Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/507

. ii. NOV. 19, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

to the well-known account of the wager in the House of Commons between Walpole and Pulteney, over a quotation from Horace, goes on to say : " The error was no worse than Burke's false quantity when he cried * Mag- num vectigal est parcimonia.' Yet Burke was not illiterate." LANCE. H. HUGHES. [Replies also from E. S. C. and M. N. G.]

LADY ARABELLA DENNY (10 th S. ii. 368). The early numbers of 'N. & Q.' contained many references to this most "esteemed lady's virtues and angelic life." They are princi- pally from the Cork Remembrancer \ 1760; Dublin Freeman's Journal^ 1765; John Wes- ley's 'Journal/ 1783; and the Dublin Chro- nicle of 10 April, 1792, reporting the death of Lady Arabella at Blackrock on 18 March of that year.

If any of the above-named extracts will be of service to the REV. H. L. L. DENNY, I shall only be too pleased to furnish him with manuscript copies of them.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. The Adventures of King James II. of England. By

the Author of ' A Life of Sir Kenelm Digby/ &c.

(Longmans & Co.)

THAT* this volume scarcely aims at the dignity and responsibility of regular history is shown by its title and explained in the preliminary pages. Of the sixty-eight years of James's life little more than two were spent on the throne of England. Instead, then, of showing him as what, with a lavish use of alliteration, is called a "failure," a "fool," a " fanatic," our author prefers to contemplate him as a soldier and a sailor, in both of which respects he has claims upon attention. It is not very necessary to take account of the points of view from which James is regarded. Firm believers in Catholicism, such as we are prepared to find the author, will naturally regard as service what those of an opposite way of thinking will consider disservice to religion. Pains are taken to establish what few now- adays will seek to deny, that James, in his con- version to Roman Catholicism, was influenced by fervour, or, as some would say, by fanaticism, rather than by interest. In the introduction to the work by Dr. Gasquet, the president of the English Benedictines, a strong effort is made to establish the period and the sincerity of the con- version, and elaborate and convincing explanations are given of the manner in which the Duchess of York, Charles H., and James II. were all accepted into the Roman Church. Apart from the question of heredity, the influence of which may well have been all-important, and apart from that species of attraction which an ornate and imperious creed will always have over a not very responsible or reflective governing class, the Stuarts, without exception, were disposed to favour a rigorous ecclesiasticism. The question, moreover, how far a

strenuous creed is reconcilable with loose practice* is not to be discussed. The new volume, then, is an apologia for James such as has more than once been attempted. It is not much to call him the best king of his race. He might well be that: " Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns." At p. 495, in passages too long to be quoted, after drawing comparisons, wholly in favour of the later monarch, between him and the "pompous, priggish, nervous James I.," and declaring the second James- as without his father's charm, but far more true, it is added that while Charles II. was an adept ir> deception and faithless to his promises, "James II. told the truth in season ana out of season, and his word was inviolate." In an account of the manner in which (p. 36) Queen Henrietta Maria is described by Pere Gamache as receiving the news- of her husband's death, an allusion is made to a dictum of a " great philosopher." The dictum in question belongs, surely, to Shakespeare, whom,, however, we are willing to accept as a " great philo- sopher." What is said about the influence over James of his great master in war and his sub- sequent opponent Turenne, and the effect of his example upon the conversion of the king, is very interesting. Pains are taken to exculpate James from the charge of cruelty. It is possible that the- king had less to do than is generally supposed with the iniquities of Jeffreys. He cannot, at least, be absolved from the charge of having chosen ill mini- strants, and having left them a reprehensibly free hand. Concerning his treatment or Monmouth we have little tosay. That troublesome and abject being, whose whitewashing has, we think, not yet been undertaken, richly deserved his fate, and would have wearied out a more patient and tolerant man than his uncle. Against the charge of being unforgiving James is warmly defended. What seems like a curious bit of cynicism is encountered (p. 375) when the cheering of the troops at Hounsiow on the discharge of the bishops is held to be probably due to the desire of the Protestant soldiers to annoy their Catholic fellows. A small measure of admira- tion is accorded to William of Orange, and neither of James's daughters, Mary and Anne, is very charitably regarded. When the task essayed by James of bringing back England to the Roman fold is looked at sympathetically, it is difficult to be too severe in the judgment of those by whom his pious mission was impeded. Another point of view may, however, be possibly entertained. The illustra- tions, which are numerous and excellent, add greatly to the attractions of a readable and an edifying volume.

Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland. Edited

by Robert Ford. (Paisley, Gardner.) A NEW and revised edition of ' Vagabond Songs and Ballads' is welcome, though it is unlikely that it will supplant with connoisseurs the previous edi- tion, in two volumes, which saw the light in 1899- 1901. Scotland is rich in popular songs and ballads, and the collection now, with some modifications, reprinted gives a considerable number, together with the airs with which they are generally asso- ciated. A certain number of popular ditties, such as ' The Miller of Drone ' and * The Young Laird o' Kelty,' which a hundred years ago were freely sung in mixed company, are judged inadmissible, "by reason of their high-kilted aspect and over-luxuriant character." This is regrettable in the case of folk- lore productions; but in that of a generation