Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/124

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. v. FEB. 3, 1912.

from the stamps themselves. These renderings he regards as superior to photography, which does not on the whole show adequate results, owing to the different incidences of lighting.

The 151 examples figured are mainly drawn from the British Museum. There are, however, a few good specimens from private hands. Mr. Davenport will be glad to hear of more cameo stamps, large or small, with a view to making drawings of them, provided that they do not contain copies or obvious adaptations of the designs he has here put before us. His book "being provided with full indexes, and arranged alphabetically according to subject, there should he no difficulty in tracing all that he supplier. 'The designs include fine heads of Alexander the Great and Cato the Elder, Augustus with a Sibyl, the arms of Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Arragon, and George Carew, Earl of Totnes. a bust portrait of Queen Elizabeth, and several heads of Luther. There is a beautiful floral design with a rose as centre, dated 1499, but most of the stamps are of the century after.

Mr. Davenport gives short accounts of the life of figures so well known as Lucretia, Cleo- patra, and Cicero. He does not, however, pro- vide much assistance to the average reader in his renderings of the Latin mottoes, which are often a little loose. In No. 48 (1 Cor. xv. 55) we might be led to suppose that " interne " means metrical in form, and so help the scholar. Thus we have no difficulty in supplying " eris " after <l certus " at the end of No. 102 to complete the sense, and find it actually occurring in No. 104. In neither is " certus " or " certus eris " rendered. Our author is, of course, fully equipped in these matters, but we think he might consider those who are not.
 * ' O! grave." Many of the inscriptions are

Ix the February Cornhill Magazine Sir Henry Lucy continues his reminiscences, collected under the "title of ' Sixty Years in the Wilderness,' some four pages of which are devoted to the attitude taken by The Daily News in the case of Sir Charles Dilke, and include a letter from Lady Dilke. Mr. Stephen Gwynn's ' Farewell to the Land ' is particularly good reading; if there is something of Utopia about it, this nevertheless surrounds a kernel of satisfactory experience. Many people must have wondered with regret how it happened that " Lanoe Falconer's" career as a writer was so brief : the explanation is here supplied by Mrs. March Phillips in an interesting and sympathetic memoir of her. There is a letter, dated from Hamburg in 1799, relating a meeting between the writer and C16ry, valet to Louis XVI., giving Clery's account of the King's disposition at the time of his execution. Miss Jane H. Findlater's story ' Mysie had a Little Lamb ' is somewhat spun out, but has her cha- racteristic humour.

IN The Fortnightly Review for February, Mr. Sydney Brooks's ' Aspects of the Religious Question in Ireland ' is the political article which is at once the liveliest and of the most permanent general interest. He argues that those Unionists who desire to see Ireland freed from "the tyranny of the Church " have no hope but in Home Rule. Mr. Maohray's discussion of 'The Fate of Persia' gives clearly and succinctly the external moves which have brought about the present situation between

th it country, Russia, and ourselves. Most readers will turn to Mr. John Galsworthy's ' Vague Thoughts on Art,' where they will find a new definition of Art, a discussion of the Realist and the Romantic as the two fundamentally different forms of Art, and a good deal in the way of hope- ful prognostication. ' The Whirligig of Men,' by Mr. J?. H. W. Ross, is a somewhat strangely written, but suggestive contribution to international think- ing. The practice of " mercifulness" by a nation whereof treatment of the Jews affords a con- venient test is held to be a factor in national predominance more or less on a level with advan- tages of climate and position. Mr. F. G. Aflalo has a very entertaining and sympathetic paper ' Diana of the Highways ' on women travellers and explorers.

MR. MYER D. DAVIS. After a somewhat pro- tracted illness this fine Hebraist, an old contributor to these columns, passed away in his home in Brondesbury on 12 Jan., at the age of 81. He was born on 19 Nov., 1830, in the East End of London, and educated at the Jews' Free School, where he rose to become the senior Hebrew master and conductor of the Talmud Tprah classes. One of his most distinguished pupils was Mr. Israel Zangwill. In every quarter of the globe there are men to-day holding high mercantile and pro- fessional appointments who were among his pupils, with many of whom he kept up corre- spondence. His great forte was Anglo-Jewish history. Mr. Lucien Wolf considers him the father of that new science. He was a contributor to many journals on his favourite subject, includ- ing The Jewish Chronicle, the defunct Jewish Record, and The Jeicish World, of which he was for some years editor. In 1888 he published his well-known volume of ' Shetaroth' (Hebrew title-deeds). It is said he had a real genius for friendship. At any rate, his was a most genial personality, with pious and unaffected manners. He was a great favourite with young men, whom he loved to stimulate into literary activity, and was esteemed by a large circle for his sincerity, kindly nature, and genuine modesty.

M. L. R. BRKSI.AR.

to Comspontonts.

Ox all communications must be written the name xnd address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- {. cation, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print, and to this rule we can make no exception.

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 oi disposing of them.

B. B. Forwarded.

A. GWYTHER. Many thanks for reply, which has been forwarded to inquirer.

MR. S. S. McDowALL writes thanking MR. STAPLETON for his reply on the Coltman family (ante, p. 58), and would be glad to learn where he could procure copies of the MS. and of the pamphlet there referred to.