Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/456

 378 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* a. iv. NOV. t. luce. Baker calls it, as popular a story-book of the Middle Ages as the 'Arabian Nights' or the 'Morte d'Arthur." Swan's translation, now reprinted, the only one into modern English, though far from common, is not so rare as to justify us in expatiat- ing upon a work which is known to every scholar, which is noteworthy among books casting light upon Shakespeare, Chaucer, Gower, Occleve, and Lydgate, has been printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and included in the publications of the Roxburghe Club, and has received the comments of Douce, Tyrwhitt, Sir Frederic Madden, and Thomas War- ton. It is, moreover, held English in origin, was printed in Augsburg in 1489, has known in Ger- many some modern critical editions, and is closely associated with ' The Seven Sages' and' Dolapathos.' An old French translation, which, in an edition by Gustave Brunet, was included in the admirable " Bibliotheque Elzevirienne," bears the title of ' Le Violier des Histoires Romaines," and contains 149 stories, against the 181 now reissued. It differs in many respects from the present version, and espe- cially in having all the applications given in full, a very dubious recommendation to the general reader. Everything about the 'Gesta Romanorum' is un- certain—its authorship, its date, its provenance generally. All of which we are sure in these respects is that it is earlier than Boccaccio, who employs several of its fables. Many additions were made to it after its first appearance, and the number of tales is different in almost every edition. The story of Apollonius of Tyre, which is the longest, and perhaps in its connexion with Shakespeare the most interesting, does not appear in the earlier editions. Beginning with a series of stories, real or imaginary, but in every case without the least historical value, concerning Roman emperors some- times unrecorded in history or, otherwheres, in fiction—we hear of emperors such as Merelaus, Solemius, Bononius, Lamartinua, &c., and some- times in strange and impossible association — it broadens its base, and deals with the ordinary characters of fiction and romance: " A certain king had a son," and so forth. To those whom things ancient delight, the book is a mine of enjoyment. In the notes are given comments of Douce, Warton, and others; and Swan's introduction, which, though not always happy in conjecture, is valuable, is supplemented by a second of Mr. Baker, supplying all that the reader can wish to know. Mr. Baker's task is well discharged, and the book furnishes, in a popular form, one of the finest collections obtainable of mediaeval fiction. Mr. Wynnard Hooper's edition of the same work, included in the eminently handsome, handy, and readable " York Library of Messrs. Bell & Sons, reaches us somewhat later than the edition with which it is coupled. It is, in fact, much earlier, having first seen the light in Bohn'a " Standard Library." Its appearance in so commodious a shape is, of course, a subject for congratulation. Books intended for or suited to the pocket have always made special appeal to our memories, recalling the time when there was little which could be slipped into pocket or knapsack except an Elzevir classic, and when the chances—on an excursion, say, in the Lakes, where it almost always rains—of being thrown upon the inn library were too formidable to be faced. To prevent such a calamity the "York Library" reprint is ideal. Mr. Hooper's preface is, in addition, admirably instructive, and the text is all that can be desired. Concerning the two editions we can only address the reader in the words of the famous Latin quota- tion, " Utrum In.rum mavis accipe." Jane Austen and her Times. By G. E. Mitton. (Methuen & Co.) A READABLE enough book in its way, ' Jane Austen and her Times' conveys a good idea of the influ- ences under which the novelist came and the con- ditions by which she was surrounded. A couple of chapters are devoted to her novnls, members of her family are discussed in a chapter headed 'Pre- liminary and Discursive,' and a dozen mildly stimu- lating pages are assigned to her childhood. More space is, however, occupied with the social and physical conditions among which she lived than with the part she played in the world, and the whole, though agreeable in perusal and illuminator; in some respects, barely escapes the charge of book- making. Not at all the sort of book-making is it which the author expressly reprobates aa worse than useless and positively harmful, such as "a synopsis of the plots of the novels told in bald and commonplace language, without any of the sparkle of the original, so that even the extracts embedded in such a context seem fiat and uninteresting." The times depicted are, however, almost within living memories, though such, it must be confessed, are remote; the works laid under contribution an fairly familiar; and the language in which the information is conveyed is more fluent than signi- ficant. It is avowedly a background rather than a figure which Mici Mitton aims at showing, and it is the closing years of the eighteenth century, during which half of Jane Austen's works were written, rather than the opening years of the nine- teenth, in which they were all of them issued, that constitute her chief concern. It was a stormy world into which Jane Austen entered and in the midst of which she dwelt, yet her life seems to have been of the placidest. Born in the year of Bunker's Hill, she lived through the American " rebellion," the French Revolution, the Consulate, and the Empire, and outlasted by a year or two the Hun- dred Days and Waterloo, witnessing the beginning only of that period of discovery which ushered in the world of to-day. These things passed over her all but unnoticed, and might almost, so far as she is concerned, not have oeen. It is a mis- fortune that her letters, preserved by the happily named Cassandra, were bowdlerized by her, though not, of course, in the interests of decency; and it is to be regretted that Cassandra's own letters, which could justify Jane in calling her " the finest comic writer of the present age," are lost. The points on which our author comments are matters such as the position of the clergy, not seldom poor enough in those days: the discom- forts of travel; the navy; social life in London, the country, and in Bath; dress and fashion, and the like. Sometimes, too, the possession of much infor- mation is assumed on the part of the general reader, as when it is said (p. 203), " Smollet's [tic] picture" of life on board [ship] are too well known to quote. A series of interesting full-page illustrations in- cludes family likenesses; portraits of Jane Austen. Fanny Burney, Cowper, and Crabbe: designs by Bunbury, Hoppner, Morland, Loutherbourg, Copley, &c.; views of Charing Cross, the little theatre m the Haymarket, .'•:••., the whole constituting * volume offering many attractions and tending some* what to instruction.