Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/387

 ii. OCT. is, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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more merciful than she, and in place of 215 persons being killed in Richmondshire, the number that perished was only 57. On the other hand, we read of the two daughters of Northumberland, who were of tender years, that they had not one penny to relieve themselves, and could not procure fuel in the depth of winter. It is interesting to find Sir George Bowes, the father-in-law of Christopher Wandesford, to whom, on account of his sufferings in her service, Elizabeth had left Northumberland's personal possessions, had chivalrously surrendered them to these young ladies to relieve their needs. Sir Christopher Wandesford the name Christopher occurs frequently in the family accompanied Strafford, whose friend he was, to Ireland, and on Stratford's departure for England was himself made Lord Deputy. It is stated in some quarters that Charles I. made him Baron Mowbray and Musters and Viscount Castlecomer, and that he would not assume the style during the king's calamitous estate. This seems, however, to have been inaccurate. Christopher Wandesford, his son, was created a baronet of England in 1662, and a third Christopher, the son of the preceding, was elevated to the peerage of Ireland as Baron Wandes- ford and Viscount Castlecomer. John Wandes- ford, fifth Viscount, was created, in 1758, Earl of Wandesford. His only son, Viscount Castlecomer, predeceased his father, on whose death, in 1784, all his honours became extinct.

We cannotfollow further the fortunes of thefamily. The book is, in its line, a model : its pedigrees are exemplary ; the letterpress is readable, instructive, and important ; and the reprinted documents have singular interest. As well as the documents at Castlecomer, those in other quarters, public and private, have been used. A series of admirable illustrations, many of them full-page plates, add greatly to the attractions of the volume. These include portraits of Sir Christopher and Lady Wandesford, circa 1585 ; two of the Lord Deputy, one of them by Vandyke, known as the Comber portrait ; one of John, Earl of Wandesford ; one of John, seventeenth Earl of Ormonde ; with other'por- traits by Doll, Vandeist, Comerford, and T. Phillips, R.A. ; views of Castlecomer House, Kirklington Hall and Church, and the tomb in the said church of Sir Christopher Wandesford, 1590, and other objects of interest. Whose figure is shown on another fine monument in the church cannot be decided. To all concerned with Yorkshire history and genealogy the book is to be warmly commended. Among the pedigrees is one of the Colyilles of Thimbleby. One ia surprised to find in the fifteenth century the ignorant spelling Sybil.

The Works of Thomas Nashe. Edited by Ronald

B. McKerrow. Text, Vol. II. (Bullen.) THE second volume of Mr. McKerrow's edition of Nashe contains three tracts, each, in the original, of excessive rarity. Except in the very limited reprint of Grosart included in the " Huth Library," and in the present most judicious and commendable edition, the three are virtually inaccessible. First comes 'Christ's Teares over Jerusalem,' an edifying work, written when the author, in a temporary fit of penitence, thought of making friends with all his enemies, even his arch-foe Gabriel Harvey. This work is dedicated to the Lady Elizabeth Carey, wife of Nashe's great protector, Sir George Carey. He addresses her as " the most honored and vertuous beautified ladie." "Beautified," which Polonius

rightly decries as "a vile phrase," had previously- been used by Sidney in 1580. Nashe's employment of it in 1593 may possibly have suggested to Shake- speare this condemnation. In his opening phrase Nashe also calls her " Excellent, accomplisht, Court- glorifying lady." The title-pages of the first and second editions are given in facsimile from the exemplars, unique in each case, in the Bodleian. 'The Vnfortvnate Traveller' follows, title-pages of the first edition in the British Museum and the second in the Bodleian being again given. This work, which is regarded as Nashe's masterpiece, is curious as the first instance in English literature of the Picaresque novel. It contains warm praise of Aretine, whom Nashe, who took him for a model, describes as "one of the wittiest knaves that ever God made." Aretine's title, "11 Flagello de' Principi," Nashe seems to have envied. Last comes the " Tragedie of Dido, Queene of Carthage. Played by the Children of her Maiesties ChappeL Written by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nash, Gent." In the case of this work, which appears as vol. yi. of the Grosart edition, it is im- possible to ascribe their respective shares to the two poets, though the less share appears to be Marlowe's. The opening scenes between Jupiter and Ganimed are poetical enough for either writer, and, it must be added, daring enough in utterance to justify the arraignment to which both have been subjected. Two further volumes will, we presume, complete a work which is a delight to the student of Tudor literature.

Introduction to the History of Civilization in Eng land. By Henry Thomas Buckle. Edited by John M. Robertson. (Routledge & Sons.) IN one thick and closely printed volume of nearly a thousand pages we have here "an absolutely complete reprint of Buckle's work, with a new index." That such would come sooner or later was a certainty. We have had to wait, however, until the expiry of copyright for the book to be brought within general reach. Now that it comes it is in a shape that will make it a boon to the man of few books, with an introduction and copious annota- tions by Mr. Robertson, the author of 4 Buckle and his Critics.' Admirable as is in many respects Buckle's magnum opus, it is for the reader of to-day the better for the spice of criticism and comment Mr. Robertson supplies. The preface of the editor is largely made up of explanations of and apologies for the gloss he has felt bound to write upon Buckle's work. Nothing is, however, better known to the contemplative man than that the statements of the greatest and most original require modification and alteration, and that it is by the successive improve- ments and inventions of many minds that philo- sophic, like scientific or mechanical, discovery is perfected. Mr. Robertson's notes show an erudition scarcely less great and varied than that of Buckle himself, and the edition, besides being a model of cheapness, is encyclopaedic in information. A com- plete mastery of its contents would constitute a well-informed man.

KiuijJ Letters from the Early Tudors^, icith the

Letters of Henry VI1L and Anne Boleyn. Edited

by Robert Steele. (De La More Press.)

UNLIKE the previous volume of ' Kings' Letters,'

which appeared in the same delightful series known

as the " King's Classics," the present work contains

the letters of two monarchs only, the first two