Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/291

 10 s. xii. SEPT. is, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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confusion has hence arisen concerning their respective works. The most eminent amongst them was Marten De Vos of Antwerp (1531- 1603), the pupil and subsequent coadjutor of Tintoretto, and the painter of the Medici family.

There is no record of a " V. De Vos," concerning whom L. A. W. inquires ; but a race of painters of this surname continues in Holland to the present time. One of these may be the painter of the picture to which L. A. W. refers. Has he deciphered the signature correctly ?

H. D' ALTON ST. CLARE.

WELTJE'S CLUB (10 S. xii. 167). I have before me a copy of an engraved portrait of Louis Weltje, after C. Bretherton, jun., inscribed " Published Nov. 1st, 1781," with the following words written in pencil : "Weltje the Prince of Wales 's cook kept the Cocoa-nut, St. James's Street. ' ' As the written words appear to be contem- poraneous, it would seem that " Weltje 's Club, ' ' which preceded the Cocoa Tree (or Nut), had an existence before 1781, when the print was published. W. B. H.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Shakespeare Classics. The Chronicle of King

Leir. Edited by Sidney Lee, Litt. D. (Chatto &

Windus.)

THE 'Chronicle,' which is the source of Shake- speare's greatest play, now being acted at the Hay- market, is laid before readers in admirable print and form in this volume. All who are interested in Shakespeare's "sources" should procure it. It shows clearly how the genius of the poet made of the old drama, in combination with Sir Philip Sidney's * Arcadia,' which supplied the by-plot of the Duke of Gloucester and his sons, a play incom- parable in style and effect, except, perhaps, for that similar masterpiece of Sophocles, the * (Edipus at Colonus.'

Mr. Lee's Introduction is a good example of his scholarly and lucid work. All that he says is to the point, and foot-notes are added which will suggest further material for study. We are glad to see mention in this place of Dr. Perrett's ' Story of King Lear from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Shake- speare,' which traces with ample research the legend through English literature, and may escape the notice of the student, as it appeared in Palaestra, 1904.

As Dr. Lee points out, " it remained for Shake- speare to associate the old King with his youngest daughter's death, and thus convert Lear's fate into inexorable tragedy." The seventeenth - century ballad, which closes with a similar double cata- strophe, is uncertain in date, and borrows, Dr. Lee thinks, in this respect from Shakespeare. Of the adorable Fool, whose early disappearance from the

play Swinburne justly regrets, there is no trace in any earlier version. Some commentators have sup- posed that Lear's reference to " my poor fool" means both his darling daughter and the wise pur- veyor of folly who left him after the great storm ; but this seems impossible.

How greatly Shakespeare has improved on his text may be seen at the outset of the old play, where the three daughters are asked to express their love for their father. Nothing, indeed, is more extra- ordinary than the few words Shakespeare has given to Cordelia throughout the play. The tremendous impression she makes is conveyed in under fifty lines of speech, a fact we could not believe until we examined her part one day.

The general reader may be unaware that ' Lear * as a tragedy was for many years of our stage- superseded by Nahum Tate's perversion of the text, in which the final catastrophe was changed. A strong article on the subject may be found in an. unlikely place, the miscellaneous writings of Dickens, newly discovered, and now added to the " Gadshill" and " National" editions of his works.

At the end of Dr. Lee's excellent edition will be found a 'Glossary,' notes on the text, and the complete text of Warner's story of King Lear as narrated in his 'Albion's England.' The student has, in brief, a full opportunity of examining the material out of which the greatest of English plays, is made.

BY his booklet Anna Seward and Classic Lichfield (Worcester, Deighton), Mr. Stapleton Martin hopes, he says in his Preface, to "resuscitate interest in the poetess, and in the literary circle over which she reigned supreme." As she died in 1809, she might have a centenary this year; but Mr. Martin's entertaining pages show us clearly enough that the Swan of Lichfield was not a leading figure of the sort that deserves permanent remembrance, or that general feeling of keenness implied in a revival and celebration. The book-lovers, however, who cherish the by-ways of literature, and the half-forgotten herpes and heroines of some particular place or period, may be induced by the fifty pages or so before us to take a fresh interest in Miss Seward.

The author has a very just idea of her achieve- ments, which do not, we fear, when critically con- sidered, amount to much of permanent value. ' The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics' ignores her muse. Her work has shown, after the lapse of a century, "a natural alacrity in sinking," at which we cannot wonder. Her sense of humour cannot have been strong. Her style was abominably affected, as Mr. Martin's well -chosen extracts witness. Her "astonishment and disgust" rose to their utmost height when she read Wordsworth's poem on 'The Daffodils.' Her self-conceit and pedantry were ludicrous ; and flattery led her to take biased views of greater lights than herself. Still, she had strong sense and an affectionate nature. It would have been well, as Macaulay suggests, if she had always written as simply as she did about her father's death. If she is to be generally remembered at all, it will, we think, be by her place as Walter Scott's friend in Lockhart's 'Life' of him, or by the marginalia of Macaulay referred to above, and now added to Sir George Trevelyan's masterly biography of his uncle.

Mr. Martin has some pleasant side-lights on those who lived or corresponded with Miss Seward, especially the beautiful Honora Sneyd.