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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. FEB. 5, mo.

Mr. Belloc in ' The Strain of Transition ' points out that the conditions of England make the adoption of Tariff Reform dangerous, owing to the amount and nature of our imports. Mr. Edward Salmon, writing on ' The Peers as Democrats,' ventures the opinion that " five- sixths of them are among the best intellects in the land." Mr. Salmon's ideas of intellect must be extraordinary. Meredith's ' Celt and Saxon ' is advanced to the sixth chapter. In 'The Responsibility of Authors,' an address to the Authors' Club on December 20th, Sir Oliver Lodge deals with the censorship assumed by the Libraries, the general pessimism as to litera- ture, &c. ' Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,' by Con- stance E. Maud, gives a pleasant view of the veteran Suffragist, who is sbill active and alert at the age of ninety. ' Greece : Renaissance or Revolution ? ' by Mr. Spencer Campbell, resolves itself largely into an apologia for the King and Crown Prince. Of the former we read : "Nobly and unostentatiously he has been making the most of his family connexions." It is a pity that the writer lacks a negative sense of humour. Dr. Stanley Lane-Poole writes on ' The Alleged Marriage of Swift and Stella,' in which he does not Relieve. The paper is ingenious, and makes out as good a case as can be made ; but it contains suppositions as to motives and feelings which cannot be regarded as certain. As far as our present evidence goes we regard the question as insoluble. In ' The Hugo Legend ' Mr. Francis Gribble makes a bitter expose of Victor Hugo's doings and inventions. Like Balzac, he de- clared himself of better family than he was ; and when his wife was alive he shared his life with her and a show girl from the theatres of no Teputation. So great, however, was his mastery of the romantic that he succeeded in regarding, and making others regard, his proceedings as worthy of a sublime genius. Katharine Tynan's article on ' Francis Thompson ' appears to us to be a little belated. It says much with which all lovers of true poetry must agree, and we only pro- test against the affected style in which the lady writes. This preciosity is more likely to keep iovers of English from reading Thompson than recommend him to the wider circle he deserves. The Rev. E. H. R. Tatham has in ' Some Un- published Letters of W. S. Landor ' given us a great deal of genuine interest, especially in literary criticism. Landor wrote these letters to Walter Birch, a scholar and contemporary of his at Rugby. Landor's writing is always 'vigorous, and here he shows a taste in advance of his age, though he strangely depreciates the work of Plato, and seems to consider the style of Aris- totle excellent. He is a great admirer of Cicero, and of Genoa and Bath as magnificent cities.

IN The Cornhill Magazine Bishop Welldon has a fine tribute to the virtues of ' The Late Provost of Eton,' his old head master. Mrs. Violet Jacob's verse, ' The Howe o' the Mearns,' is a pretty piece of Kincardineshire dialect. Mr. A. C. Benson writes a plea for ' Humanistic Education without Latin,' which is worth con- sidering. At the same time we may point out that his experience as a reader of essays of the history men of his college does not go very far. We know of very different results taken from a larger field. There will be general agreement, perhaps,

among those interested in education that too many subjects are squeezed, into the curriculum a superfluity, which ends in no secure grasp of anything. ' Ower Young to Marry Yet ' is a pretty story by Miss Jane Findlater. Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher makes fun of ' The Lord Mayor's Visit to Oxford in 1826 ' and the pomposities of diction which it produced. An historical article of interest, as somewhat off the ordinary lines, is ' The Life and Destinies of Magister Laukhard,' by the Rev. A. T. S. Goodrick. Laukhard was a soldier in the campaign of the Duke of Brunswick against France in 1792, and took part in the retreat from Valmy. He was meant for a clergy- man, which he finally became, and few records can be more extraordinary than his own account of his vagabondage. The impudence with which lie deceived people of all sorts carried him through difficulties which would have daunted any ordinary man, and his writing is evidently of the vivid and frank sort which tells us much of a vagabond life. ' More Humours of Clerical Life,' by the Rev. S. F. L. Bernays, introduces us to some amusing stories, and some sensible reflec- tions, especially as to the frequent misunder- standing of long words and rounded phrases by a section of the listeners to political speakers or preachers. We have ourselves heard a preacher in a small rural parish refer to Rationalistic writers as " our friend the enemy," which a lady of cultivation in the axidience took to mean the Devil. ' The Ghost in the House,' by Mr. Austin Philips, is an effective short story concerned, not with a supernatural visitant, but a man who publishes his own work as belonging to another.

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G. N. RICHARDS. Forwarded.

A. MORELLI ("Mitred Abbots"). See the lists at 10 S. x. 455 ; xi. 16, 117.

CoRRK4ENDUM. Ante, p. 76, col. 2, line 20, for "Canon Ellacombe's" read Johnson's.