Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/145

 ii s. m. FEB. is, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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find some useful comment on the colouring which Prof. Gilbert Murray has skilfully attached to his verse rendering.

The next article, ' The First Homer,' is re- printed from The Quarterly with modifications, and will be found an excellent brief view of a puzzling question. ' The Mutiny of Idomeneus ' is another Homeric study. Of the remaining articles the most striking are ' Rhyme and Reason in Attic Tragedy ' and ' Christ before Herod,' a study of the story as given by St. Luke, suggesting " that the case against the narrative is itself entirely mistaken, and rests, so far as it has any basis at all, upon a traditional misapprehension and misinterpretation of the statement impeached."

This shows that Dr. Verrall, when he pleases, can make as strong a case for traditional views as he does as an innovator. The ' Rhyme and Reason in Attic Tragedy ' is a most ingenious inquiry, and, so far as we know, entirely novel. There is, it is contended, some purpose in such rhymes as xP &v and de&v, or such assonances as the use of verbs with similar endings. In such a composer as Euripides this phenomenon is deliberate, purposely uncouth, for rhyme and assonance in Greek are grotesque, and so abund- antly used by Aristophanes. Medea, " dis- tinguished in this (I think) from all other speakers in tragedy, thrice closes a speech upon a couplet with double assonance " ; and this fact alone would show that the assonance was intentional, and meant to represent, not the harmony of English linked sweetness, but a scream. So at the opening of the ' Philoctetes ' Sophocles is said to be suggesting the horrid noise of the agonized hero by dry/nous at the end of one line, and 8v<r<jrr]fJilais in the next. This theory, of course, supposes a very high standard of artistry in the tragedians, but no one who has studied them with thoroughness will be inclined to deny this meticulous perfection to Sophocles, at any rate.

IN The National Revieiv ' Episodes of the Month ' are treated in the usual pungent style. It is suggested that " any Peer who swallows the Parliament Bill is only fit for Bedlam." ' Kund- schaftsdiene,' by Col. de la Poer Beresford, is an interesting discussion of the methods and possi- bilities of secret service, the spying into fortresses, &c. The writer speaks of his own experiences as a Military Attache at St. Petersburg. Mrs. Archi- bald Colquhoun gives an amusing account, in ' The Night before the Poll,' of her sudden descent on a place in " Fenshire " to speak for the Unionist cause. Lord Cranworth's article on ' The Public-School Boy in East Africa ' seems to us very practical. Mr. A. Maurice Low in his monthly account of ' American Affairs ' intimates that Mr. Taft means to stand again for the Presidency. ' Two Solutions of the Greek Question,' by Mr. A. D. Godley, is the sort of paper we are glad to see in the magazines, and we congratulate The National on giving its readers in this article and others a relief from politics and sociology. Mr. H. B. Marriott Watson has in his short paper on ' The Native English Drama ' an interesting comparison between ' Twelfth Night ' and Mr. Hardy's fine novel ' The Return of the Native,' in which he contends that the later master follows the Elizabethan model of arrangement, and asks if it could not be revived to-day. The odd title ' Dabchirr v. Tiem '

covers the account of a dispute concerning a horse m Northern Nigeria, and a legal decision by an assistant resident, whose quarters are described as, like .Nicholas Nickleby's at Portsmouth " un- common snug." Mr. Folair's expression was, we believe, " pernicious snug." The article is amusing, being written with verve, and we should like to read more of the kind devoted to regions of which the armchair critic, as a rule knows nothing.

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. FEBRUARY.

MR. BERTRAM DOBELL'S Catalogue 192 con- tains first editions of Blackmore's novels ' Lorna ' t' ' The Maid of Sker,'

-i ' M, a , rv t er,

Chnstowell, and ' Springhaven,' together vols., half -morocco, 151. First editions of Dickens include ' Pickwick,' in parts, 30?. ; and Nickleby,' also in parts, 71. Under Montaigne is the second edition of Florio's translation, folio original calf, 1613, 1QI. 10s. The first edition of Swinburne s Poems and Ballads,' Moxon, 1866 is 81. 8s. There are works under America, Art, and Bibliography. Under Byron and Coleridge are first editions. Under Heraldry is Nares's ' Heraldic Anomalies,' 2 vols., 12mo, 1823, 4s. 6d Mr. Dobell notes : "An exceedingly amusing work, containing much curious information." Under Drama is a collection of plays by old authors, 44 vols., 12mo, vellum, 1733-40, 21 10s London items include accounts of the visits of the Emperor of Russia to the Corporation in 1814, also of Wellington's in the same year. Under Tennyson are first editions.

Mr. John Grant's Edinburgh Catalogue con- tains sets of the Zoological Society, Geological Society, and the Irish Texts Society. There are the two works of Viollet Le Due : ' Dictionnaire Raisonn6 de 1'Architecture Franeaise,' 10 vols., royal 8vo, half-morocco, Paris, 1854-68, 5?. 10s. ; and ' Dictionnaire du Mobilier Francais,' 6 vols Paris, 1872-5, a choice copy, 61. 10s. Autograph letters include two of Carlyle to James Ballantine the Scottish poet : the first dated Chelsea, 15th June, 1842, 51. 5s. ; the second, dated 31st December the same year, tendering the author much advice, 51. 10s. There are also a letter of Ruskin's and two of Dickens to Ballantine Among works from the library of Prof. Blackie is a collection of chapbooks bound in one volume 11. 8s. Under Dramatic Literature are Moxon 's edition of Beaumont and Fletcher 11 vols calf 1843-6, 11. 10s. ; and Baskerville's Congreve! 3 vols., original calf, 1761, 51. 5s. Under Johnson are the first edition of the ' Dictionary ' and the first of Boswell. Under Italian Literature is the best edition of Alfieri, 22 vols., 4to, full citron morocco, Pisa, 1805, 31. 3s. Under Prayer Books are Pickering's folio reprints, 7 vols., dark-blue morocco, 1844, 51. 12s. 6d. Scottish Literature includes issues of the Scottish History Society, Scottish Text Society, Burton's ' History,' and Douglas's ' Poetical Works.' Under French Literature are Didot's ' Nouvelle Biographic Generate,' 46 vols., 61. 10s. ; and Thiers's histori- cal works, 32 vols., 31. 3s. Among Shakespeare items is the ' Cambridge Shakespeare,' 9 vols. levant, 1863-6, 4f. 4s. A choice copy of Wood's ' Athenae Oxonienses,' 4 vols., 4to, russia extra, 1813-20, is 61. 6s. A collection of twenty-three first editions, with five early editions, of Leigh.