Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/483

 io s. in. MAY 20, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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turn. Before we reach there we have some scores of passages marked for comment.

Terrible pictures of lawlessness in Scotland meet us as we progress through Mr. Lang's fascinating pages. Notaries " were often professional forgers " ; with certain exceptions " the ignorance and pro- fligacy of the higher Scottish clergy in Knox's youth are almost incredible"; "many priests could hardly read." Cardinal Sermoneta " drew a terrible sketch, which Mary Stuart commended to the attention of the Pope, of the nefarious lives of every kind of religious women' in Scotland." " Scotland, in brief, had always been lawless, and for centuries had never been godly."

Especially ironical is Mr. Lang when he deals with what he pleases to call Knox's humour. " Other good men rejoiced in the murder of an enemy, but Knox chuckled/' Of his remarks on Mary of Guise, who once treated him with banter, it is said that whenever Knox touches on her he " deals a stab at her name and fame." With all his zeal and courage, Knox was not the material of which martyrs are made. Mr. Lang can, however, praise "the actual genius of Knox, his tenacity, his courage in an uphill game, his faith which might move mountains," and, again, his unbending honesty. The passages dealing with Mary Stuart are deeply interesting, and here the historian is seen at his best. He will be judged a little cynical when he writes concerning her, " It is not a kind thing to say about Mary, but I suspect that, if assured of the English succession, she might have gone over to the Prayer- Book." We doubt if she would thus have anticipated and reversed the apostasy of Henri IV. In the fact that nobody in those days put a bullet into Knox Mr. Lang finds proof that he was the most potent man in Scotland. We have here to stop, though we have not said a fourth of what at the outset we intended. The book will inspire highest interest in historical circles, and will stir much discussion. It appears in handsome guise, with admirably executed portraits of Knox, Mary Stuart (about thirty- eix), King James, and Mary of Guise, and other illustrations, some of them in photogravure, but without an index.

'TiiE WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS,' by Mr. Gilbert Murray, in The Quarterly Reriew for April, is a paper on M. Victor B6rard's ' Les Pheniciens et rOdyssee.' There are, we need hardly say, differ- ences of view which, in some degree, separate the critic from the author ; but on the whole the work is highly commended. We agree with the reviewer that too much of Mediterranean exploration, trade, and colonization has been attributed to the Phoani- cians. There were other races before them who were explorers and colonizers ; but the task of elucidating the early history of the great midland sea is a most difficult undertaking with such informa- tion as we have at present attained to. M. Berard is an explorer. We have no hesitation in saying that he has much enlarged our outlook, and that his work is at present the most enlightening guide for those who would follow in his footsteps. Mr. Dodwell's paper on Taine is instructive. Alike as crilic and philosophic thinker Taine ranks high. In this country he has been admired, perhaps more than was his due, on account of his kno\yledge of our insular manners and literature. Still, when we call to mind the obscurantism cultivated, or rather enforced as a duty, by too many of those who have

been, and are, at opposite poles of French thought,, we cannot help giving well-nigh unstinted admira- tion to one who fearlessly taught " that the single aim of science and education should be the dis- interested propagation and discovery of truth." The collected works of Lord Byron, edited by Mr. R. E. Prothero and Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge,, are reviewed by Mr. J. C. Collins in a manner which- shows a high appreciation of the poet as well as of the editorial skill of the gentlemen to whose care this new issue has been entrusted. The reviewer has had a difficult task before him, but we see very little with which to find fault in his conclusions. Most of us now hold " that, Shakespeare excepted, his versatility is without parallel among English' poets." There are, however, still some who are so. muddled with the fanaticisms they have inherited from the thirties as to refuse to admit that Byroi> was often faulty in word-selection or stumbled into errors of expression which they themselves- would be the first to denounce in contemporary literature. There also are a dwindling few who go- all lengths in depreciation. Mr. Collins holds the* balance with a remarkably steady hand. He points- out that Byron often picked up thoughts from his predecessors. For example, he shows that in the poem entitled ' Darkness ' he was indebted to a long-forgotten novel and to Dr. Thomas Bur- net's * Sacred Theory of the Earth ' for some striking, ideas. It has often been said that ' The Deformed. Transformed' was modelled on the Faust legend,, though he himself pointed out that the plot was- borrowed from a novel by John Pickersgill. Byroni was a wide reader. There is probably no great poet who has been more affected by influences- froro the outside. We must be careful, however,, not to limit his powers of personal observation. ' Our Neglected Monuments is a paper which- cannot fail to do some amount of good, though- we fear it will not have all the effect to be desired. The writer sets before his readers how almost every civilized country takes care of its- historic monuments, and then shows how very little is done for their protection in Great Britain,, and gives instances of the wanton destruction that has occurred among us in quite recent times. To- these might have been added the Guesten Hall at Worcester, which was swept away by the Dean and Chapter about the year 1860, in spite of the urgent intervention of the Archaeological Institute and many private persons of intelligence. In this case- ignorance and parsimony were moving causes, blended with others of even less .amiable character. We appreciate highly the President of Trinity's- paper on the early Roman emperors. When we- call to mind how difficult it is to estimate the- character of men engaged in political life whom, we may have personally known, it appears im- possible to make a fair estimate of the motives influencing the earlier Csesars. The writer has, however, studied the subject deeply. Those who- read his pages cannot fail to derive benefit from them.

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. MAY (CONTINUED).

Mr. B. H. Blackwell, of Oxford, has a fresh list of critical editions of Latin classical authors. He- also promises shortly a catalogue of the third and. final portion of the library of the late Prof. York Powell.

Mr. Thomas Carver, of Hereford, has a number- of interesting books on Hereford. Under Orni