Lauriston, 367 County Divisions Rev. John Coxon Storks and Common- wealthsPortrait of Mary, Queen of Scots Authors of Quotations Wanted Arabic Numerals Special Juris- diction ' Chesterfield Burlesqued': ' The Horse Guards ' Guernsey Lily Kairwan : its Meaning, 368 Sir Matthew de Renzi W. H. Price=Elizabeth Rushbrooke German Leather Bindings Heraldry in Froissart: "Pillow" Shoreditch Family Motto of St. Pancras Borough Council " Bookseller," 369 Inglis Pedigree, 370.

REPLIES : London Statues and Memorials, 370 "Pres- byter Incensatus " Commodore Chamberlain Greeks and Nature, 372 St. Barbara's Feather "Piddle" as a Land Measure Arachne House, Strand-on-the-Green Salford Monkeys stealing from a Pedlar, 373 Proverbs and Popular Phrases Hoppner and Sir T. Frankland's Daughters " Cadey "Classical Quotations Jesuits at Mediolanum, 374 Briefs in 1742" Better an old man's darling," 375 Parliamentary Applause Mediterranean "'The Essex Serpent" Death after Lying, 376 Regi- mental Marches " Hastle " " Disdaunted " Cardinal Erskine Bishops and Abbots Snakes drinking Milk Kingsley's ' Lorraine ' Hampstead in Song" Wainscot," 377.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' Friedlander's 'Roman Life and Manners ' Reviews and Magazines.

Booksellers' Catalogues.

' The International Genealogical Directory 'The Simplified Spelling Society.

OBITUARY : Mr. William Andrews.

Notices to Correspondents.

POOR EIGHTEENTH CENTURY!

IT is said that everybody is a collector in ibhese days, and one may add that most collectors take an intelligent interest in the articles they collect. This large and learned class has a keen appetite for all forms of literature which deal with the period that concerns its particular hobby. Many of the things which the connoisseur loves, and loves rightly furniture, pictures, engravings, china, and objects of virtu belong to the eighteenth century. Consequently the " bookmaker," knowing that he has a safe and sure market for his clumsy wares, con- tinues to pour forth a ceaseless stream of volumes dealing with the Georgian era, and during the last six years a mass of literature has been accumulated that is positively over- whelming.

If the majority of these books showed any trace of careful research, their existence would be tolerable ; but the great bulk are " scissors-and-paste " compilations, inter- mixed with hasty conjecture, and are some-

times mere repositories of oft - repeated " howlers." Many of the modern lives of monarchs, authors, actors, and painters, and monographs on famous beauties, are simply idle paraphrases of "VValpole, Selwyn, and a few other familiar memoirs of the times. It should be too late in the day for this kind of thing, and yet the present age is far more tolerant in the matter than any other for the last hundred years. In the days of Fraser's and the "old Edinburgh" such clumsy presumption would have received well-merited chastisement. Now, provided we get Dutch hand-made paper and a few half-tone illustrations, we are content to accept a lazy rechauffe of eighteenth-century reminiscences as if it were critical and con- scientious work.

Some time ago I read a review of a pon- derous life of a certain king of England, in which, after a detailed examination of the work, it was stated mildly that the author had devoted only one chapter to original research ; and although the reviewer was evidently aware that all the rest had been " lifted " from contemporary memoirs, he offered no word of protest. Knowing that the volume was a notorious example of the class of " bookmaking " against which I am venturing to protest, I looked for its reception by other newspapers, and managed to trace it through several ; but from none did it receive its deserts. On the contrary, it was hailed as a piece of illuminating history. Will " log-rolling " account for this com- placency ? or does the daily press employ reviewers to notice historical books who have no knowledge of their subject ? A charming style is given to few authors ; not every one is an adept at construction, or can make his characters appear men and women of flesh and blood ; but every historian can take pains, and it is monstrous that so many books are published, dealing with one un- fortunate period, which obviously have been written with no pains at all.

And why should this unlucky era be selected for the perpetration of these absurd- ities ? Partly because, as I said before, there is a great public which reads all works upon the eighteenth century ; and partly because the dunces who compile these books seem to imagine that the eighteenth century is the easiest period of English history which they can find to write about. A greater mistake was never made. It is not the most easy ; it is the most difficult period of English history. It is the most difficult because it provides most material. One cannot examine a single phase of life, or