Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/466

 460

NOTES AND QUERIES. pi s. vm. D EC. 6, 1913.

altogether too closely upon the pattern of Francis Thompson. Behind its external beauty, however, the idea on the whole is thin, and Night as an acolyte in a chasuble, swinging the censer of the moon before the confessional of Day, suggests that the writer has more taste for picturesque words than an accurate knowledge of how to use them. This is all the literature proper that the number contains. Mr. J. A. R. Marriott contributes the third of his valuable studies on 'The Evolution of the English Land System,' and Mr. Aftalo rather languidly discusses whether travel is worth while, coming, on the whole, to a favourable decision. Miss Ethel Barter revives a question which was dis- cussed in our columns as long ago as 1880 the fate of Edward II., who, on the authority of the copy of a letter from Fieschi to Edward III., is held % some to have escaped from Bsrkeley Castle and wandered for some years upon the Continent. There is a dialogue entitled ' The Great Problem,' upon the nature of God, and the possibility of knowing Him, which is remarkable chiefly for its strangely old-fashioned style. The other papers are on the burning questions political or social of the moment.

The Nineteenth Century for December is a more "than usually interesting number. Mrs. Woods on 'Swift is always emphaticallv worth reading, and Tiere, in 'Swift, Stella, and Vanessa,' well-worn as "the subject is, her insight and distinction make one read what she has to say as if it were all new matter. Mr. Wilson Crewdson gives us a remark- able Japanese work, 'Ikoku Kidan,' or 'Tales of 'Strange Lands,' which has a faint, curious resem- blance to * Gulliver,' especially in two of the tales. The strange thing is that there is a possibility not more than that of the writer having seen a year of its publication. Mr. W. S. Lilly's -paper ' The Mystery of Sleep ' cannot be said to add much, either in the way of argument -or of fact, to what the world had before, but the considerations brought forward are attractively discussed, and there are several good stories none the worse because not all absolutely 'new. Sir Edward Sullivan takes up the cudgels for Ben Jonson against Mr. Smithson (v. The Nineteenth Century for November), and in conclusion challenges the " Baconites" to support their theory, not by means of attacks on Shakespeare, but by the publication of an exhaustive life and criticism of Bacon himself an excellent suggestion. The Woman Movement receives attention in no fewer than three papers. Mrs. Frederic Harrison is rather lurid in her criticism of it, and falls into the same error as she reproves Suffragists for that of not taking sufficient account of time. Mr. Bland's account of Woman Suffrage in the United States emphasizes chiefly the well-known contrast between America and ourselves in the relations of the sexes. The best of the three is Mrs. W L. Courtney's sensible suggestion as to the direction of the special form of force which women are contributing to the work of the world outside the home. She would have it directed towards commerce. This might though she does not say so carry with it not merely the purification of commerce, but the revival of national art. Mrs. Oharlton's study of ' Six Osmanli Patriots ' is an effective piece of work. Another paper concerned with the East is Mr. H. M. Wallis's trenchant defence of the Bulgarians and indictment of the
 * Gulliver' in a Dutch translation, made within

Greeks, as against Capt. Trapmann's account of them in the October number of the review. Lord Sudeley has a well-timed paper, full of good suggestions, on ' The Public Utility of Museums,' and we may also notice Mr. Reynolds-Stephens's contribution, 'A British Fine Arts Ministry.' Mr. Eugene Ta vernier's ' Two Notable Frenchmen ' (Ollivier and Rochefort) is a vivacious and interesting study.

THE December Cornhill Magazine begins with an unpublished poem of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, ' The Maiden's Death,' a fragment of early work, having about it the charming crudeness and fresh- ness of rhythm which often characterize the poetry of youth, and disappear with more perfect accom- plishment. Mr. L. D. Rendall scored so signal a success with his paper on ' John Smith at Harrow ' that we do not wonder he has been tempted to try another in the same kind, nor that his ' John Farmer at Harrow ' is one of the most attractive articles of the number. Beside it we would put Miss W. M. Letts's 'A Grandfather' a picture, rather waveringly drawn, of a most delighful per- sonality, whose old age is that with which the present generation of younger men and women are thrown, and differs noticeably, though subtly, from the old age observed by the young men and women of a decade or two ago. Dr Brandreth, who attended Huskisson at the time of the fatal railway accident, wrote to Mrs. Gaskell of Wakefield a full account of what happened, and this is given here with a full note on the medical aspect of the case by Dr. Squire Sprigge, who inclines to think that the treatment followed was, with the limited possi- bilities of those days, the right one. The Marchese Peruzzi de' Medici, in ' Prete Piombo : an Apen- nine Sanctuary,' has an unusually pleasing subject, of which, through a tendency to be too lengthy, she hardly makes all that might have been made. Lieut.-Col. MacMurm writes vigorously and tersely on the third battle of Panipat, ' The Black Mango Tree' ; and Sir Henry Lucy has unearthed an inter- esting human document in the letters of members of the families of Arundell and Willoughby in Elizabethan days, which he sets out for us with his usual bonhomie. There is a paper in enthusiastic praise of ski-ing by Mr. Arnold Lunn, and a medi- tative survey of the relations between ' Sweet Auburn and Suburbia' by Sir James Yoxall. The two short stories struck us as unusually dull.

tn

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately, nor can we advise correspondents as to the value of old books and other objects or as to the means of disposing of them.

EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' "Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers "at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lnne. E.C.

CORRESPONDENTS who send letters to be for- warded to other contributors should put on the top left-hand corner of their envelopes the number of the page of '-'N. & Q.' to which their letters refer, so that the contributor may be readilv identified.

H. H. Forwarded.