Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/67

 ii s. i. JAN. 15, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

NOTES ON BOOKS. &c.

Keats : Poems polished in 1820. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by M. Robertson. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.)

THR text of this reprint represents page for page and line for line a copy of the 1820 edition in the British Museum, only, in accordance with th< excellent practice of the Oxford Press, line-num bers have been added to facilitate reference. The type is clear and good, and it is a pleasure to reac in the original form the volume " printed for Taylor and Hessey," which contains so much thai is memorable in English poetry.

We are somewhat doubtful as to the desirability of the Introduction. Enough has, we think, been said about Keats, and the present introducer writing with good sense, yet relies obviously anc admittedly on older writers whose work is wel known. Such a volume as this will appeal, we suppose, chiefly to those who h^ive already made acquaintance with the poet in one of the many available editions, and do not require a guide to Keats's life or meaning. Some of the notes at the end are helpful ; others seem to us unneces- sary, or so brief as to be dull. Dido's husband was Sychaeus, not Lychaeus (p. 216). Does such plain English as " tease us out of thought " require explanation ? Some of the notes on sound and sense strike us as a little fanciful, e.g., this on 1. 91 of ' Lamia ' : " The line dances along like a leaf before the wind."

Congregational Historical Society Transactions : October. (Memorial Hall.)

AMONG the contents of this part is an account of ' The Puritan Family of Wilmer,' by Joseph Joshua Green of Tunbridge Wells, who traces its history from 1480, and he states that " further particulars may be found in an elaborate history of the Wilmer family privately printed in 1888, and compiled by the Rev. Canon Charles Wilmer Foster and the presint writer." There is a portrait of Grizell Gumell, nee Wilmer (1692-1756). She married in 1711 Jonathan Gume.ll, " a wealthy Quaker merchant and banker, and founder of the once great mercantile house of Harman & Co. He was the friend and bill discounter of William Penn, who attended his wedding, and friend of Thomas Story, the Quaker Minister and Recorder of Philadelphia." Among the descendants of this marriage was Canon Birch, tutor and friend of King Edward VII.

Among other articles are the continuation of ' The Episcopal Returns of 1665-6,' by Prof. G. Lyon Turner ; ' An Early Yorkshire Congre- gationalist,' by J. C. Whitebrooke ; and ' The Earlier History of Emmanuel Church, Cambridge,' by Prof. Courtney S. Kenny. The history of Cam- bridge Nonconformity goes back to 1457, and two centuries later began that " modern Cam- bridge Nonconformity which has endured con- tinuously to our own day. Its oldest historical organization is that which is now represented by Emmanuel Congregational Church." When James II. in April, 1687, issued a Declaration of Indulgence, the Nonconformists in Cambridge

at once took advantage of it, and by July they had registered eight places for public worship, six of these, however, beng private houses.

In. a summary made about 1707-17 of the number of persons and also of freeholders (county voters), belonging to "the Congregational and ! Anabaptist Meetings in the County of Cambridge "" it is shown that there were thirteen ministers, j 4,440 hearers, and 263 voters. It was in October, 1691, that the Rev. Joseph Hussey was appointed the first settled pastor of Emmanuel Church ; his sermons were impressive. On the occasion of the general fast on account of the great storm of November, 1703, when the windows and pinnacles of King's College suffered severely, and in other parts of England 123 persons perished, including a bishop, Hussey found it necessary to argue laboriously " against the common mis- take that the winds are raised by Satan." Hussey 's Church " never rebelled against him until he proposed to leave it, on being called to a London church. But very many Nonconformists then held that a pastorate ought, Scripturally, to be lifelong ; so when he left the Cambridge Church it ' admonished ' him, and prohibited him from again entering its pulpit " ; but his arm-chair is still a honoured relic, and preserved in the vestry. Prof .Kenny states that " in the course of a century our congregation had three ministers of sufficient literary prominence to be commemorated in our own day in Mr. Leslie Stephen's ' Dictionary of National Biography ' Hussey, Conder, and; Harris." While the last two appear, we cannot find the former. Prof. Kenny closes his interest- ing paper with an account of the church plate. The oldest piece is a silver cup made in 1699.

We are sorry to find from the statement issued by the secretaries that the Society has under two hundred members, and they make an earnest appeal for at least five hundred. Surely these should be obtained without difficulty.

History of Scotland. By P. Hume Brown

Vol. III. (Cambridge, University Press.) MB. HUME BROWN, who is now Historiographer- Royal for Scotland, as well as Professor of Ancient Scottish History at Edinburgh, is one of the soundest historians we have on the disputed ground of Scottish annals. We welcome, there- 'ore, this volume, which reaches from the Revolu- tion of 1689 to the Disruption, 1843. There is an admirable Bibliography as well as a full Index r and the pages of the text are provided with notes which give exact references.

We have little doubt that the Professor's book will be widely read and adopted for scholastic purposes. Its style is clear, and the matter is- well arranged, with dates inset in the paragraphs. The author has, in fact, the rare gifts of lucidity and conciseness, while he does not disdain picturesque touches derived from contemporary- Critics of the period of his narrative.

The Churchyard Scribe, by Alfred Stapleton, is ,he fourth volume of " The" Genealogist's Pocket Library," published by Mr. Chas. A. Bernau at Walton-on-Thames, and is an excellent little book iontaining much sound suggestion in its hundred >ages or so. It is divided into three sections : I. On recording the Inscriptions in a Churchyard or Burial-Ground ; II. Hints on reading Appa- rently Illegible Inscriptions ; III. Typical and