Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/384

 378

NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. NOV. 7,

WHARTON FAMILY PORTRAITS (11 S. x

307). There are many Wharton family por

traits in the fine collection of pictures a

Hals well, the seat of Mr. Charles Kemeys

Tynte in Somersetshire. Amongst them are

several small portraits on panel of th

\Vhartons and their relatives, and I an

inclined to think these are the pictures men

tioned in an inventory of the goods o

Margaret, Lady Sulyard ; if not, they mus

be facsimiles. They were collected by th

late Col. Kemeys-Tynte (ob. 1860, cet. 82)

who was a coheir to the Barony of Wharton

and in 1845 petitioned the Crown to termi

nate the abeyance of that peerage in hi..

favour, but without success. He was th

great - great - grandfather of the present

claimant. CROSS-CROSSLET.

The Canibridge History of English Literature Vol. XI. The Period of the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 9s. net.)

WE notice with pleasure a further instalment ol ' The Cambridge History of Literature,' which has now advanced so far that three more volumes one is already announced as " in the press " wil finish it. The ' History ' maintains its character as an invaluable book for students, packed with knowledge, and, usually being the work of special- ists, discriminating in its criticism. As a book oJ reference it is unequalled owing to the admirable bibliographies and the complete Index, and with each volume small corrections are included which have escaped the eye of the editors in previous issues.

With Vol. X. we were not altogether well satisfied. Vol. XI. 'completes the eighteenth century, with casual incursions into the nine- teenth, and supplies a number of excellent chapters which cover the ground well. There is a difficulty in arranging heterogeneous material of the less important sort, and cross-references, though not always, send us back to the preceding volume for details of this or that author. A man BO various as Holcroft must figure in more than one section, and a woman like Mrs. Thrale belongs at once to Johnson and to the Bluestockings. Mrs. H. G. Aldis's chapter on these learned ladies has agreeable touches of humour and liveliness, but it says singularly little of Mrs. Thrale, who was, we are inclined to think, the ablest of them. Reference should, at least, have been made to the chapter on Johnson in Vol. X. The feline amen- ities of these coteries are hardly mentioned by Mrs. Aldis, nor does she refer to the stupid and pompous Anna Seward, in whose lingo Macaulay maliciously rejoiced. Mrs. Montagu has already figured in Vol. X. among ' The Letter- Writers.' Here, we think, her wit is overrated ; but people will always differ about such matters. Certainly she was a pretentious moralist : what else could be expected from her training ? It would have been worth while to mention, we think, that Miss

Mulso '(Mrs- Chapone) advised Richardson about his later novels, so that her talk, at least, left some permanent mark.

Biography is not the purpose of the ' History,*" but conduct is an index to character, and often an aid to understanding a writer. In some cases we should have been glad to hear more of a man's life. Burke is one of them. Prof. Grierson's chapter on the great orator is judicious, and has something of Burke's elaborate stateliness in style. But it makes out his career as more satisfactory than we can, and ignores his failure as an economist in private life. He who discussed ' The Nabob of Arcot's Debts ' had nearly always debts of his own. Prof. Grierson writes of the " want of any sanguine strain " in Burke's- constitution. He was sanguine enough when he took on himself the burden of Gregories. His speeches can still captivate readers, but we know- that he emptied the House of Commons. That fact is surely worth stating, though we need not lay too much stress on it.

Mr. Harold Child is one of the soundest critics and writers in the ' History,' and we have read with real pleasure his chapters on Cowper and Crab be. He duly notes the tenderness and regard for little things in the former ; but in explaining that all the great English letter-writers except Lamb wrote with an eye to print he seems to> forget FitzGerald. The influence of Pope ou Crabbe, sometimes ignored, is rightly shown in the forgotten ' Juvenilia.'

Prof. Emile L6gouis, one of those French scholars to whom England owes much, is equally well suited with Wordsworth ; and the chapter oa Coleridge by Mr. C. E. Vaughan is, on the whole, a capable summary. We think, however and the closest investigator of the subject we know is with us that Coleridge owed to German philo- sophy much more than the furnishing of hints, which is all that is admitted here.

If there is " a mind capacious of omnifarious-

rudition," to use Hallam's phrase, it is Prof.

Saintsbury's, and in this volume, as usual, he

deals with many books that no ordinary student

of literature has ever seen. While we admire his

erudition, we are in despair over the contortions

and pedantry of his style. Thus he says of

Caleb Williams ' :

" It is, indeed, usual to praise it ; and in such work (for novels are meant to please, and, if they >lease, there is little more to be said) it is un- necessary and, indeed, idle to affect exception."

Surely in a critical history the reason why novels )lease, and the soundness of that reason, are luestions to be answered. ' St. Leon,' another of odwin's queer stories, is noticed both by the "rofessor, and by Mr. Previte-Orton under Political Writers and Speakers.' The reader nust reconcile their differing opinions as well as e can.

We think the Professor, in talking of ' Vathek,' xaggerates the rate of composition which fluent and competent writer can attain,, nd are rather surprised to find him crediting Miss !dgeworth with the first creation of " real hildren " ir letters, save for a few touches in hakespeare, and still fewer elsewhere. The laim is interesting, but does not seem to the resent reviewer (brought up on Miss Edgeworth) ncontestable. But not many, perhaps, will care