Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/121

 io. s. v. FEB. 3, IMC.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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1 MODERN UNIVERSAL BRITISH TRAVELLER ' (10 th S. v. 69). There is a copy of this work in the British Museum Library. It is cata- logued under * British Traveller,' and the date of the volume is 1779, press - mark 10348. 1. 6. It contains at p. 225 the plate of Eton College sought for by MR. AUSTEN LEIGH. R. ENGLISH.

ENIGMA BY C. J. Fox (10 th S. iv. 530 ; v. 32). In the fifth line of the first stanza, as given by E. S, there is an error affecting the aptness of the solution suggested by H. H., which seems to be correct. The line referred to

And before Adam did appear should be

And before that [i.e. Noah's Ark] I did appear. I have an old MS. copy, headed ' A Riddle by Chas. Jas. Fox, Esq 1 '. 5 It commences with the following stanza, which does not appear in the version of E. S. :

If here, as Welshmen all agree, Honour depends on pedigree,

Then stand by, clear the way ; Retire, ye sons of haughty Gower, And issue proud of old Glendower, And let me have fair play.

The next stanza agrees with E. S.'s first, except that it begins "For though you boast," &c., and the second line has "Your " instead of " Their." In other respects my version, with a few trifling variations, corre- sponds with that of E. S. W. R. H.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Story of Charing Cross and its Immediate Neighbourhood. By J. Holden MacMichael. (Chatto & Windus.)

LONDON has been long too big to be taken otherwise than in sections. Books that deal with these com- partments of London constitute an attractive class by themselves, of which the account of St. James's Square by M r. Arthur Irwin Uasent may be considered the beau ideal. To the list of writers on London, which comprises Mr. W. J. Loftie, Sir Walter Besant, Mr. Wheatley, and a score others, must now be added Mr. Holden MacMichael, to the merits of whose history of Charing Cross and its neighbourhood we have, during its passage through The Gentleman's Magazine, frequently drawn attention. These delightful essays have now, as they well deserved, been reprinted in book form, with a plan of the district, a frontispiece present- ing St. Martin's Lane in 1820, and a vignette showing Charing Cross as it now is, together with the mouth of tho Strand. It is a subject for con- gratulation, though it is the result presumably of accident, that the district presented is that dear to the antiquary, the painter, and the poet, which existed a few years ago, and made the Strand of that day the most happily accidented street to

be found in any European capital, and not the new thoroughfare broad, but not half broad enough, lined with palatial hotels which commends itself to the British vestryman.

Charing Cross, the very centre of metropolitan London, is virtually bounded by Covent Garden on the north and east, by St. James's Park on the west, and by Scotland Yard and Whitehall on the south. Mr. MacMichael dismisses the derivation from chere reine with Prof. Skeat's comment that it is " too funny to be pernicious." In dealing with the associations of the district Mr. MacMichael is more historical than topographical, and the more animated among his early pictures are the assaults of the Londoners upon the servants of the Spanish Ambassador ; the hundreds of carriages and the thousands of horsemen, with rosemary and bays in their hats, that accompanied Prynne, the author of 'Histriomastix,' in November, 1640; and the kindred mob which flocked to the funeral of " Sir Edmondbury Godfrey" (sic). It is quite impossible to convey an idea of the amount of information historical, antiquarian, gossiping, what not that is supplied in a book that may be read with un- failing pleasure. Of how much quaint and amusing information Mr. MacMichael is the possessor readers of our pages are aware. He has given us a capital book, and one which we are glad to think may well be the first of a series. We shall be glad to welcome further volumes or indeed anything in the shape of a continuation. The work is admir- ably got up.

The Political History of England. From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Ed- ward III., 1216-1377. By T. F. Tout. (Longmans & Co.)

THE third volume in order of appearance of 'The Political History of England' follows closely upon the second. If the present instalment is more vivacious than the previous, the cause is partly that Prof. Tout's treatment is picturesque, and partly that the period is one of the most romantic in our annals. It is a time of perpetual struggle in Scot- land, Wales, and on the Continent ; it narrates such episodes as the murder of Edward II. by the "she-wolf of France"; introduces battles such as Bannockburn, Halidon Hill, Neville's Cross, Cour- trai, Crecy, and Poictiers, and interludes such as the Black Death ; and brings on the scene, besides the great ones of the world, men such as Chaucer, Wycliffe, and Froissart. When, with the death of Edward III., the record breaks off, the action is not complete: "John of Gaunt's rule was not over. Wycliffe was advancing from discontent to revolt.

Langland had not yet put his complaint into

its permanent form Popular irritation against

bad government, and social and economic re- pression, were still preparing for the revolt of

We are not able to accompany Prof. Tout in his long record, and can but note a passage or two of special interest. Apropos of the defeat of Louis in 1217, he says that it is tempting to regard it as a triumph of Eng- lish patriotism, but comments wisely that it is a mistake to read into the doings of men of the early thirteenth century the ideals of later ages. A good account is given of the progress of thought in times of weak government and internecine struggle, and it is shown how, while the Frenchman was being recognized as the enemy, the influence of the