Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/625

 10 a. x. DEC. 26, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

519

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

. sy : Ws / and H^orl*. By the Right

Hon. Robert Spence Watson. (Fisher Unwm.) ALL lovers of Skipsey's poetry (and we hope they are legion) will accord a welcome to this memoir, written by a close friend of forty years.

The poet was born near North Shields on the 17th of March, 1832. Cuthbert Skipsey, his father, a leader of the miners of his time, was shot dead on the evening of Sunday, the 8th of July following it is believed accidentally while attempting to restrain the special constables from firing upon the rioters during the Tyneside pitmen's strike. Skipsey was the youngest of eight children, and at seven years of age had to go down the pit and work sixteen hours a day, never seeing the sun except on Sundays. Before leaving home he had managed to learn the alphabet, and he "got good-natured pitmen to give him the ends of their farthing dips, and with a piece of chalk he copied the letters on the sill " from printed bills he had obtained. At the age of eleven he set to work to commit the entire Bible to memory a design in part carried out. When he was fifteen an uncle lent him ' Paradise Lost.' This was, as it has been to many a studious lad, "a revelation," arid was followed by Pope, and then by Shakespeare and Burns. Young Skipsey, however, as Mr. Watson tells us, "was not a mere bookworm, but he would take his part in the games and sports which went on about him." In fact, Skipsey was thorough in all he undertook, and among the miners there was no more con- scientious worker than he.

This thoroughness is shown directly he turns to the paths of literature. One evening in 1870, Mr. Watson says, " Mr. Eirikr Magniisson was staying with me, and Skipsey turned up accidentally to dine, and was somewhat perturbed to find a stranger present. He was still and grave, and took little part in the conversation. Mr. Magniisson was, on the other hand, a brilliant conversationalist, but he happened to say something about Goethe and 'Faust.' He was surprised when, from the other side of the table, a deep, thoughtful voice said, 'I deny that,' and he at once engaged in an argument with Skipsey which was exceedingly brilliant and exceedingly amusing, but in which Skipsey held his own in a very remarkable way. In fact," continues Mr. Watson, " I am inclined to think that he knew more about Goethe and ' Faust ' than his antagonist. Mr. Magnusson whispered to me, 'Who is this fellow?' and I told him, and said, ' You must make much of him, for in half an hour's time he will be going away to the pit, which he goes down to-night.' "

In 1885 Skipsey became the editor of several of the first volumes of poetry published under the title of " The Canterbury Poets" by Walter Scott. Those for which he was immediately responsible were Coleridge, Shelley, Blake, Burns, and Poe. In August, 1902, his wife died. From this loss he never really recovered, and in September of the following year he passed away, holding " firmly to the simple faith which was reduced by Christ Him- self into the love of God and the love of man."

The book contains three portraits beautifully executed: two of Skipsey (one in his working clothes) and one of his great friend Thomas Dixon.

Who's Who and the Who's Who Year-Book for 1909 (A. & C. Black) are now out. The former con- tinues to increase in bulk an extension to which we have nothing to object, as it is one of the most useful books of reference that we know. It gives addresses, especially of journalists, which it is not easy to procure elsewhere. The principles which govern inclusion are unknown to us. and there are still many people whose eminence in the world of letters or scholarship better entitles them to notice than a host of those included. The scholar, how- ever, may shun the publicity of such a volume, and deride the frequent signs of vanity which it exhibits. It is sufficient to say that it supplies information for which we are often asked, as does its companion, embodying in a separate form the tables and statistics which once preceded it.

THE same firm publish also The Englishwoman's Year- Book and Directory, edited by G. E. Mitton, and The Writers' and Artists' Year-Book, which gives in a concise form the requirements of editors- in the way of contributions. We wish this little book was more widely known, for the casual writer for the press wastes his own time and that of an exceptionally busy class by sending in hopelessly unsuitable articles to papers which he has obviously never taken the trouble to read. Further, he ia generally ignorant as to the conditions of payment.

Whitaker's Almanack and Peerage, 1909. IF every book published were as accurate as ' Whitaker's Almanack ' and ' Whitaker's Peerage, * the men "who have failed in literature and art" would find their occupation almost gone, and Macaulay's New Zealander would have to look up the Oxford Dictionary, should he be desirous of knowing the meaning of the word "critic." As usual, there is nothing but praise to be accorded to both these indispensable works of reference. The forty-first issue of the ' Almanack ' has been re- arranged and augmented, and new articles deal with the land and sea forces, the navigation of the air, the Radio-Telegraphic Convention, the New Patent Law, the Old-Age Pension Regulations, and the field of the Death Duties. During the past seven years the Death Duties have produced 126,423,403?., the capital assessed amounting to 1,941,491,795?. That a high rate of Death Duties does not affect thrift is shown by France, where the succession tax is higher than in any other country.

The conscientious editor of the ' Peerage ' is anxious lest his readers, remarking upon its- exterior improvement, should expect to find con- siderable changes in its contents. This, he tells us,, is not the case, for "the only really new feature that it possesses consists in an addition of eighteen, pages to the Introduction in the form of an 'Official Glossary,' which, though not aiming at either pro- fundity or completeness, may be trusted to provide some useful information to those who are not experts in the various departments of which it treats." Considerable attention is given to the "Historic" Peerage and "Baronetage." Both of these have been revised in every figure in conse- quence of a courteous notice from Mr. Burke that he had made numerous corrections in his own great ' Peerage.' To show how late corrections have been made, it may be noted that the lamented death of Lord Glenesk on the 24th of November is recorded in the body of the work as well as in the obituary of the year.