Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/218

 178

NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. vn. MARCH 2, 1907.

George Rose as its first editor. In 1825 it was pur- chased by Murdo Young, a man full of energy, who was the first to send express reports of important meetings to the leading towns. His enterprise in this direction once led him into a serious mistake. A meeting \vas announced to be held on Penenden Heath in favour of Catholic Emancipation. Richard Lalor Sheil was to speak, and as he attached con- siderable importance to the event, he wrote the speech out in full. Young, desiring to have it in time for the evening mail, obtained the manuscript from Sheil, and published it in The Sun the same evening, interlarding it with such phrases as "vehe- ment applause," "loud and long continued cheer- ing," &c. ; but unfortunately the speech was not delivered, Sheil not being able to obtain a hearing. A favourite phrase afterwards applied to the eloquent orator was that of "Speechless Sheil." Murdo Young's energy inspired others, and in 1845 he conferred the editorship on his son-in-law Charles Kent, that "right friend and gentleman" and old contributor to our columns. Kent was then only twenty-two. See the obituary notice 9 S. ix. 200.

Last year's honours to the press included a for Sir James Joicey, a knighthood for Mr.

F. C. Gould, and Mr. H. Labouchere being made a Privy Councillor. Among those who retired from editorship were Sir F. C. Burnand from Punch, Dr. Charles Russell from The Gflaayow Herald, and Mr. T. Catling from Lloyd's Weekly Neuv. The obituary includes Sir John Leng, of whom it is interesting to recall that when a boy at school he was joint editor of a manuscript magazine with Charles Cooyjer, who afterwards became so well know as editor of The Scotsman ; James Hender- son, the publisher of the first halfpenny evening paper; and James Annand, M.P., proprietor of The Shields Gazette, founder of The Northern Weekly Leader, and the first editor of The New- castle Daily Leader. In early youth Annan d had to spend his days in shoeing horses, but his wish was to become a journalist, notwithstanding the sisted in his ambition he would come to a bad end." In spite of all the disadvantages under which he started, he became member of Parliament for his native district, but, sad to record, he did not live to take his seat, as he died suddenly of heart disease on 9 February last year.
 * ' prediction of the local minister that if he per-

The 'Directory' should find its place in all public libraries.

The Edinburgh Review : January, 1907. (Longmans

&Co.)

THE paper on ' The English Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century' indicates that the writer is free from partisan feeling a blight which often disfigures work relating to subjects of this class, even when they are the result of adequate knowledge. Much of interest, however, might have been added, if sufficient space had been at the writer's disposal. We wish he had dwelt on the fact that the various districts of England can by no means be classed together so far as rural progress is concerned. The highways, for example, were in very different conditions in neighbourhoods not far distant from each other ; much depended on the geological character of the country. So far as we have been able to ascertain though we need not say we speak with some doubt the roads on the whole were less evil in the North and West than they

were in the Eastern shires ; but there were no doubt a few favoured spots where a better state of things prevailed. In some places men had bequeathed money for the purpose of much-needed repairs. How far back this wholesome practice goes cannot be discovered. Many instances are recorded under ' Highways ' in the indexes to Dr. Sharpe's 'Calendar of Wills proved in the Court of Hasting, London.'" For instance, John de Oxenford, vintner, Mayor in 1341-2, left bequests for repairs of London Bridge and the great and the little bridges at Oxford, and for the maintenance of bridges at other places, includ- ing Maidenhead. An episcopal will gives an example of a noble bequest of this kind : Nicholas Bubbe- wyth, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1408-24, bequeathed a thousand marks for the repair of " the rotten and deep-sunk lanes of Somerset." The gilds, too, took their part in this good work ; but this source of revenue was diverted when in the reign of Ed- ward VI. their wealth passed into lay hands. Many, probably most, of the mediaeval bridges not belonging to London or our large cities were works of private munificence ; it therefore follows that the ways by which they were reached must have been put into a tolerable condition, or they would haA r e been useless. The systematic improvement of the roads began about the middle of the eighteenth century, but at first it was carried on, without order or connexion, by men who were for the most part ignorant of the process of road-making. Even so late as the early days of Queen Victoria many of our local highways were as bad as they can have been in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

' Insular Fiction ' treats of six typical English novels by a like number of writers, and shows how almost impossible it is for a modern author to dis- entangle himself from the cords that convention has bound around him, so that the vision he sees may be truly pictured. Thus he has to impose on himself restraints which to the more imaginative mind become fetters. This in no way arises from the obvious fact that some things from their very nature are unworthy or incapable of imaginative treatment ; it proceeds rather from the motive of avoiding those things which to piiblisher and re- viewer alike would seem unconventional.

' Tradition in Art ' is in many respects highly satisfactory, but is too much given to value "tra- dition, not because it hands down memories of what was noble and great when executed by those to whom the inspiration was real, but because certain forms in which beauty has been moulded have something which in itself has become sacred. The writer allows some merit to the movementof the Pre- Raphaelites, but on the whole deals out to them hard measure.

' The Age of Reason ' is an interesting paper. It is a careful review of Mr. John Morley's books on the pre-revolutionary period in France, begin- ning with Voltaire and Rousseau, and ending with Burke. There is very much that is valuable, but of a character so nearly touching on the politics of the present as to be unsuited to our pages.

' The Italian Garden' is worthy of far more atten- tion than, we fear, the idle reader will be willing to give to it.

MESSRS. BELL will shortly publish a revised translation of Bede's ' Ecclesiastical History.' It is based on the well-known version of Dr. Giles, but it has been submitted to a thorough revision by Miss A. M. Sellar.