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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. APR. 9, 1910.

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The Annals of the Harford Family. Edited by Alice Harford. (Westminster Press, 411 A, Harrow Road.)

IT would be well if more books of the type of these annals were published. We have comparatively few family histories relating to people who never rose into a prominent position, which is to be regretted. The lives of the lesser squires and yeomen, like those of the merchants in provincial towns, mean much in the development of a country. If we are to know what England was in past centuries, we ought to discover how her smaller landowners and traders transacted their public and private business, and what their ideals and ambitions were.

The Harfords described in this volume were never people of great note, yet they helped to make history, and were thoughtful spectators while it was being made by others. Philip Har- ford was the monk of Evesham who was made abbot that he might surrender the abbey to Henry VIII., in return for certain personal advantages. Another Harford, a strong Parlia- mentarian in the great Civil War, is said to have revealed many things to the party with which he sympathized when Hereford was garrisoned by the Royalist troops. Long after his day, in 1815, about three months after Waterloo, a member of the same family was in Paris, and, dining with the Duke of Wellington, had an opportunity to ask " whether Bonaparte had shown much military talent in his manoeuvres at Waterloo. ' No, not at all,' he said ; ' there was nothing of the kind. It was a battle of giants.' He attributed the victory to the wonderful spirit which animated the British Army, seconded by the spirit of the whole nation. ' There was not a man in my army,' he observed, ' but knew well that if I should send him home in displeasure, his own sister would not speak to him.' "

Students of the occult will be interested in the example of premonitory dreaming mentioned on p. 147: "William Henry Harford sur- vived until the autumn of 1877, a happy old age in the fulness of eighty-four years, having rejoiced in his children's children. Frank Har- ford followed his grandfather to the silent land two years later, when a squadron of the 10th Hussars, in which he was a lieutenant, missed the ford in the flooded Cabul river, and was swept away in the darkness. His last thought was surely for his mother, who twice in her dreama saw a vision of her son Frank, dripping wet and gazing at her, before the tidings came."

IN The Fortnightly ' Imperial and Foreign Affairs : a Review of Events,' is this month confined to the United States. Mr. Sydney Brooks says that Mr. Taft is a failure, has caused disruption in his party, and inherited Mr. Roosevelt's plans withoul Mr. Roosevelt's personality to carry them through and impress himself on the American public. A first article by Mr. Benjamin Kidd on ' A Nationa 1 Policy ' is concerned with " thinking in com munities," a somewhat vague phrase in which the

uthor evidently has great faith, and which means Tariff Reform. Mr. Archibald Hurd in ' Eng- and's Peril : Invasion or Starvation,' emphasizes.
 * he claims of the Navy as against the Army.

e must say that we are tired of this sort of perpetual sermonizing on the Army and Navy, which is now much overdone. Mr. I. Zangwill aas a lucid and interesting explanation of ' Zion- sm and Territorialism,' two causes which seem, alike rather hopeless. In ' The Jewish Problem r Mr. G. F. Abbott covers much of the same ground, though he does not go into such detail as Mr. Zangwill. ' Water Transport or Rail ? ' seems 30 us to make out a good case against the revival of canals in this country, recently discussed by a Commission. There are two articles on French men of letters which are attractive : ' Alfred de Musset after George Sand,' by Mr. Francis Gribble, and ' The Worship of Beyle,' by Mr. A. F. David- son. While we cannot regard Mr. Gribble as ' England's authority " on the love-affairs of he French romantics (a claim put forward by }he publishers of the book to be derived, we aresume, from his Fortnightly articles), his writing is always clever and entertaining. ' At the Bed- side of Menelik ' is sure to attract attention at the present moment, as is a brief discourse on ' The Tragedy of " Macbeth," ' by M. Maeterlinck, admirably translated by Mr. A. T. de Mattos. This last article is full of fine thought and expres- sion ; but we doubt if it will satisfy the English Shakespearian. In matters of drama and poetry it is doubtful if a foreigner can ever have the same insight as the native-born critic. We can regard neither M. Jusserand nor M. Maeterlinck, dis- tinguished as both are, as gifted with the full sense of humour and national life necessary to under- stand Shakespeare. En revanche, we have little doubt that Matthew Arnold did not understand Racine.

MB. ARCHIBALD HURD discusses in The Nine- teenth Century * The New Naval Estimates ' ; and Sir Edmund C. Cox in ' England and Ger- many : How to Meet the Crisis,' suggests that we ought to say to Germany that her shipbuilding constitutes a series of unfriendly acts, that she must put an end to her warlike preparations, or " we shall forthwith sink every battleship and cruiser you possess." The writer's view of the politics of Europe seems about on a par with the wisdom of this extraordinary pronouncement. ' Racial Feeling in India,' by Mr. E. Armine Wode- house, is a useful plea for a saner consideration of the subject than the present outrages suggest to most people. Mrs. A. Colquhoun has an interesting, .but somewhat one-sided article on ' The Husband of Madame de Boigne.' The best article in the number, and one particularly wel- come in a periodical which does little for literary criticism, is Canon Beeching's ' Shakespeare as a Teacher.' The Canon covers with mark; ability a good deal of debatable ground, and i cidentally criticizes the positions of M. Jusseran and Mr. Frank Harris in their recent books, latter, in particular, comes in for some sever* attack on his audacious theories. ' The Case for the Working Mother,' by Miss Alice S. Gregory, deals with some legislation just now come i force which should sensibly improve the cond tions of the maieutic art, and reduce the chanc of employing women typified by the vicious B Gamp.