Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/405

 ii s. VIIL NOV. 15, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

399

"LARGESSE" (11 S. viii. 306). With reference to the interesting note from MR. H. D. ELLIS, while stopping at Lowestoft in 1887, and driving to Yarmouth, I was aston- ished at some children running after the wagonette and calling out, " Largesse ! Largesse ! " It rejoiced my heart, as it did that of your correspondent.

J. DE BERNIERE SMITH.

0n

Learned Societies and English Literary Scholarship in Great Britain and the United States. By Harrison Ross Steeves. (New York, Columbia University Press ; London, Milford.) DR. STEEVES began with a Bibliography, and ended by producing a treatise. His book is, in fact, one of those thorough phonographs abounding in references which American scholars produce in great numbers.

The story in this case is one of considerable interest, beginning with the Elizabethan As- sembly of Antiquaries, which was founded by Archbishop Parker, and included such notable people as Camden the antiquary, the collector of the Cottonian Library, John Stow, and Sir Henry Spelman. The seventeenth century had no such amateur literary organization, but saw the rise of the Royal Society, which in its early days was by no means a close field for men of science. Archceologia, in the next century, began similarly with literary interests, but later discouraged them. Johnson's famous Club was probably the most important influence of his age, though not technically a literary Institution. The Society of the Dilettanti, the first of the book clubs, was also concerned about dinner as well as culture. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the societies which have had the most fruitful results, leading, inter alia, to those splendid enterprises the ' Dialect Dictionary' and the unrivalled 'Oxford Dictionary.' Furnivall is the leading figure here for many years as a maker of societies, a man of wonderful vigour and zeal for scholarship, but also as Dr. Steeves rightly indicates a man of uncertain temper, who wished to be an autocrat. The quarrel between him and Swinburne led to deplorable language on both sides, and comments which have been unwisely preserved in books where they have no business.

Dr. Steeves says that " the eight volumes of Furnivall's ' Old Spelling Shakspere,' which were advertised from 1883 to 1886 as ' at press,' never came out." Certainly they never did while the Society was alive, but some at least of them were issued in the twentieth century by a pub- lisher in the ordinary way, e.g. ' All 's Well,' " Old Spelling Shakespeare," and 'Comedy of Errors,' both edited by W. G. B. Stone.

The merits and defects of the numerous societies for the study of favourite authors which appeared before the close of the Victorian era are neatly summarized here. They did good, no doubt, but they had their absurdities, which did not escape the satirist. Thus it was explained that the Browning Society perished because one of its

members always loved a row, and another never saw a joke.

Dr. Steeves has not dealt in detail with the American section of his survey, because it is les* important, and has been done already in other books. We presume that his matter was col- lected some time since, as he speaks of Mr. Sidney Lee.

Some Famous Buildings and their Story. By A. W. Clapham and W. H. Godfrey. (Tech- nical Journals.)

THE subject of London seems to be of absorbing: interest at the present day, if we may judge of the feeling of the public from the number of volumes devoted to its topography, its history, and its associations which are issued almost daily from the press. The majority of these books are merely compilations in which facts and incidents- familiar to students of the subject are put together in a more or less agreeable manner ; a few are written by scholars who give to their readers the fruit of original research. The volume before us belongs to the latter class, and! although it is not professedly a London book, there are only six out of a total of sixteen chapters- which deal with buildings outside the metro- politan district. The object of the writers r who combine a professional knowledge of archi- tecture with a love of antiquarian research, i* not only to present their studies with historical accuracy, but also to interpret them as it were in the light of the human interest which must attach to every building in which great men have lived and great deeds have been performed.

Every dynasty which has ruled in England may be recognized by some special characteristic- in its architecture. The fortress-palaces belong to the Normans ; the cathedrals and the minsters- to the Plantagenets ; when the flame of religion began to flicker, and, after the Wars of the Roses, peace seemed to settle on the land, the era of the mansion set in, to be further developed under the Tudors, amongst whom Henry VIII., aa incarnation of the restless spirit of that race, had almost a mania for building palaces. The authors of this book have shown admirable judgment in selecting typical examples front each of their epochs. The Tower of London, representative of the Norman genius for military architecture, is succinctly but adequately treated*; the Abbey of Barking in Essex, Cockersand Abbey in Lancashire, the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem at Clerkenwell, and the London Houses of Black- friars and Whitefriars, are brought before the eyes of the reader with considerable fullness of detail, showing as they do the varying ideals which distinguished the wealthy regular clergy from their mendicant brethren ; the Abbot's Hospital, Guildford, gives occasion for an excel- lent paper on eleemosynary buildings in general ; whilst the late Plantagenet and Tudor bent for civil architecture is exemplified in the Royal Palaces of Eltham and Nonsuch, Crosby Hall,. Sir Thomas More's house at Chelsea, and North- umberland House in the Strand. That no phases of social life may be overlooked, the com- merce of Shakespeare's day is typified in the New Exchange, built on the site of the Strand residence of the Bishops of Durham, and the drama in the Fortune Theatre in Golding Lane, Cripple- gate. The descriptions in these papers are