Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/405

 ii s. iv. NOV. ii, .MIL] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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ASPINSHAW, LEATHER LANE, HOLBOBN (11 S. iv. 290). John Aspinshaw was established in business as a printers' smith, &c., at 61, Leather Lane, in 1791 (' Uni- versal British Directory of Trade and Com- merce,' 1791). DANIEL HIPWELL.

MACCLELLAND FAMILY (11 S. iv. 69, 195). MacLellan in Scotland is MacClelland in Ulster. Cleland is a variant.

WILLIAM MACABTHUB.

Dublin.

AXIOBD FAMILY (11 S. iv. 289). In c Kelly's Post Office London Directory ' (1851) appears Mrs. Mary Axford, milliner, 4, Maddox Street. T. SHEPHEBD.

on

Masters of English Journalism : a Study of Personal Forces, by T. H. S. Escott (Fisher Unwin), has the merit of being at once lively in style, and close packed with information. Mr. Escott is an old hand in journalism, and with his abundant store of knowledge he might have made his book at least twice as big. As it is, the narrative suffers occasionally from too many facts, and we are shifted so quickly from one man to another that we are apt to lose the connexion. There are also some repetitions which might have been avoided, and are readily ascertainable by con- sulting the Index.

Still, the whole narrative is distinctly animated, and every page is thoroughly readable. In his introductory chapter the author goes as far back as ancient Greece, using a paper by Jebb which, it might have been noted, has been printed in that fine scholar's ' Essays and Addresses ' since 1907. Further chapters consider the beginnings of English journalism ; Defoe to Addison ; Swift to Philip Francis (here regarded as the author of the Junius letters) ; Cobbett ; the two Hunts, Perry, and Stuart ; and the Walters of The Times, with other successful caterers for the public taste whose career and personality are known to many. We find even verdicts about the work of living giants of press enterprise. Though it is pleasant to read so optimistic a view as Mr. Escott's on some men and enterprises of the present day, we feel that the awkwardness of calling attention to their defects and failures must influence any writer, and perhaps it would have been better to deal only with those whose work is done, and concerning whom more free- dom of speech is permitted. We agree with many of Mr. Escott's acute and well-phrased judgments, but, when he comes to the present day, we cannot accept all his dicta. He does not detect "any really downhill movement" in the quality and position of journals and journalists. Comment on this verdict may differ according to the point of view. To the present writer the standard of style and decency to-day seems lower than it was, and there is a lack at once of in- dependence and of honest opinion untouched by popular clamour which is duly recognized here

(pp. 336 and 337). Like America, we are " news- paper ridden rather than newspaper ruled " (p. 343), and there are increasing signs of dis- satisfaction at a press which does not even repre- sent public opinion, but lends itself to extra- vagance alike of censure and eulogy. If there is a cultured University element formerly unknown, there is also a new host of amateurs who have no % real talent for the business and no education worth; considering.

Mr. Escott goes so far as to say that the modern journalist is fortunate because his work " prevents- his being entirely at the mercy of the publisher, who, in this age of literary over-production, finds himself, really through no fault of his own, obliged to sweat his writers rather than pay them.' r That sentence contains a great deal that call* for thought, and at least one assumption which we cannot concede.

We notice the name of our late Editor as & contributor to The Reader, and several other vivid figures who belonged to the less conventional side- of London life, such as the short-lived, but charm- ing W. J. Prowse, the intransigeant Robert Brough,andthe wildly brilliant Grenville Murray- David Christie Murray is not mentioned, though he was at one time the editor of The Morning, an early example of the halfpenny newspaper which foundered, we think, on the rock of non- union labour.

Woodstock. Edited by A. S. Gaye. (Cambridge- University Press.)

THE editor tells us in his Introduction that ' Woodstock ' was written to please, not to- educate. The fear in this carefully prepared' edition is not that the young reader will fail to be educated as well as pleased, but rather that he- will take alarm at the liberality of the notes before him and think he is going to be educated only. The Introduction gives a slight but adequate sketch of the circumstances in which the noveP was written, with some general remarks and criticisms. A glossary will hardly need to be 1 referred to for such words as " peak " and others, generally obvious when taken in their context. The work, however, is well done, and deserves appreciation.

The National Review now considers " A. M. G.' r as well as " B. M. G.," though the most space is- devoted to a consideration of the manoeuvres of the Fourth Party as a lesson for the present day. Sir A. Griffith- B os ca wen has a striking article on ' The Crying Need of Housing Reform.' Wit and good sense alike distinguish Mr. Charles Brookfield's remarks ' On Plays and Play- writing.' He points out that managers are not such good judges of plays as they were, and do not get the right people to modify their deficiency in that respect. Mr. H. C. Biron has a lively article on ' Dr. Johnson and Dr. Dodd,' and the efforts made to save the fashionable preacher from his deserved punishment as a forger. Mr. W. Roberts's ' Old Masters at the Grafton Galleries ' adds to the detailed study and research concerning pictures which is a feature of to-day, and a salutary check on the assumptions and attribu- tions of connoisseurship. We are pleased to see a sympathetic account of * Mr. R. L. Borden r by Mr. Maxwell H. H. Macartney, for we believe he deserves all that is said of him, and will do much to reduce corruption in Canada*