Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/243

 10 S. VII. MAKCH 9, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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sympathetic spirit and with great charm of style, they have attained to the position of a classic, and were well worthy to be added to "The Silver Library." Catholic in his choice of subjects, his biographical sketches range from Hildebrand and St. Francis of Assisi to Luther and Richard Baxter, and to all alike he brought great store of learning and much historic imagination. His famous essay on " The Clapham Sect," as Sydney Smith nick- named the rising Evangelical party which found its apostles in Henry Thornton, William Wilberforce, and Charles Simeon, will always be esteemed as a faithful picture of a religious movement which has now spent its force. All the essays are eminently worth study, and in this cheaper form will, we cannot doubt, have many readers.

THE later numbers of the Intermediaire contain some interesting notes on the custom of burying the dead with the face uncovered, or of bearing them to the grave in this condition. Such funerals are still usual in Turkey, Greece, Russia, Italy, Sicily, Corsica, and even, in certain circumstances, in France. In the number for 10 January there is also a query relative to the " oraison du saint Graal." Did the cult of the Graal pass froni chivalresque literature into the liturgy? A certain formulary quoted seems to show that it did. Other notes deal with the position of priests who married in the dark days of the French Revolution, and who were subsequently permitted to receive the nuptial blessing in church. The early use of tobacco also attracts attention. At Dijon, it appears, in 1679, to smoke was a crime, and almost the greatest which could be committed by people of evil fife, frequenting places of ill-fame. The "Jaque- marts," or quarter - jacks, of French clocks come under notice too. Of that at Dijon a correspondent observes: " Ce Jaquemart est le plus illustre de tons, car il fut enleve a la ville de Courtrai par Philippe le Hardi pour la punir d'avoir refuse de rendre les eperons d'or enleves aux chevaliers frangais dans la fameuse journee des Eperons."

Several articles of historical value relate to the right of asylum in the Middle Ages. "At Sens it sufficed to touch the ring of the door of a church to be protected. Citizens were condemned for having beaten Jean le Coquelier, sub-deacon, when he had hold of the ring."

THE current number of Folk-lore contains a paper giving a sketch of custom and belief in the Icelandic sagas, which is certain to prove of service to all students of the civilization evolved by the ancient Scandinavians and their kindred. This article is followed by the penultimate division of Mr. Cook's account of the European sky-god. There are also notes on Spanish amulets and Spanish votive offer- ings, followed by Mr. Hartland's ' Travel Notes in South Africa.'

DRUMMOXD or HAWTHORXDEX is the subject of a literary appreciation by Mr. R. Warwick Bond in The Fortnightly, dealing with his love for the fair Auristella, from whom he was unhappily severed. ' The Brownie in Literature ' is a deeply interesting essay on a subject with which many poets includ- ing Shakespeare, and all the laureates of fairydom to Mennes and the Duchess of Newcastle seem to have concerned themselves. It is admirably treated by Mr. Thomas Bayne. ' The Lifting of the Bronte Veil,' by J. Malham-Dembleby, gives a new study of the Bronte family. ' Mr. Mallock and the Re-

construction of Belief is an important paper. 'The Peers and King William ' deals with an historic- precedent of great significance.

The Nineteenth Century has many admirable- articles, most of them more or less controversial. One free of such a taint is ' Macbeth on the Stao-e ' by Mr. Walter Herries Pollock. The Macbeth and- Lady Macbeth dealt with are Mr. and Mrs. Bour- chier, both of whom come in for much laudation. ' English Oral Tradition ' is an interesting article by an American clergyman who has had ample opportunities of observation in England, and who. feels sure that almost every country parish in Eng- land contains some valuable local oral tradition, and knows how to get on the scent of it, however trivial it may seem. Mrs. Alfred N. Macfadyen. writes on ' The Birth-rate and the Mother ' : " It is practically certain that with a smaller number of births the proportion of deaths among infants in the British Isles would be less. In the case of colonists living, like the South Africans, amid a lower race, too large a family is fatal to the character of the white race, for in most cases the children just above the baby must be left almost entirely to the care of coloured girls who are neither enlightened nor moral, or to natives still lower in the scale of humanity." Marcelle Azra Hinckshas an excellent paper on 'The Dance andi the Plastic Arts in Ancient Greece.'

SOME military memories of Sir Archibald Alison , in The Cornhill present to us a fine character. His \ Honour Judge William Willis is pleasantly charged with archaeological lore in ' The Courts at Westmin- ster.' 'Electric Waves and Wireless Telegraphy'" gives, without technicalities, some of the simpler de- tails of a great subject. ' The Billingsley Rose ' tells ; the romantic story of the Billingsley pottery. Mr. A. G. Bradley describes Marlborough and Saver- nake.

' THE OUTSKIRTS OF A TOWN,' by Matthew Marisi

'on. master follow; while

furnishes a striking frontispiece to The Burlingto Other landscapes of the same master follow; whi^ under 'The Representation of the British School in the Louvre ' are given plates of Bonington and Constable. Reproductions follow of the pictures by Gainsborough and Sir Joshua recently stolen from the collection of Mr. Charles Wertheimer There are plates also from Mr. Pierpont Morgan's Breviary and the Grimani Breviary.

IN The Gentleman's, now under new management the principal articles deal with Longfellow, ' Francis Bacon at the Bar of History ' and

Death's Jest-Book and its Author.'

R. H. BUSK. Last Saturday's Morning Post contained the following announcement among the deaths: " BUSK. On the 1st inst., at Members' Mansions, Westminster, Rachel Harriet Busk, daughter of Hans Busk, and granddaughter of Sir Wadsworth Busk. Requiem Westminster Cathedral, 5th inst., 10.30. R.I.P." Though Miss Busk's signature had not recently been familiar to readers of 'N. & Q.,' many articles from her pen appeared from 6 S. vi. to 8 S. x.

DR. DORAX. Next Monday will be the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dr. John Doran, F.S.A., who succeeded W. J. Thonis as editor of ' N. & Q.' Dr. Doran died twenty-nine years ago, on 25 Jan.,

1878.