Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/459

 us. vi. NOV. 9, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The Scots Peerage. Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's ' Peerage of Scotland.' Edited by Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms. Vol. VIII. (Edinburgh, David Douglas. )

SIR J. BAX.FOUR PAUL has completed his great task in seven years, and, whatever we may think of the quality of his achievement, it is certain that it can have no rival for many years to come. The work has all the advantages and disadvantages attaching to co-operative production. It has been overtaken quickly (G. E. C. took eleven years to issue ' The Complete Peerage ') ; but there are marked differences in the equipment of the different contributors. Some of them give much more information, and this along more side-lines than others ; some describe a man as "Esq.," and some without either "Esq." or "Mr."; and many other discrepancies could be cited.

Twenty-one peerages (Sonierville toWinton) are described by thirteen writers, including the editor himself. Perhaps the most important articles are those of the Hon. Hew Dalrymple on the Earls of Stair, and the Rev. John Anderson (whose death, as the Preface remarks, all good genealogists deplore) on the Earls of Sutherland. In the former Mr. Dalrymple throws no new light on the mysterious divorce of Joanna, wife of the seventh Earl of Stair, simply following the note of G. E. C. that it occurred " in June, 1820," and abandoning the statement in ' The Scots "Peerage ' (iii. 414) that the marriage was " annulled by the Lords of Session in Edinburgh." No such case can be found in the Court of Session records, although it is understood that the co-respondent was a Col. Dalzell. One would also like to know what has become of the mysterious packet of the lady's letters addressed to her husband Dal- I'ymple, which were sold at Dowell's Rooms at Edinburgh in October last year. In the case of the Sutherland peerage Mr. Anderson has adopted a different enumeration from G. E. C. Both cite John, who died in 1514, as ninth Earl, but G. E. C. makes Elizabeth, who succeeded him, tenth, whereas Mr. Anderson mates her grandson John, who succeeded, " 10th Earl," which he was, although he also was eleventh holder of the peerage ; the result is disconcerting. There is a tendency in the book to follow G. E. C. as an authority far too closely, but surely his enumera- tion in this case is the right one. Mr. Anderson never permitted himself to utter the same.kind of critical dicta as his colleague Mr. Andrew Ross, whose work, more than that of any of the other contributors, reminds one of G. E. C.'s pungencies. All of them, however, fail to apply the method to the holders of titles in modern times.

Experts in particular families will find not a little to criticize in most of the notices, and in all cases the modern side would have been improved by noting distinguishing character- istics. Thus, while Mr. Carnegie remarks that the late Earl of Southesk wrote that delight- ful doggerel poem 'Jonas Fisher,' nothing is said about the literary and social achievements of the Duchess of Sutherland ; and one cannot

conceive Sir J. Balfour Paul (as G. E. C. would have done) permitting a contributor to cite the Duchess's own recent story of her Staffordshire neighbours' description of her as " Meddlesome Milly," even if her Grace had vouchsafed it to us before the publication of ' The Scots Peerage.'

Some avoidable mistakes have crept into the text, as, for example, " Gordon-Rebow " for Gurdon-Rebow (p. 315). But Sir J. Balfour Paul must be more conscious than any of his readers of mistakes and omissions. The great thing to remember is that he has accomplished the task he set out to do in 1904, and given us a work we can annotate for ourselves, and which Mr. Gibbs can utilize in reissuing G. E. C.

Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1912. (Harri- son & Sons.)

IT is eight years since the last edition of this work was issued. Not only does this mean that much new chronicling of births, marriages, and deaths has had to be accomplished, but also that the social and economic changes by which the con- nexion between families and their estates is being loosened have made further progress and modified the aspect of the " landed gentry." However, justly believing that it is the families rather than the acres which are historically interesting, the editor has removed very few pedigrees, while adding a certain number of new ones. The task of editing the work has obviously not been without its humours. At the end of it the editor claims that every coat of arms here quoted is borne by unquestionable right, having been scrutinized and compared with the originals in Ulster's office. The illus- trations of the coats of arms, made on the same plan as those in the ' Peerage,' are a welcome addition ; but this part of the work needs some revision, as the illustrations and the descriptions of the coats are in more than one case at variance,

THE non - controversial or literary articles in this month's Nineteenth Century are few and brief. ' The Position of Women in China,' by Lady Blake, is chatty and picturesque, and, if it does not contribute either new facts or new interpretations of facts, revives old mind-pictures pleasantly enough. Those of our readers who remember M. Proper's note on ' Boswell at Utrecht' (11 S. v. 304) will, if they chance not to have seen M. Godet's book for themselves* guess the identification of ' Z^lide,' to which Mr. Francis Gribble leads up in the opening para- graphs of his ' Boswell's Dutch Flirtation ' a paper of neatly written gossip such as we have learnt to expect from him. Mr. Roberts writes on ' Recent Book Sales,' from the point of view of prices. This is a side of the matter not entirely without interest, we admit ;. but we think Mr. Roberts, here and elsewhere, eliminates all too completely what we may call the spirit of " le Cousin Pons." Mr. Wilfrid Ward's ' A Ghost of the Living,' a careful narrative of an actual occurrence, is even more strange than its title implies, involving in a sufficiently commonplace incident something like a negation of the reality of time. Sir William Knox's ' A Subaltern in the Balkans,' Mr. Marriott's ' Syndicalism and Socialism,' and Mr. Wadham Peacock's ' Nicolas of Montenegro ' are certain to find appreciative readers.