Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/407

 io"> s. iv. OCT. ai. iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 337 ject he ever read, " (he key to a Sphinx's riddle,' 6ir Richard Jebb's 'Introduction to Homer,' anc Prof. Percy Gardner's ' New Chapters in Greek History.' ' A Companion to Greek Study,' the all- important work just issued by the Cambridge University Press, did not appear in time to be ol service. It is needless to say that the points on which the most divergent views are held are left undecided. The revolutionary theories of Prof. Ridgeway in treating the Achjeana as a Celtic tribe are not fully accepted, though their attraction for the scholar is conceded, and a chapter is devoted to the effort to show a via media for the upholder oi different views as to the origin of the Homeric people. The Professor himself is disposed to favour the view that Sehliemann found at Mycenae " the tomb of that Homeric life which Agamemnon repre sents to us." In this and other matters we can but refer the reader to the book itself, a work as fruit- ful in suggestion as it is trustworthy and useful in information. Numerous and excellent illustrations add greatly to the utility of the work. James Macpherson : an Episode in Literature. By J. S. Smart. (Nutt.) A CENTURY ago the name of Macpherson was one wherewith to conjure, and a writer would appeal to a moderately enlightened public when he rhapsodized concerning Ossianic sublimity and gloom. Among enthusiasts over Ossian was Napoleon, not ordinarily expansive concerning authors or books, and there was a time when critics ench as Herder and Klopstock—and for a brief while Goethe—could compare him with Homer; while Byron even did not escape the lunacy, and Lamartine clinched matters by placing Macpherson above Homer and on a level with Dante. Now there is none so poor as to do him homage. Through thick and thin Johnson maintained that the Ossianesque poems were forgeries. After threatening Johnson with personal chastisement, the irate bard obtained from the Doctor one of those manly letters Johnson could write on occasion. Now all are of Johnson's mind, and the shadowy hosts of Fingal inspire neither admiration nor terror. If Mr. Smart dedicates a volume to Macpherson, it is as an outcome of the Gaelic revival, and for the purpose of showing the manner in which the Scotchman has misused genuine remains of Irish legend- As a description of the development of the Ossianic fables, the book has a place in literary history; to a general public it supplies information upon matters now virtually forgotten. It occupies a place with those works on Ossianic literature to which, as writer and pub- lisher, Mr. Nutt renders such exemplary service. Uncords of Shtlley, Byron, and the AiUhor. By Edward John Trelawny.—Headlong Hall, Melin- court, Nightmare Abbey, Maid Marian. By Thomas Love Peacock.—Mu Stwly Window*. By James Russell Lowell.— Sylvia's Lovers. By Mrs. Gaskell.—Cranford. By Mrs. Gaskell.—Ancient Law. By Sir Henry Sumner Maine.—On Trans- lating Homer. By Matthew Arnold. (Routledge & Sons.) SEVEN more volumes, doubling exactly the issue, have been added to Routledge's attractive and valuable '' New Universal Library." Each volume is complete in itself, and the series bids fair to con- stitute an inexhaustible mine. The owner of the en- tire aeries will, at a minimum of cost, have obtained many of the works which half a century ago were most desirable of possession and most difficult of access. Among them is Maine's 'Ancient Law,'a work first issued in 1861, and in its line epoch- marking. Its appearance in a cheap form is a matter on which serious students may be congratulated. Though less generally known, the 'Records' of Trelawny is, in its way, a masterpieco, giving, on the whole, the best idea of Shelley we possess, and speaking very openly concerning Leigh Hunt and others who used to sponge upon him. This work also has long been difficult of access. ' My Study Windows' is perhaps the best known, as it is the most characteristic, of Lowell's essays in criticism. The only work of his to be compared with it is ' Among my Books,' which was later in appearance. In this volume are given the unappreciative and unworthy estimate of Mr. Swinburne's tragedies, and the castigation, generally well merited, of John Russell Smith's editors. Much pleasanter are the earlier essays on 'My Garden Acquaintance' and 'A Good Word for Winter.' ' Cranford' and ' Sylvia's Lovers,' constituting vols. i. and iii. of Mrs. Gaakell's works, are two novels of which the world will not soon tire, which won the homage of George Sand, and are in their way unequalled. We have a pretty sanguine hope that the entire series will make part of the same collection. Matthew Arnold's three lectures on translating Homer appear, so far as we know, for the first time with Newman's rather irate protest and Arnold's 'Last Words." Arnold was too severe upon Newman, and treated him with a somewhat irritating assumption of supe- riority. Not for the first time, however, Newman shows himself thin-skinned. So interesting is still the discussion that we are disposed to wonder if a reprint of Wilson's (Christopher North's) ' Homer and his Translators,' a work now unjustly forgotten, could not be issued as a companion volume or couple of volumes. ' Headlong Hall' and its accompany- ing works form the first volume of an edition of Thomas Love Peacock, in which the Latin quota- tions generally are, for the first time, translated. The series bids fair to be, for the reader of narrow means, one of the greatest of boons. 'oleridge. With Introduction by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. (Heinemann.) Selected Poems of Matthew Arnold. With Intro- duction by Arthur Waugh. 2 vols. (Same pub- lisher.) THESE further volumes have been added to the "Favourite Classics" of Mr. Heinemann. We have personally no great love for selections, and prefer jeing our own taster. We are scarcely satisfied, moreover, with a selection from Matthew Arnold which omits ' Thyrsis.' The choice is, however, in Miili cases happy, and the books, besides being n-ru v and tasteful, remain miracles of cheapness. Portraits of the two poets and a view of Arnold's louse at Cobham accompany the volumes. The. Complete, Works of William Shakespeare. Edited, with a Glossary, by W. J. Craig, M.A. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) EDITIONS of Shakespeare succeed one another with unintermitting rapidity and with unappeasable rivalry of attraction. Of these few on the ground of beauty of workmanship, trustworthiness, conve- nience, and general excellence commend themselves more than the Oxford India-paper edition, which low, in a slightly altered form and with enlarged