Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/244

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. MARCH 10, im

published in 1863, which did much to establish its author's high reputation. It is a record of travel begun with Mr. (afterwards Professor) Alfred Hussel Wallace. The author, who only died in 1892, was a shrewd observer and assiduous col- lector, and his book will be read with pleasure by all naturalists, and especially by entomologists.

The ' Words on Wellington ' of our old friend the late {Sir William [Augustus] Fraser is a compara- tively modern work by one of the chief of modern gossips and genealogists, and an accepted authority on all subjects connected with Wellington and D'Israeli. None of the volumes of the series can 'be read with more interest and amusement than 'this.

St. Adamnan's 'Life of St. Columba' is in its way the most remarkable product of mediaeval literature. Montalembert has described it as one of the most living, attractive, and authentic 'monuments of Christian history. It has been often translated and edited. A conclusion has been 'reached that a new translation is requisite. Such being the case, the work could scarcely be better executed than it is by Mr. Wentworth Huyshe, who in addition to the text supplies intelligent and valuable notes and comments, with explanations of the illustrations which are included.

Heinrich von Sybel, a translation of whose essay on the Crusades is now presented, was a trust- worthy writer and a keen politician. He was a pupil of Leopold Ranke, and became a professor at Bonn, Munich, and elsewhere. He was virtually the first to apply accurate tests to the mingled imass of history and legend which previous writers had extracted from William of Tyre. Together with the ' Histoire Litteraire des Troubadeurs ' of tSainte Palaye, Sybel's book, which is excellently produced, forms the best and most trustworthy ^account of a period of undying interest. It is clearly impossible for us to analyze or criticize works of the class. What is matter for most con- gratulation is that such books are brought wilhin reach of everybody, and that knowledge of their contents is no longer confined to the owner of a library. The series is as cheap as it is readable and useful.

Sliakesperian Synopses. By J. Walker McSpadden.

(Chapman & Hall.)

THIS little work is at once readable and useful. 'The synopsis is in every case short and adequate.

Willing' s Press Guide, 1906. (Willing. ) "THE thirty-third annual issue of this well-estab- lished and indispensable publication has all its former useful features. How up to date are its contents is shown by the fact that the appearance during the present year of The Tribune, the latest of daily journals, is duly noted.

The Antiquary, January, 1906. (Elliot Stock.) ~MR. RICHARD QUICK contributes a pleasing .-article on the antiquities of the tobacco-pipe, con- taining good illustrations of those used by the prehistoric races of America and English examples of a more modern date. There is a short paper by Mr. W. J. Fennell the first of a series on some of the old towns of Ulster. Carrickfergus is the one treated of in the present number. An alabaster panel, found some nve-and-forty years ago at Mere, in Wiltshire, is described by Mr. John A. Lloyd. It is much mutilated, but has evidently represented

the adoration of the Wise Men. The writer believes no doubt correctly that the work was executed by " the alabaster men" of Nottingham, who carried on a great trade in works of religious art for two centuries before the Reformation. Mr. W. H. St. John Hope published some years ago in Archa'dogia an elaborate paper on this interesting subject. Mr. J. H. Slater's paper on ' The Elixir of Life ' shows great research ; we wish, however, he had given references to his autho- rities, for they differ in value. Some of the alchemists were among the wisest men of their time, and we are not going too far when we state that others were arrant impostors, and that there was a class between these whose position it is by no means easy to estimate. Mr. J. E. Brown gives us the domestic portion of an inventory of the goods of Edward Catherall, a brewer and farmer of Luton, taken in 1612. All that is supplied is interesting, but we regret that it has not been completed by those parts which relate to his busi- ness. Is it too late to supply them ? In the hall, among other things, was a " bayard," which the editor surmises to have been a clothes-horse ; but we believe it to have been a "cratch," or hand- barrow.

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N. J. HONE (" Shakkespere : Shakstaff "). Printed ante, p. 89.

ENQUIRER (" Decus et tutamen"). No pronun- ciation can be called "accepted" in England, but scholars prefer what you call "the Latin pronun- ciation in the Roman Church."

CORRIGENDA. Ante, p. 132, col. 1, 1. 2, for " todos " read todas. P. Ill, col. 2, last line, for "bow" read vow,

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