Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/628

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. DEC. 25, im

geological discoverer, early despaired of forcin science on the University, and would take no step to promote it until the British Association meeting at Oxford in 1847, proclaimed in tone which left a sting behind the scandal of it miserable equipment and its inefficient teaching From this time the advocates of reform threw new spirit into their efforts : their numbers largely increased, were led by a champion o rare force, persistence, tact, and prescience. I Henry Acland, lately settled in Oxford as medical practitioner and Lee's Reader in Anatomy they possessed, say the authors of this littl volume with equal truth and justice, " a pro tagonist who had the patience and perseverance the enthusiasm and unflagging energy, needed f o both waiting and working .... The foundation of the Museum, and to a great extent the establish ment of an Honour School in Science, were in th first place due to his efforts."

A few men still survive who were contem porary with, and took part in, the ten years struggle which preceded the renaissance. On one side was an acknowledged need : professor demanding space for apparatus, specimens, lee tures ; stores of material overflowing their narrow bounds, and locked away in drawers or boxes the old Ashmolean a mockery ; Buckland'i treasures houseless, as was the unrivalled entomo logical Hope Collection. On the other side al proposals for a new museum were vehemently opposed by conservatism hating all things new ; by economists predicting limitless outlay by Tutors jealous of Professors ; by classicists denouncing science as intrusive ; by the orthodox condemning it as subtly ministrant to false doctrine, heresy, and schism. Acland " worked and waited," gathered round him students, published letters and pamphlets modestly repre- senting Science as the handmaid, not the rival, of Theology ; by this means converted Pusey, whose nigrce pecudes throughout the country, obediently following their leader, turned the scale of Convocation votes. In 1856 30,OOOZ. were granted for the immediate erection of a Museum ; the first stone was laid by the Chancellor, Lord Derby ; and by 1860 the partially completed building was handselled by the famous British Association meeting, at which Wilberforce and Huxley disputed over ' The Origin of Species.'

The beautiful details of the new edifice," super- intended and developed by Woodward's genius, brought Art as well as Science into Oxford. Woolner and Pollen, Morris and Burne-Jones <the two latter still undergraduates), served xinder and helped him ; Buskin came to bless, suggest, contribute. Busts of the great men of science, from Bacon onwards, were presented by munificent donors ; the columns of the arcades represented a geological series ; their capitals were carved in botanical sequence by the Irish brothers O'Shea ; the iron supports of the central glass roof were wrought into fruit and foliage by Skidmore.

All these interesting details, already lapsing into oblivion, are rescued and preserved in Dr. and Mrs. Vernon's careful compilation, which enumerates also the famous teachers whom the New Learning brought successively to enrich the professorial staff : Phillips, Brodie, Bolleston, Clifton, Moseley, Burdon-Sanderson, Turner, Prestwich, Tylor. One deserving name we are

sorry that they should have omitted that of Charles Robertson, Aldrichian Demonstrator, and Tutor for the Anatomical School. Many men notable to-day look back with gratitude to his conscientious teaching ; many, too, amongst the most beautiful biological preparations on the Museum shelves are the work of his dexterous fingers.

Living into the opening of a new century, Acland saw, in space, cost, extension, usefulness, his conception trebled ; saw ideas embodied which he could not have imagined, yet which were evolved from his immature origination, and due to his self-sacrificing toil. So it has always been. Other men labour, that we may enter into their labours ; we in our turn sow and rear, in the belief that, to an extent beyond our knowledge, yet not beyond our hopes, we are forwarding the cause of humanity.

The English Parnassus : an Anthology of Longer Poems, with Introduction and Notes by two Scotch professors, Mr. W. M. Dixon and Mr. H. J. C. Grierson, is another of the excellent collections of the Clarendon Press. The volume begins with the Prologue to ' The Canterbury Tales,' and ends with FitzGerald's ' Omar Khayyam.' The Preface indicates that in the case of this poem, and Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold, " considerations of copyright have excluded the use of some later emendations." The last phrase is inadequate in view of the changes Tennyson made in ' In Memoriam.' Mr. Dixon, who has produced a ' Primer of Tenny- son,' knows perfectly well that the whole of Canto XXXIX. as printed in the final form of ' In Memoriam ' is missing in the text used here. This fact should have been frankly stated. We doubt if it is fair at all to reproduce earlier versions of pieces worked over with the utmost care by an artist like Tennyson. At any rate, both in his case and that of FitzGerald the edition used, with the year of its production, should have been "ndicated.

The notes are helpful and stimulating ; and which might easily have been enlarged. If
 * here is a Glossary, chiefly of Chaucerian words,

i:i,..n~,-,q~ " nee( j s to be explained, we might

liberticide expect a note to " hoodman -blind

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CECIL CLARKE (" Raleigh or Ralegh "?). See the umerous contributions at 7 S. i. 252, 396, 455; . 102, 345, 491 ; xi. 77, 195 ; 9 S. vii. 7, 158, 191, 55.

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