Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/577

 10 s. YIII. DEC. 14. loo:.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

479

JRxsallanmts.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent

Discoveries. By L. W. King and H. R. Hall.

(Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.) THE venerable society familiarly known as the S.P.C.K. plays so many parts that the services it renders in the cause or scholarship and sound learning are liable to be overlooked. Many people probably associate its work chiefly with Sunday- school prizes and parochial libraries ; but its inter- pretation of "Christian knowledge" is liberal, and the works of sterling value which it produces lay the clergy and serious students under no small obligation. Just ten years ago the Society rendered accessible to English readers Maspero's splendid archaeological trilogy ' The Dawn of Civilization,' ' The Struggle of the Nations,' and ' The Passing of the Empires.' But in the rapid progress of modern discovery and research ten years cause even the best books to need supplementing ; every decade needs a fresh compte rendn.

The volume before us is designed to put the reader in possession of the most recent accessions to our knowledge from the inexhaustible mines of the Orient. The accuracy of the record is unquestion- able, and a vivid actuality is imparted to it by such well-known authorities as Messrs. King and Hall, of the British Museum, who speak from first-hand knowledge and personal experience of the work. They give a detailed account of the results of the excavations made by Capt. Cros at Telloh, Messrs. Borchardt and Schafer at Abusir, De Morgan at Susa, Prof. Harper at Bismya, and Dr. Koldewey at Babylon, together with the explorations of Messrs. King and Thompson at Kuyunjik (Nineveh), and those of Prof. Petrie, Mr. Newberry, and Dr. Budge in Egypt. It is an immense convenience to the student to have the whole field of research thus brought into one synoptic view.

Especially worthy 01 notice is the account of the early Sumerians given in chap. iv. All the civiliza- tion of the modern world may be traced to its ultimate source in that people or hoariest antiquity, who some eight thousand years ago loomed out of prehistoric mist on the plains of Mesopotamia. The revelation of the religious ideas held by this Sumerian race, as contained in the cylinder of Gudea which is here translated (pp. 207-220), is of fascinating interest. The details which it supplies of the cult and worship of the god Ningirsu are most valuable for the light they throw on primaeval religion, and the picturesqueness of style gives a high idea of the literary attain- ments of that wonderful people. Of similar importance is the account for the first time given here of the proto-Elamite civilization (pp. 227 seq.). Among other discoveries which will be new to most readers is that of the origin and meaning of the " Labyrinth," which had hitherto baffled all the solvents applied to it. It turns out to be a word of Cretan rather than Egyptian provenance, and derived from the pre-Hellenic labrys, a double-axe (pp. 125-7). If. as it seems, embalming was at one time practised in Babylonia (p. 39), how comes it that no mummies are extant in this region ? Ad- mitting that the conditions of soil are not favour- able to their preservation, as in Egypt, one might expect that some traces of the practice would have survived.

The writers mention that the tombs shrouded fcr so many centuries in darkness are now somewhat incongruously lighted up by electric arcs. They do not hesitate themselves to illuminate the serious- ness of their narrative with some of the newest of modernisms. We can imagine some continental savant finding " the portmanteau pronunciation " of some condensed Egyptian words (p. 440) a phrase rather more puzzling than the words referred to, if he has not already made acquaintance with another "Wonderland."

We must add that the volume, with its abund- ance of excellent illustrations, tine print and ample page, is a pleasure to look at, and is issued at a very moderate price. We have detected only one misprint, "now" for nor (p. 461), which belies the sense intended.

The Marginal Notes of Lord Macaulay. Selected

by Sir G. 0. Trevelyan. (Longmans & Co.) THIS little book of sixty-four pages might well have been longer, for it gives us a delightful insight into- the unstudied thoughts of a great scholar on the authors he read and remembered so well. That Macaulay annotated his books we knew from Dr. Birkoeck Hill's edition of Johnson's ' Lives.' in which it is mentioned that Addison's Parallel of the Princes and Gods in his verses to Kneller was thought by Macaulay to be more ingenious than anything by Cawley and Butler. Dr. Hill adds that the notes, being written in pencil, show signs of fading, so we are doubly grateful to Sir George Trevelyan, who keeps on the family tradition of scholarship and history, for letting us, so to speak,, peep into the very volumes which Macaulay used. The sledgehammer is ruthlessly plied on occasion, though Macaulay was, says Sir George, "never implacable when a woman was concerned." How diligently he studied Greek and Latin is well known, and we find a good many references to Cicero's chequered career. Here, and in his comments on Shakespeare, Macaulay comes to conclusions which for the most part have long been stated and supported by experts. There is, however, much that is incisive and striking in the annotations. VVhen Macaulay praised the seventh Idyll of Theocritus as " more pleasing to me than almost a_ny other pastoral in any language," perhaps he had in his mind the eighth Eclogue or Virgil with the picture of young love, which he thought, if we remember aright, the best thing Virgil ever wrote. There are some interesting references to Macaulay's own position and views of life. He regards death with Socrates as gain, " even if death were nothing more than an untroubled and dream- less sleep," though he once thought with Milton, quoting the words which were often on our late editor's lips :

For who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being ;

These thoughts that wander through eternity? Caesar he credits with " the finest sentence ever written," an answer to Cicero's gratitude for his humanity. If Sir George Trevelyan had given us dates, e.y., as to Macaulay's two views of death mentioned above, and exact references to passages annotated, he would have improved the booklet.

Drai/ton's Minor Poems, chosen and edited by Cyril Brett, includes all Drayton's best work ; and when we say that the volume appears in the "Tudor and Stuart Library" of the Clarendon