Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/196

 160

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io B. 111. FEB. 25, IMS.

Lin,' ' The Wife of Usher's Well,' ' Clerk Sanders,' ' The Three Ravens ' (which we are disposed to place at the very top of ballad literature), 'Fair Helen of Kirconnell, and innumerable others, in- cluding 'The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington' and '"King John and the Abbot.' Indexes of titles and first lines add to the value of a scholarly and trust- worthy compilation which appeals strongly to the Jovers of poetry. The ' Fyttes of Mirth ' are -specially attractive.

The Table Talk and Omniana of Coleridge. Arranged

and edited by T. Ashe, B.A. (Bell & Sons.) .No pleasanter addition could be made to the attractive " York Library" thati this work of Cole- ridge, which is stuffed full of matter. Herein are many of his most pregnant utterances, such as that Swift was " anima Rabelaisii habitans in siccp." There are few books to which one can turn with more certainty of reward. The man would be "not unwise," to use Milton's words, who dipped into it frequently, even daily. In its present shape it can be so dipped into with comfort as well as advantage.

The Edinburgh for January opens with a review of so much of the second volume of ' The Cambridge Modern History ' as relates to the Reformation in .England. It is written by one of competent knovy- ledge, and we trace in it an earnest desire to avoid partisanship which has been almost always success- ful, though we think we have discovered a few mistakes as to facts. It is not evident, for example, that what are now called the Home Counties had at first accepted the ideals of the continental reformers to the extent with which they are credited. There were more persons burnt at the stake for heresy near London than in many districts further removed from the centre of govern- ment ; but this is no index to the number of people who shared the convictions of those who suffered. Aubrey de Vere is sympathetically treated by one well able to appreciate his verse, which has never been popular with the multitude, though his brother poets valued it highly. His love of nature, espe- cially in its simpler and milder forms, is his most valuable characteristic. This has been attributed to his early friendship with Wordsworth, but was evidently inborn. The paper on Bishop Creighton does justice to one who, as an historian, has hardly been estimated at his true value. The fact that he did not take a side, but endeavoured to present things as they were, not as they ought to have been, has led niany to conclude, most unjustly, that he was indifferent to subjects whereon he had, >in truth, strong convictions. We know of no modern English writer who has possessed more fully the >rare gift of fairness when judging those persons whose stupidity, not to dwell on their crimes, must have been most repugnant to his own temperament. 'Sweden' is a paper the production of a writer who knows the country well, uot only as it exists for the modern tourist, but also as it was in the remote past. Whether it be true that the Swedes of to-day are the fullest representatives of the Teutonic stock we are neither prepared to affirm nor deny. They have the physical characteristics of the Old Germans in a marked degree, and their intellectual gifts tell in the same direction. In early times, however, there must have been no little admixture of Lapland blood, and it would be strange if the Mongolian strain were altogether -absent. ' Homer and his Commentators ' is in

great part a review of M. Victor Berard's 'Les Pheniciens et 1'Odyssee,' a work which will greatly modify, if indeed it does not revolutionize, the old fashioned Homeric scholarship. Manila is not a place from which we should look for important contributions to scientific literature. Nevertheless the Rev. Jose Algue, a Jesuit priest stationed there, has found means of issuing in that far-away station a book on cyclones, which cannot but be of great importance to the merchant-navies of the world. The work seems but little known as yet, though it has reached a second edition. Whether M. Algue's conclusions are, on the whole, satis- factory, it must be left to future experience to demonstrate. There are, however, reasons for accepting them, at least provisionally, as they are based on long-continued and careful observation.

THE ' Select Documents illustrative of the His- tory of the French Revolution,' which Mr. L. G. Wickham Legg has edited, will be published in. two volumes by Mr. Frowde for the Delegates of the Oxford University Press.

JOWKTT'S translation of Aristotle's 'Polities' is being issued by the Oxford University Press, uniform in style with Plato's ' Socratic Dialogues,' also translated by Jowett, Dean Wickham's ' Horace for English Readers,' and Mr. Tozer's translation of the ' Divine Comedy.' Mr. H. W. C. Davis con- tributes introduction, analysis, and index to the 'Politics.'

HT01k.es

We must call special attention to the following notices :

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.

To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and. page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication "Duplicate."

D. M., Philadelphia (" Leases for 99 or 999 Years "). Many communications on leases for 999 years appeared in 7 th S. iii., iv., v., vi. Long leases gener- ally were discussed so recently as the last volume of the Ninth Series.

YLIMA (" Value of Marble Table"). You should show it to an expert.

NOTICE.

Editorial communications should be addressed to " The Editor of 'Notes and Queries'" Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lisher" at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.

We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print ; and to this rule we can make no exception.