Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/89

 11 S. XL JAN. 23, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

79

0tt

Aberystwyth Studies. By Members of the Uni-

versity of Wales. Vols. I. and II. (Aberyst-

wyth, the College.)

THESE studies are issued under the auspices of the Senate of the University College of Wales, and it is proposed that a volume containing two or three pieces of research work or literary analysis should appear once in a session.? The first article, in place as in importance, and which runs through the two volumes, is Mr. George A. Wood's elaborate discussion of the Anglo-Saxon riddles. This is conceived as much from the standpoint of the general student of literature as from that of the philologist or student of Anglo-Saxon. The peculiarities of the riddles, their relation to Latin productions of the same kind, the presence or absence about them of true poetry, and what may be called the psychological history of the riddle, and of the reasons which developed it into a satisfying expression for some of the most inti- mately characteristic Anglo-Saxon ideas and opinions all this is well expounded, though it may be at somewhat too cumbrous a length and with unnecessary repetitions. The connexion between riddles and metaphors might have been considered, and, seeing how small, comparatively, is the public to whom these most interesting relics of the mind of our forefathers are known, it would have been just as well to give a brief summary of each riddle before entering upon an analysis of it under its proper number.

Mr. F. S. Wright contributes to each volume a good paper on the earthworks Norman and ancient defensive near Aberystwyth. In the first volume Miss Amy Burgess develops an analysis of Grillparzer's female characters, as contrasted with those in Goethe and Schiller. We cannot, however, share Miss Burgess's con- viction that Grillparzer's genius knew no limits in the understanding of womanhood, nor yet her readiness " unhesitatingly " to " maintain his right to be recognized side by side with Shake- speare in this respect." Mr. P. M. Jones has a good subject in the comparison between Whitman and Verhaeren, and deals with it Satisfactorily, though the differences between the temperaments of the two poets hardly come out forcibly enough, and the essay rather suffers loss of point by being long drawn out.

We shall look with interest for more examples of the original work being done at Aberystwyth.

Select English Historical Documents of the ^Ninth and Tenth Centuries. Edited by F. E. Harmer. (Cambridge University Press, 6s. net.) THIS is a source-book which should prove of unusual interest and utility. It contains twenty- three documents, given first in the Anglo-Saxon text, and afterwards in translation, with a very carefully drawn-up body of notes, an Appendix on dialects, and three Indexes " nominum, locorum, and rerum." The documents, whether wills, grants, or records of negotiations, are principally concerned with the land and its products ; but there are included the record of Earl Aelf red's presentation of a copy of the Gospels to Canter- bury Cathedral, and the two Anglo-Saxon entries in the Lindisfarne Gospels, as well as the record

of a manumission by Athelstan inscribed in a volume of Latin Gospels. A grant of an estate which has considerable narrative value is that of Queen Eadgifu to Canterbury Cathedral of her estate at Cooling, wherein she relates how this land came into her possession. The wills given are those of Earl Aelfred and Earl Aethelwold, of the Kings Alfred and Eadred, and of the Reeve Abba.

For the purposes of advanced scholars a selection like this is, it is true, inadequate ; but we doubt whether to students the edition of Anglo-Saxon land-books for which Maitland pressed would really be of much greater service, and we think Miss Harmer may be congratulated on having compiled a work not merely of highly creditable scholarship, but also of relatively permanent value.

Bibliography oj the Works of Dr. John Donne,

Dean of St. Paul's. By Geoffrey Keynes.

(Cambridge, printed for the Baskerville Club ;

Quaritch, 15s. Qd. net.)

THIS is the second publication of the Baskerville Club : 300 copies of it have been printed, the one before us being numbered 60. It is, as to the reproductions, the print, and the general get-up, a highly satisfactory work, and it has the yet more important merit of completeness, as well as the advantage of being the first in the field as an exhaustive work on the subject. The main head- ings of the Contents are ' Prose Works,' ' Poetical Works,' ' Walton's Life of Donne,' ' Biography and Criticism,' and ' Appendices.' The last includes a short list of works principally pam- phlets which, since they contain Donne's auto- graph, may be taken to have formed part of his library ; an " iconography " giving particulars of the twelve principal portraits of Donne ; and a list of works by one John Done, who has been confused with the great Dean.

A good bibliographical preface introduces each description of editions of a work. One of the most interesting of these is prefixed to Donne's ' Devotions,' a work which during the author's lifetime, and for a few years after his death, had a great vogue, but is now almost unknown to general readers, though it was reprinted in 1840 and 1841. Morhof in ' Polyhistor ' states that a translation of it " in Linguam Belgicam " was published at Amsterdam in 1655, but Mr. Keynes has not come across this. It would seem that between 1638 and 1840 no English edition was called for.

The ' Sermons,' again, furnish bibliographi- cal matter of great interest. Seeing that there is a collection of them still unprinted we learn here that this has passed from the library of the late Prof. Dowden to that of Mr. Wilfred Merton, a member of the Baskerville Club and that the one attempt yet made to publish the whole of them was made as long ago as 1839, in a somewhat unsatisfactory edition of Donne's ' W T orks,' it seems that we have here a small gap in our record of English literature awaiting the labours of the scholar. The ' Letters,' as all students know, owe everything to the scholarship and able editing of Mr. Gosse, though his ' Life and Letters of Donne ' does not contain the whole of them, which we are to get in Prof. Grierson's promised edition. Mr. Keynes mentions in a foot - note that contemporary copies of five-