Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/603

 ii s. vi. DEC. 21, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Compiegne and back ; or Sir Charles W. H. Dick, who towards the end of his life looked after the sticks and umbrellas of visitors to the Brighton Museum ; or again John Dufrene, the Leeds merchant who lay forty-four years in prison for debt. Here also we find Henry Dodd, the Golden Dustman, immortalized as " Boffin " ; and Charles Keith, the tumbler, " Clown to the Prince Imperial of France " ; and William Davies Evans, whose life and standing are some- thing of a mystery, inventor of the Evans gambit and of coloured lights' for saving life at sea. Women furnish several paragraphs of good achievement, to mention only Emily Paithfull, Mary Kingsley, and Jean Ingelow ; and there are several sold'iers of fame for valour, such as Sir Gerald Graham, one of the sixty- two men who, in 1857, were the first to be decorated with the Victoria Cross, and the gallant Lieut. Home, who. blew in the Cashmere gate at Delhi, and less than a month afterwards perished at the blowing up of Malaghar Fort. Then there are the poets and artists ; the divines (Father Healy meets us here, and Enraght, around whom controversial struggle once raged so bitterly) ; the journalists and social reformers we have space only to mention Harney ; the engineers, inventors, and men of science ; the traders, sportsmen, men of the world, founders of societies, and philanthropists. Closing these lively pages, for which we are greatly in Mr. Boase's debt, we find ourselves murmuring, " What a piece of work is man ! . . . .how infinite in faculties ! "

Herbal fi. their Origin and Evolution : a Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670. By Agnes Arber. (Cambridge University Press.) THIS is a work which deserves a welcome. The subject is one that has a fascination of its own ; and here it is set before us by means of illustra- tions excellently chosen and reproduced, and an accompanying text composed with some unusual measure of felicity in addition to its merits of accuracy and general instructiveness. The defect of the book, inevitable on the scale arranged, is a tendency to abruptness ; we have to make the most rare reproach that it is too short.

We begin with an account of ' The Early History of Botany : the Aristotelian Theory,' which at least produced Albertus Magnus and his anticipations of our modern scheme of the science ; and the medicinal botany, which, humbler in origin and aim, proved to be the main line of advance. There follow three chapters on Herbals, endino- with a note on Cesalpino, which connects the simple utilitarian science of the herbalists once more with the intermittently submerged tradition of Aristotle.

The material being put before us, arranged according to times and nations, is then worked over again from the point of view of evolution in studies which deal with the description, classi- fication, and illustration of plants. The last is, perhaps, the most satisfactory, dealing as i does with the achievement of the old botanists, which best retains a definite value at the present day ; but Dr. Arber has also been very happy in her selection of verbal descriptions of plants from the Herbals. The chapter on ' Signatures and Astrology ' is by no means the least interest- in" in the book. Recent work in astronomy may

just possibly proceed to give us cause for revising our ideas on some of the " superstitions " con- nected with astrology, so that it is as well to have our attention drawn to the matter. In two useful Appendixes we have (1) a chronological list of Herbals belonging to the period dealt with,, and (2) a bibliography of the subject.

A Short Critical History of Architecture. By

H. Heathcote Statham. (Batsford.) No AUTHOR is better equipped for the purpose of writing ' A Short Critical History of Archi- tecture ' than Mr. Statham, a former editor of The Builder. A history of 600 pages that shall begin at the Fourth Dynasty and end with reinforced concrete (absit omen /), and yet allow space for 700 illustrations, is necessarily only to be achieved at the cost of a certain amount of exclusion; but we are unable to find anything of importance omitted, beyond (with entire justi- fication, in our opinion) Scandinavian and Russian: architecture.

Mr. Statham's historical scheme contains seven periods, of which the fourth the Transition from Romanesque to Gothic meets, on account of its usual comparative neglect, with more- extended treatment than the others. Although, as we have just hinted, it is scarcely fair to charge the author with omissions, we cannot help feeling, somewhat surprised that St. Alban's Cathedral,, for so many students the most accessible and striking illustration of the transition, should receive merely a passing mention. For the rest of the section we have nothing but praise.

The huge collection of illustrations, weli .selected and reproduced, call for special com- mendation. A few might, with advantage, have- been excluded ; a photograph (measuring 3 in. by 1J in.) of the front of the Chateau de Cham- bord cannot be expected to leave much impressions of the wonderful roof. With a few similar quali- fications, the book may unhesitatingly be re- commended to every educated reader who has not yet acquainted himself with the harmonies of stone.

Roget's Thesaurus. New Edition. (Longmans

& Co.)

ROGET'S ' THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AKI> PHRASES ' should have a place in every library, and this authorized copyright edition can boast a character almost unique, for it represents the- work of three generations in a direct line.

The collection was originally got together by Peter Mark Roget, who first thought that " such a compilation might help to supply his own deficiencies"; and then, on his retirement from the Royal Society, having more leisure, amplified the collection for general use. The first edition was published in 1852, a second in the ensuing spring ; and on a third being demanded, the volume was stereotyped. The plates having been worn out by repeated use, the work has now been entirely reset.

During the last year of his life (he died in September, 1869) the author was engaged in collecting additional words and phrases for an enlarged edition. This was continued by his son John Lewis Roget until his death in 1908, when his son Samuel Romilly Roget took up the work ; and, as he states in a foot-note to hi? father's Preface, will endeavour to follow the