Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/107

 n s. L JAN. 29, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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" CULPRIT " (10 S. xi. 486 ; xii. 174, 456). May I remind MB. HILL that your readers have not yet had his explanation of the phrase non cul. prist in Brooke (1568) ? ROBT. J. WHITWELL.

NOTES ON BOOKS. &o.

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 1910. (Harrison

& Sons.)

WE welcome the seventy-second edition of this work, clothed in its usual mantling of scarlet and gold, with the royal book-stamp, and bearing on the title-page the arms and coronet of the Ulster King-of-Arms impaled with the arms of Burke. The editor (Mr. Ash worth Burke) points out in his Introduccion that, in consequence of the present political crisis, more than ordinary interest has been aroused in the composition of the House of Lords and in the peers themselves : no doubt this interest will be emphasized before the year is ended.

Apart from the political situation, the year has not been very fruitful of incident among the titled classes, the most notable fact, perhaps, being the restoration to this volume of the Twisden baronetcy. It was created in 1666, and has been established to exist in the person of the Rev. Sir John Francis Twisden, llth Baronet.

The death of the Earl of Howth removes from the peerage the ancient Irish barony of Howth (the deceased nobleman having been the 30th Baron Howth, a dignity created by tenure in the time of Henry II.) ; and with the death of Lord Carysfort the title created in 1752 in favour of the family of Proby becomes extinct.

The edition is produced with the usual industrious accuracy, and the leaded type given to the successive holders of titles is a welcome feature. It is impossible within the space at our disposal to deal with details, but so far as we have been able to test the contents, they are entirely up to date. If a few grumbles are per- mitted, we must own that we much prefer the old-fashioned steel engravings of coats of arms to the woodcuts, some of the latter being indistinct ; particularly bad reproductions are those of the arms of the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Eglinton and Winton, while others which it is impossible to admire are those of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, Agnew of Lochnaw, and Withy of Lawton. We also think that the blazon of the arms exhibited might be usefully checked : Lord Aling- ton's blazon does not represent his arms, and the charges on the shield of Lord Arundell of W T ardour appear to be martlets, not swallows. In the case of the Earl of Ferrers the division seems more like a canton than a quarter.

One point we should like cleared up in Mr. Burke's next edition, and that is, why the Earl of Donoughmore's son bears the courtesy title of Lord Suirdale. No such title exists in the family, according to the particulars given in this volume, and, apart from the fact that the river Suir Hows through Knocklofty, there seems no reason why his lordship should bear this title more than any other fancy name. Referring, how- ever, to a somewhat antique edition of Lodge's

4 Peerage,' we find it stated that an ancestor of the present Earl was in 1800 created Viscount Suirdale. If this is so, it ought to be stated in Burke. If no such title exists, then Lord Donoughmore's son ought to be called Viscount Hutchinson.

We suggest that the genealogy of Sir J. Blundell Maple, who died in 1903, and Sir H. B. Meux, who died in 1900, need no longer be reproduced, as in both cases the title became extinct. We also notice that the wife of the third Lord Macdonald of the Isles is said to be " the ward of Farley Edsir," whereas, we fancy something quite different w r as stated in the recent Bosvile litiga- tion. Who was Farley Edsir ? It would be interesting to know. These criticisms, however, are of a trivial nature, and all readers will thank Mr. Ashworth Burke for a publication now regarded as of standard value.

Anna van Schurman. By Una Birch. (Long- mans & Co.)

ANNA VAN SCHURMAN was a learned and saintly lady who occupied a prominent position among the Dutch pietists of the seventeenth century, 1607-73. Her portrait by Jan Lievens is in our National Gallery. Almost all that we know about her is given in her ' Eukleria,' an autobiographical book which she wrote in her seventieth year. Her uneventful career, says Miss Birch, divides itself naturally into three parts artistic, learned, and mystical. " Art engaged her energies till the age of twenty-eight, learning for the next twenty years, and mysticism till her death at the age of seventy-one." Her wonderful knowledge of languages, Oriental as well as European, won her the titles of " the Tenth Muse " and " the Star of Utrecht," and she numbered among her friends such distinguished men as Descartes, Spanheim, Voe't, and Gassendi, who wrote many elaborate and stiff-brocaded panegyrics in her honour. Moreover, as the champion of her sex and advocate of the rights of woman her name became famous all over Europe. Her treatise ' De ingenii Mulie- bris ad Doctrinam et meliores Litteras aptitudine ' (misprinted here on p. 78), Leyden, 1641, was translated into English as ' The Learned Maid.' Five portraits are here reproduced which show her outward semblance at different periods of her life.

Miss Birch has succeeded in producing a very well-written biography of this erudite and devout woman, with her strongly marked mystical ideas ; but whether modern readers will care to have her forgotten memory resuscitated for their benefit may be doubted. With regard to x the sentence which she adopted as her life-motto, ' My Love has been crucified," it was surely not Loyola (p. 181), but another and much earlier Ignatius who supplied it.

MESSRS. A. & C. BLACK have sent us the New Year issues of three annuals, all essential to the journalist Who 's Who, Who 's Who Year-Book, and The Writers' and Artists' Year-Book. The first continues to increase in bulk, and we think it is time some restraint was applied to lengthy biographies of people of no great importance. The third tells people what editors want in the way of contributions. It should be in the hands of all who write or attempt to write for the press. The nuisance of hopelessly unsuitable contributions is increasing, and mainly due to the neglect of such sensible guides as that before us.