Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/442

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. NOV. 7,

study the career of a single personage o any note, during these hundred years, with out being brought face to face with a mass of documents. Yet although there is so much material, and although more books have been written lately upon this perioc than upon any other, it is not too much to assert that during the last ten years we have advanced less in our knowledge of it than in our knowledge of any other century I do not desire to advocate dryasdust " quar- rying." One can surely be industrious with- out being dull. Indeed, I am convinced that the historian can make a great advance in his art by studying the methods of the novelist ; by telling his story as a real story, in narrative form, without revealing the wand of the showman ; by paying due atten- tion to dramatic construction ; and by re- suscitating his characters, and making them live again as they did actually live before. Yet all this will be no gain unless he tells the truth ; and one cannot tell the truth without learning it, and one cannot learn without taking trouble. This is the whole ground of my complaint. No proper pains have been taken with the great mass of books on the eighteenth century that have been written in late years, and very few of them show any real and conscientious research. Let the writers of them examine the ' Cata- logue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum,' and copy the methods of Mr. F. G. Stephens ; let them emulate Mr. Warwick Wroth' s ' London Pleasure Gardens.' It is in this spirit that all such work should be carried out.

I make this protest in the interest of his- torical truth. Clio is a chaste deity, and should be respected. To write of bygone times is to incur a grave responsibility, and all works of this class should reveal sober thought. Until the modern craze for the reproduction of old-world engravings, and for chatty monographs on old-world cele- brities, no author would have ventured to essay such tasks without an adequate equip- ment. Now most historians are " ready- made." If the smatterer is allowed to go unchecked, the sacrilege will affect other periods of history. At present it is confined to the social life of the eighteenth century, and, with the exception possibly of the age of Pepys, it has spread to no other. In some respects even the eighteenth century has escaped the full force of the evil. So far discretion has deterred the dunce from plung- ing into the vortex of its politics. He writes lives of Peg Woffington, not of Brinsley Sheridan ; he gives us biographies of George

Selwyn, not of William Pitt. For which relief we should give thanks. Still, en- couraged by our complacency, he may become more greatly daring. Let us there- fore be prepared for him.

Fortunately, there are signs that a long- suffering public is getting tired. The con- noisseur, who has been patiently seeking for his grain of wheat amidst bushels of chaff, is turning wisely to original authorities,, and leaving the modern man severely alone. If the press reviewer and the publisher's reader will sternly do their duty, we may expect to see the necessary reformation, and the new literature dealing with the eighteenth century may become worth the paper on which it is written. There is- much need for this literature, but it must be of the right kind.

HORACE BLEACKLEY* Fox Oak, Hersham, Surrey.

'ENGLANDS PARNASSUS,' 1600, (See 10 S. ix. 341, 401 ; x. 4, 84, 182, 262.)

I GIVE NOW a list which completes the information already supplied concerning Allot' s quotations from Sylvester, and this- list accounts for all passages that are signed with the author's name, and several that I discovered unsigned, including Collier's finds,. but not his errors. The statement i& arranged to suit the order in which the passages occur in Grosart's edition of the- works of Sylvester.

From 'Eden.'

'Of Eden,' p. 412, For Adam ...... all the

meades ............... 76-9 1

'Of Trees,' p. 563, The shady groaves ......

arbours grew ............... 120-23

'Of Eccho,' p. 574, Th' aires daughter ......

woods among ............... 132-5-

No heading, p. 566, ...... The sunne, the

seasons stinter ............ 140*

Rivers,' p. 564, Swift Gyhon ...... proud

Semyranis ............... 173-5-

No heading, p. 572, ...... Holy nectar ...... ini-

mortallfare ............... 244-6-

No heading, p. 567, Wing-footed Hermes,

pursevant of Jove ............ 250-51

Nepenthe,' p. 574, ...... Nepenthe ...... crea-

ture ells ............... 252-5-

Knowledge,' p. 188, ...... Our now Know-

ledge ...... butinfusde ......... 292-9 1

Idlenesse,' p. 171, ...... Idlenesse ...... to vice

ingenious ............... 312-5-

Labour,' p. 190, [Adams Labour ...... night

and day ............... 320-41

Impossibilities,' p. 578, The firmament ......

too much ............... 502-7"

Seas, Waters,' &c., p. 550, Anon he stalketh

...... passing plankes ........ .- ... 530-41