Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/123

 iijs. v. F KB. 3, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

99

Sir Thomas never owned him. His mother was a Frenchwoman, and lived in Paris.

CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield Park, Reading.

2. COL. JOHN HENRY BELLI This scrap may be of use. John Belli, Esq., of South- ampton, who died in 1805, married Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of Samuel Blount, Esq., ot that place. He calls Samuel Pepys Cockerel! and Charles Cockerell his brothers-in-law, but I do not know how that relationship came about. W. C. B.

BELL (11 S. iv. 528). In the Cole MS. in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 5831, folios 473, 476, will be found memoranda concerning him which may give the required information. Also 5848, folio 259, gives the Beaupre pedigree.

G. J. GRAY. Cambridge.

" SAMHOWD " (11 S. iv. 446). According to the ' E.D.D.' the meaning of sammodithee is " the same unto thee," the expression being current as a form of greeting. This differs materially from the example given by MR. RATCLIFFE. I do not find any mention made of the dialect verbs sam and samhmvd in the same authority. N. W. HILL.

New York.

0n Itooks, &r.

The Oxford Shakespeare Glossary. By C. T. Onions, M.A.London, of the ' Oxford English Dictionary.' (Oxford, Clarendon Press. )

WE give the title-page in this case at greater length than usual, for it explains the merits of the present work, and affords good reason for its existence. Of Shakespeare glossaries there are many, but the present is amply justified, for it is " primarily the outcome of an analysis of Shake- speare's vocabulary conducted in the light of the results published in the [Oxford] Dictionary." The merits of that great work in analysis have often been commended in our columns, and they are such as command the unqualified praise of every expert. Mr. Onions has worked for fifteen years on the editorial staff of the ' Dictionary ' ; he has also paid special attention to Warwickshire dialect and to the language of Shakespeare's contem- poraries ; and, further, he has been able to profit by the labours of a host of critics and commentators who have gone before, and whose help is, we are glad to see, fully recognized. Among these our contributor the late H. C. Hart fully deserves special mention.

Average literary kn'owledge is not ranked too high, and senses still current have been occa- sionally illustrated. Our own experience of present-day standards leads us to endorse this procedure as wise. Full references are given to passages in the works, and we regard the volume

as a model of business-like conciseness. It only remains to add that its price is remarkably low. We have not seen the edition on India paper, which costs a little more, but it would, we imagine, make the volume a triumph of compression in every way.

FROM the Cambridge University Press comes another rich source of illustration of the greatest of our poets in Life in Shakespeare's England, one of " The Cambridge Anthologies," compiled by Mr. John Dover Wilson. Here the " meagre framework of facts which we call the life of Shake- speare " has been admirably supplemented by extracts from contemporary writers which illus- trate the life and manners of the day. The country^ the stage, the Court, vagabonds and rascals, 'shopmen and sportsmen all are ex- hibited as they appeared in their characteristic guise. The topic of religion is omitted : " The omission, it might be said, is Shakespeare's. Nothing is more remarkable in his work than* its silence concerning the religious life and violent theological controversy of the time." The spelling has been modernized, and the chapters and a large number of the extracts are headed by the quotations from Shakespeare which they recall.

Mr. Wilson's aim is to make his book as at- tractive and as easy to read as possible, and he has certainly succeeded in making his collection highly readable as well as instructive. The student of to-day has so many advantages unknown to his predecessors a generation earlier that he has little excuse for lack of accomplishment. As for the general reader, learning is brought so close to his door, and made so easy for him, that even he may be induced to read something: beyond the news- papers. There are seven illustrations, a glossary of difficult words, and an ' Index of Authors."

Cameo Book - Stamps. Figured and Described by Cyril Davenport, V.D.. F.S.A. (Edward Arnold.)

THIS handsome and well-printed book is by a master of the subject, and will rank as authorita- tive. The title is not too clear to the uninitiated. It indicates the use of dies cut for stamping books, the dies belonging to the same category as those used for medals. Cameo stamps on leather are, says the author, " produced by means of pressure from sunk dies of wood or metal, the design showing in low relief." They are, as a rule, larger than medal or coin dies, and rect- angular in outline. Mr. Davenport gives us details of the technical methods of stamping, colouring, and gilding, the last a process of some difficulty to attain permanent and satisfactory results. The term " cameo " has long been applied to the early Italian stamp in relief, but might also be applied, the author thinks, to the same class of stamp from the Netherlands, England, France, and Germany. " Embossed " is an equally descriptive term, as is remarked, and perhaps clearer.

The illustrations, of which, with the descrip- tions attached to them, the book is composed, are admirably rendered, and the result of much care and forethought. First, the author made rub- bings Which gave the general distribution and proportion of the stamps, though by no means a complete impression. These he then supple- mented with carefully drawn outlines copied