Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/148

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. IL AUG. e, iw*.

have to be chronicled, it is only during the perioc of the Commonwealth and Cromwell and after th accession of William and Mary that the histori record can be read with much gratification.

The substance of the volumes was delivered i the shape of lectures constituting the Senior an Flag Officers' War Courses at Greenwich or the For< 'lectures on English history, the whole being pre ented in a complete form " on the not inappropriate occasion of the tercentenary [?] of the capture o -Gibraltar." Sharing the views lately inculcated a to the value of sea power, Mr. Corbett finds in the -development of English naval power in the Medi terranean not only a fascinating study, but a lamp that, kindled in Stuart times, has illumined sub sequent history, and " will even touch Nelson with A new radiance." The mere presence in Medi terranean waters of an English fleet has had poteni effects upon European history, and contributec greatly to the success of the arms of Marlborougl and the defeat of Louis XIV. More than a hundrec years of effort, often heroic and as often abortive, hac to be spent before, with the conquest of Gibraltar. Britain obtained a firm basis. In the proceedings of John Ward, the pirate, better known as Capt. Ward, who from Tunis preyed upon the Venetians, the Knights of St. John, and all others, except a -doubtful exception his own countrymen, Mr. Cor- bett finds the beginning of English occupation. Not, however, until the seizure of Tangier, accepted in 1662 as the price of the relinquishment of Dun- 'kirk, was England " undisputed master of the seas." Not long was our dominion established over it, and on 5 March, 1684, " the fleet weighed, and Tangier ceased to be a British possession." At the close of July. 1704, Gibraltar yielded to the English and Dutch fleets under Sir George Rooke. The establishment of an English fleet in the Medi- terranean now begins, but a record of its deeds will have to be reserved for a further continuation of Mr. Corbett' s fascinating work. Illustrations to the present volumes consist of a view of Tangier in 1669, a coloured map to illustrate British action in the Mediterranean, and a map of Gibraltar in 1705.

Hichard Crashaw : Steps to the Temple, Delights of the Muses, and other Poems. Edited by A. R. Waller. (Cambridge, University Press.) Itf the " Cambridge English Classics " are included the whole of Crashaw's poems, English and Latin, now for the first time collected in one volume. Favoured, indeed, are modern readers of our early f)oets. We well remember the difficulty in obtain- ing the early editions of Crashaw, the only forms in which the poems could be read. Not till past the middle of the last century was any attempt made to collect them. Two editions then appeared, one of fantastical incorrectness by George Gilfillan, and a second by W. B. D. D. Turnbull. an editor of no particular discretion, included in J. R. Smith's "Library of Old Authors." Grosart next made what claims to be a collection of the poems. The present is by far the best and the most serviceable edition that has yet appeared. Though included among English classics, the volume opens with the Epigrammatum Sacror urn Liber.' This irregularity will be readily pardoned by those who value the epigrams, which, in spite of their conceits, are admirable. The best known is that on the miracle of turning the water into wine : Unde rubor vestris, et non sua purpura lymphis ? Muse rosa mirantes tarn nova rautat aquas ?

Numen (convivse) prassens agnoscite Numen :

Nympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit. Aaron Hill's singularly happy translation, ending The modest stream hath seen its Lord and blushed, is perhaps even better known. Crashaw, who inspired Milton and Pope, and who was praised by Cowley and Joseph Beaumont, both of them his friends, is a true and a fine poet. Something more than content is inspired by the possession of his entire poems in so delightful an edition. He was before he became a Roman Catholic, a Fellow of Peterhouse. from which he was expelled for refusing to sign the Covenant.

THE pretty series known as the " York Library" of Messrs. Bell & Sons has been enriched by the addition of; Coleridge's Friend, Miss Burney's Evelina, and the first volume of Emerson's Works in four volumes. The present volume of Emerson contains the first and second series of * Essays ' and the ' Representative Men.'

A SELECTION by Mr. Lloyd Sanders from the poems of the Anti-Jacobin, with later poems by Canning (Methuen), constitutes a readable as well as a pretty book. The volume, which belongs to the " Little Library," is accompanied by a portrait of Canning.

ia

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EDWARD LATHAM (" In matters of commerce "). See the query at 10 th S. i. 469, and the last sentence f the note appended. No further information has seen supplied.

W. T. H. (" St. Walburga's Oil"). See 1* g. x 86, or Butler's ' Lives of the Saints,' 25 Feb.

ERRATA. P. 92, col. 2, 1. 34, after " Latin, 1776 " )lace a semicolon, and for "Hildgard " read Hild- ard; p. 97, col. 2, 1. 21 from foot, for "Damplish " ead Damlip.

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