Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/507

 10* 8. III. MAT 27, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

adequate. Heimin, a species of fifteenth-century feminine headdress, does not appear, nor does it in the dictionary of M. Gasc. Within its limits the book is, however, good. It is very convenient, and pocket dictionaries are not intended for the use of scholars.

The Rhymers Lexicon. By Andrew Loring. With Introduction by G. Saint.sbury. (Routledge&Sons.) ' A RIMING DICTIONARY,' by John Walker, philo- logist and ex-actor, enjoyed during the last century a kind of popularity, and aided with other works in securing for its author a certain amount of academic recognition. A similar work, more scientific in basis and on a more ambitious scale, ushered in by a preface of almost superfluous erudi- tion by Prof. Saintsbury, is now issued by Mr. Loring. It is intended for the use of rimesters and poets, and to such of them as are accustomed to seek artificial aid it may be commended. Per- sonally, we can believe in no one, not even the fabricator of Limericks, finding a dictionary of the kind of any service; but quien sabe ? We cannot conceive Byron finding herein "hen-pecked you all" as a rime to "intellectual," Ingoldsby "hot coffee lees " to " Mephistopheles," or Butler "green cheese" to "inch is." The book is, however, a work of extreme labour, is very recondite and complete in its fashion, and if any one wants it why, here it is.

'THE ARAB,' in The Edinburgh Revieio for April, is not only charming to read as a relaxation, but also worth careful study, for the writer has formed his conclusions on a wide basis of observation. His description of the desert is one of the best we have seen, and he has shown the effect of it on the Arab race in a manner that must be convincing to any one who realizes the power climate and scenery exercise over human character. He does not idealize these desert-dwellers, but reports of them much that is evil as well as good. As to those who have left off their wild outdoor life he has little that is good to tell. We are by no means in agreement with all he says about Arab civiliza- tion. That it was from the first widely different from that of Europe it is impossible to deny ; but though blended with monstrous evils it had also a very noble side. To speak of the Arab conquests as resting on no foundation of common sense is startling. It is either a truism or a blunder. It might with equal justice be said of almost every conquering race we meet with in history. The Arabs had zeal for religion, and imperfect, or even false, as we Westerns may regard it, their whole souls were influenced by it in the earlier time, and, great as was their decadence in later centuries, retrogressive as the countries under their sway have become, can we believe that what they sup- pressed would have brought forth better things than what they gave? That their policy if a policy it can be called was not based on a " con- secutive and thought-out plan" we willingly concede ; but does not this apply to nearly all mediaeval warfare? What are we to say of the early Crusades ? They were based on a heroism as exalted as the world has ever seen, but strategy was wanting as much on one side as the other, as it is among a cluster of dogs fighting on a village green. The Arabs encouraged learning and founded schools and libraries. Their art was on some sides limited ; but to speak of their architecture, when

original, as a "concoction of whim and fancy"" forcibly reminds one of the way the eighteenth- century "men of taste" talked of the glories of mediaeval art. In latter days we can find even* more to say against the Arabs than the reviewer does. No one can denounce their piracies and the revolting cruelties that accompanied them, too strongly. They swept not only the Medi- terranean, but at times the Atlantic coasts of Spain, and even harried occasionally the shores of the English Channel. At last things became so- unbearable that Charles I. sent vessels to attack Salee. On this occasion a great number of English- slaves were delivered. There is no doubt that many of these unhappy people had been captured on our coasts, for a few years later an attack was made near Penzance, and sixty men, women, and* children carried away. There can be no moral set- off as to crimes of this kind ; but it is not amiss to- remember that in the days of Elizabeth our pirates harried the Spaniards in times of peace, and that English gentlemen thought nothing of it ; and that in the seventeenth century the Dunkirk pirates were a great terror. Had the nations of Christian Europe possessed either wisdom or energy they would have combined to stamp out the nests of sea-thieves which fringed the coasts of North- Africa ; but they could not unite, they were far too much employed in waging wars of religion and' for the extension of territory to dream of united- action against a common danger. ' A Liberal French- Noble of the Revolution' is a careful and well- balanced sketch of the Due de Liancourt, a man of" somewhat narrow views, it may be, but in most of the practical things of life far in advance of his time. Living through the Revolution, he never lost his power of judgment. He believed in organized relief of the indigent and the education of the people on modern lines, both which things in their old forms had been dislocated or swept away by the fall of the Church. Liancourt was a man of peace, and he realized, as few Frenchmen of his day did, that a stable government was a primary necessity, and therefore endeavoured during the- Empire and the Restoration to retain, as far as might be, the reforms on which he had set his heart by a subserviency with which strong par- tisans could have no sympathy. ' Earthquakes and the New Seismology' brings up our knowledge of" earthquakes to the present time, pointing out not only what is certain, but what is at present in the shadowland of the unknown. We do not wish to affirm that the true cause of earthquakes will for ever remain hidden. It would be extremely rash to say thus much of any natural phenomenon, but the difficulties of discovery are enormous. There- are now stations in many parts of the world where earth-movements are recorded and tabulated ;. but this, though necessary, is going but a little way. Have we any evidence that solar and lunar attraction has effect on the earth's structure? and- may we provisionally assume that electric forces count for much or little ? All these and many more questions are asked from time to time, but satis- factory replies have not been given. ' Sainte- Beuve and the Romantics ' is a good paper ; and we have been much interested, though not convinced, by the ' Three Phases of Pastoral Sentiment.' There has been so much literature of late regarding Tibet,. and so much more is, we understand, in prepara- tion, that it is a necessity for us to have a clue around which to arrange new knowledge and specu-