Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/147

 n s. v. FKB. 10, Mia.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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" Sindon,"' fine linen, especially a shroud, is straight from the Greek, like " skeleton." " Sine qua noii " is traced back to Boethius. " Sing " is a long and excellent article which includes many special uses. " Single," its cognates and deri- vatives, are also thoroughly done. " Single- wicket " matches are generally out of date, but we saw one mentioned in the press a few days ago. The card-playing sense of " singleton " is included, also a use in The Athenaeum for a single volume as contrasted with a pair. For ' ; singular " =re- markable, we might quote ' ; A singular bird with a manner absurd " in Bret Harte's ' Ballad of an Emeu.' " Sink," verb, is an admirable survey. A " sirloin " was knighted by fictitious etymology, which is amply illustrated in the quotations. " Sirocco " is noted as " usually with the." So we may quote Browning's line in ' The Englishman in Italy ' :

I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. " Sit " is another of the widely used verbs which need and receive a long and elaborate notice. We are pleased to see one of Mr. Hardy's Wessex masterpieces quoted for " Skimmington." " Sky sign," in the advertising sense, is first quoted in 1890. 4i Slang " is of uncertain origin, like so many of its productions.. Asa verb=" toabuse " it is noted here, which shows the wide range of the ' Dictionary.' Every part of it is worth prolonged study. Those who neglect it miss a whole world at once of human interest and learn- ing, while they swell frequently the stream of error which any educated speaker or writer ought to reduce.

Easy Chair Memories and Rambling Notes. By the Amateur Angler (E. Marston). (Sampson Low, Marston & Co.)

I As a sailor's log-book smells of the breeze and the brine, so the Amateur Angler's books bring to us the fragrance of the woods and fields. The Angler's days are over, and he pursues his country life with his old cap still adorned with the May- fly imitation which caught his last two-pound trout.

In the first chapter we travel in search of rest and quiet over the Black Mountains to LJanthony Abbey, and find a view of the ruins and Father Ignatius reading the Bible in the cloisters of his monastery. There are accounts of a visit to Exmoor, of days on the Chess, and of Burnham Beeches. Then we have a delightful chapter, ' In the Days of my Youth ' : we should like more of these reminiscences.

Ai the end of the little volume is the account of Bonaparte on the Northumberland and his arrival at St. Helena, reprinted from Mr. Marston' s account in ' N. & Q.' For Mr. Marston is well known as one of our band of brothers probably one of the oldest of the band. We dare not speculate as to the age of the oldest of our band of sisters, but we know the age of our youngest, and although she may see this, we will risk her blushes and reveal her age as that of eleven.

The Edinburgh Review has a rather stimulating article on ' Auguste Rodin and his French Critics,' and takes us to France again in the paper on ' The Wessex Drama,' which discusses, without entirely agreeing with it, Mr. Hedgcock's ' Thomas Hardy, Penseur et Artiste.' According to this writer, Hardy's pessimism and excessive sensi- bility will cause his work to survive rather as

art than as a living force. The article on ' Scottish Songstresses ' is pleasantly done eking out with skill the somewhat slender material. ' The Elizabethan Playwright ' discusses the attitude of Shakespeare and his contemporaries towards their plays as things to be performed rather than printed and read.

IN The Nineteenth Century we have an interest- ing study of Dickens by Mr. Darrell Figgis, which only astonished us from the fact that, while comparing or contrasting Dickens with other authors and with Cervantes and Rabelais among them the writer should have made no use of Balzac. Mr. D. S. MacColl, in his ' Year of Post - Impressionism,' devotes himself to the question of classicism versus romanticism, throwing his remarks into the form of a discus- sion of dicta on the ' Post-Impressionists ' by Mr. Maurice Denis in The Burlington, and by 'Mr. Roger Fry in a lecture subsequently printed in The Fortnightly Review. Mr. Frederic Harrison's ' Aischro-latreia the Cult of the Foul,' is directed against Rodin, whose art decadent and morbid he declares to be built upon a sophism, and to- be, besides, the product of an imagination too- decidedly literary.

IN this month's National Review we note an interesting article on ' Kent and the Poets,' by- Mr. Bernard Holland ; the very charming account of ' A Winter's Walk in Andalucfa,' by Mr. Aubrey F. G. Bell ; and Miss Frances Pitt's ' Brown Owls ' fellow-creatures whom Miss Pitt knows so well that she likes their hooting at night for the reason that she recognizes the voice of each bird. An anonymous author contributes in ' Is Eton up to Date ? ' a foot-note to Mr. Xevill's ' Floreat Etona,' the best part of which leaving aside one or two pleasant stories is a justification of the classics, and in particular of Latin verse.

The Burlington Magazine for February contains^ the continuation of Mr. D. T. B. Wood's article- on ' Tapestries of " The Seven Deadly Sins," ' with many highly interesting illustrations ; per- sonal reminiscences of Alphonse Legros, by Sir Charles Holroyd and Mr. Thomas Okey ; Mr. D. S. MacColl's discussion of Constable as a portrait-painter ; and a contribution from Signor Gustavo Frizzoni on ' Three Little-noticed Paint- ings in Rome," an ' Adoration of the Shepherds " in the church of San Rocco in the Via Ripetta. and two small pictures in the Galleria Borghese.

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. FEBR UARY.

MESSRS. JOSEPH BAER & Co. of Frankfort-on- the-Main have just issued two new Catalogues. The first contains a Spinoza library, embracing 647 books by and on Spinoza, probably the most complete collection ever offered for sale. The bulk of this collection was made by the late Jacob Freudenthal, Professor of the University of Breslau, the biographer of Spinoza, and the greatest authority on Spinozism. This library comprises not only every edition and translation of the books written or attributed to Spinoza which are of any importance, but also a collection of works on his life and his philosophical system from the earliest period up to the present time.. All editions are arranged in chronological order, and all have been carefullv described in a