Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/51

. ii. JULY 9, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

and manners, if we may pursue the figure. Such exercises as these of an accomplished master of the classical tongues it may be the fashion to regard as belonging to an otiose bypath unworthy of the attention of a nation of shopkeepers. But even a scholarly audience is not negligible, as the constant appearance of such volumes as this proves, since publishers are not idle philanthropists. As a matter of fact, the study and imitation of the classics have wider and more popular issues. Such study is not

Harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose ; rather it gives pliancy and grace to the English style of its adherents. The admirable light verse of Punch is due to Mr. Seaman, a former Person Scholar at Cambridge ; and the only other writer who ranks with him in the same style is Mr. Godley, an Oxford don and teacher. One need not be academic to enjoy their wit, but we think it was their training which gave their wit the supple form and grace which please everybody.

Calverley appealed, perhaps, to more learned times than ours, and his delightful work may not be so attuned to the popular ear as that of the two writers just mentioned ; but we shall be surprised if in this form he is not widely appreciated even to-day. The little book before us is bound in leather, and made to go inside a practical every- day pocket-book. By itself it may be slipped into the slenderest of pockets for the delight of a casual hour, or interchanged with the Horace and ' In Memoriam ' provided by the publishers for the same purpose. The type is clear, though small, and there are no signs of the crowded margins which disfigure some dainty trifles of the sort.

The * Fly-leaves,' to take the last section first, it would be impertinent to praise. They include some admirable parodies and a full display of that final short line which Calverley used so admirably as a source of point, humour, and surprise.

The ' Verses ' and ' Translations ' contain the famous ' Ode to Tobacco ' and the neat compendium of the average undergraduate, "Hie Vir, hie est." The ' Lines to Mrs. Goodchild ' contain a reference to our staff which is probably unique in verse : No doubt the Editor of JVbte-s and Queries Or things "not generally known" could tell The word's real force.

Some of the pieces make fun of obsolete or obso- lescent originals, such as Tapper's ' Proverbial Philosophy, before which we no longer prostrate ourselves ; others approach the dignity of history. In the ' Classical Translations ' we find, for once, some renderings of Horace which we take, after much suffering among many perversions, to suggest the grace and lightness of their original. Chief among the translations into Latin is ' Lycidas,' of which we are given the English text. Those, there- fore, who cannot appreciate the extraordinary close- ness of Calverley's version should be able to rejoice in a poem which is a touchstone of taste in English. Modern makers of Latin verse would, we think, be more particular than Calverley about some words and usages, but we doubt if this merit of following virtually one writer as a model has not been overpraised. Verse-making is a pastime and a possession for ever, as well as the rhetorical triumph of an hour in examinations. And so we end with our sincerest thanks to Messrs. Bell for this delightful issue of Calverley. For ourselves, whether his work be adjudged to lie on the high-

way of letters, or a secluded bypath, with no attractions for men of the world, we shall assuredly cherish it. For us this master of graceful wit and scholarship is, to use the Transatlantic idiom, dis- tinctly "worth while."

Great Masters. Parts XVII. and XVIII. (Heine-

mann.)

Two further parts of the best and most attractive of modern art publications bring it within measur- able distance of completion, and set the fortunate possessor speculating in what way he shall bind the treasures it contains. Three volumes will about comprise the whole of the plates in a form not too- bulky for use, and, what is synonymous, delight. The first design in part xvii. consists of 'The Regents of the Leprosy Hospital' of Ferdinand Bol, a Corporation piece painted in 1049, in the artist's best period, and now hanging in the burgo- master's room in the Town Hall, Amsterdam, where it is but rarely seen by travellers, and was certainly missed by ourselves. The execution is very fine and delicate, and the reproduction is excellent. From the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, comes another Dutch masterpiece in 'A WatermiU' of Hobbema, one of several views of the same spot executed by the artist. 'The Dead Christ Mourned' of Anni- bale Carracci was originally in the Orleans Gallery,. and is now in that of the Earl of Carlisle. Its appearance in 'Great Masters' furnishes occasion- for some judicious observations by the editor upon the work of the Carracci. The Sloane Museum supplies Hogarth's 'Election Entertainment,' the " matchless, as it is caljed by Charles Lamb. It is a fearfully gruesome satire, almost terrible enough for Swift. We must not, however, be led into a dissertation on the relentlessness of Hogarth. Rem- brandt's 'Man in Armour' in part xviii. comes- from the Glasgow Corporation Gallery, having once- belonged to Sir Joshua Reynolds. The editor is highly enthusiastic concerning it, speaking of the " glorious thrill " that it causes to one who beholds it. The wonderful helmet belonged, it is suggested,, to " Mars's armour forged for proof eterne. ' From the Louvre comes 'The Concert' of Giorgione, justly pronounced lovely. To the attempt to trans- fer the authorship to Campagnola little attention is paid. By whomever it is executed, the work is transcendent. Van Eyck's ' Portrait ot John Arnol- fini and his Wife' begets still higher raptures. One might, indeed, write endlessly concerning the* details of an epoch-marking work. Last comes, from Trinity College, Cambridge, the portrait of the four-year-old Duke of Gloucester, said to be perhaps the best of all Reynolds's delightful pictures of children. It was executed in 1780.

The Man of Law's Tale ; The .V// //'.- /'/vV.rf' Tale ,- The Squire's Tale. By Geoffrey Chaucer. Done into Modern English by the Rev. Prof W. W. Skeat. 2vols. (De La More Press.) ATTEMPTS to modernize Chaucer have been more- than once made by genuine poets. Of these that of Prof. Skeat is the best as well as most recent. No scholar alive knows so much of Chaucer as- does Prof. Skeat, and his versions of stories from ' The Canterbury Tales ' form, for those who are unable to read the original, the best conceivable introduction to the great poet. The transla- tions have a pleasant suggestion of antiquity, and are admirably executed: in all respects. Two volumes have already appeared, and it is to be