Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/626

 518

NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. vi. DEC. 28, 1912.

on Uonks.

Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Sir Sidney Lee. Second Supplement. Vol. III. Neil-Younff. (Smith, Elder & Co.) THIS last volume of the Second Supplement is as full of interest as the previous ones, and a mere glance through its pages shows the variety of careers of those who are recorded. The memoirs reach a total of 557, and again the editor deserves the highest praise for the judgment he has shown in the selection.

Oar friends north of the Tweed should certainly be satisfied, for both the first and last pages are devoted to Scotsmen. The first memoir is that of Robert Alexander Neil, the classical and Oriental scholar, who was born at Glengairn on December 26th, 1852, both his parents belonging to Aberdeenshire families. He is followed by Samuel Neil, born in Edinburgh in 1825. He was Rector of Moffat Academy from 1855 to 1873, and planned and edited The British Coniro- vcrsia'ist, and was President of the Edinburgh Shakespeare Society. The third memoir is that of Sir Hugh Muir Nelson, Premier of Queensland, who was born at Kilmarnock on December 31st, 1835.

Thi art of Scotland is represented by Erskine Nicol (born in Leith, 1825), whose first subjects, ' Irish Merry- Making ' and ' Donnybrook Fair, 'are among his most popular works; Orchardson (born in Edinburgh, 1832), four of whose best pictures are to be seen in the Tate Gallery ; and Sir Noel Paton (born at Dunfermline), artist and poet, and Queen Victoria's Limner for Scotland.

We may mention a few other Scots eminent in various ways. Quarrier ; the founder of the " Orphan Homes of Scotland," was born in Greenock in 182'J. His early life of hardship made him resolve to devote his profits as a trades- man towards assisting children in the streets, and the brief memoir of him causes us to want to know more of this noble, self-denying life. Eraser Rae (born in Edinburgh, 1835) was special corre- spondent to The Daily Neics in Canada and the States. His studies of Wilkes, Sheridan, anc Fox inclined him to tackle the question of the identity of Junius in The Athenaum, and we have reason to believe that if his life had been spared he would have solved the problem ; any rate, he conclusively proved that The A the r>(Kum was right in its refusal to identify Junius with Francis. William Sharp (born at Paisley 1855) wrote much under his own name, but i more widely known from his books producec under the pen-name " Fiona Macleod." Srnile (born at Haddington, 1812) achieved his greates success with ' Self-Help,' published by John Murray, who also issued his life of George Stephen son and other engineering biogr.iphies. Sell Help ' has sold to the extent of nearly 270,00 copies.

Artists other than Scotch include Nettleship (he animal painter, who made daily studies a the Zoological Gardens ; Val Prinsep, one of th eight painters who in 1858, under the direction o Rossetti and Morris, decorated the new hall o Hie Union Society at Oxford ; and Melton Prior who began working for The Illustrated Londo ffCK in 1858, and was for thirty years its wa

orrespondent. Prior belonged to the adventur- us school of war correspondents, of which Archibald Forbes was the leading spirit, and there P a tablet to his memory in the crypt of St. Paul's. )ne reads with surprise of the combination of a unmaker and draughtsman, yet such was Robert 'aylor Pritchett, son of the head of the Enfield rm. The " Pritchett bullet " brought fame and n award of 1,000/. Through Tenniel, young 'ritchett joined the Punch staff ; he also exe- uted illustrations for Messrs. Cassell and Good Vvrds. Linley Sambourne for forty-three years ontributed drawings to Punch. Sandys, the 're-Raphaelite painter, produced a caricature of Millais's ' Sir Isumbras at the Ford ' which ttracted much attention. The faces of Rossetti, Willais, and Hunt were substituted for those of he girl, the knight, and the boy respectively, the lorse of the original being transformed into a lonkey labelled " J. R.," i.e., John Buskin, ["he verses at the bottom of the print are by Tom Taylor. Rossetti, on whom Sandys called in jrder to obtain a likeness for the skit, was de- ighted. No tombstone marks Sandys's grave at lirompton.

Clark Russell was the novelist of the sea, while Shorthouse gained fame as the author of ' John "nglesant.' Among minor poets, one greatly jrized by us was the collier poet Skipsey. The Biography of Leslie Stephen, the first editor of Stephen's literary activity was the marvel of all who knew him, and it is no wonder his health broke down two years before his death. His chief recreation for some years was his Sunday walks with his literary friends, whom he formed into a society called the Tramps. The late editor of The Athenatum, Norman Maccoll, a great friend of Stephen, wa,s an enthusiastic member. The memoir of Stephen is followed by that of his sister by the same hand. The long biography of Gold- win Smith is also among the contributions of Sir Sidney Lee. Next to Miss Stephen comes Frederic George Stephens, author of memoirs of Mulready and Cruikshank and various other works, and from 1861 to 1900 art critic of The Aihenceum. He was in his youth remarkably handsome, and was the model for the head of Christ in Ford Madox Brown's ' Christ washing Peter's Feet,' the Ferdinand in Millais's ' Ferdinand and Ariel,' and the servant in the same artist's ' Lorenzo and Isabella.' The ' Dictionary ' is full of contrasts, and Stephens, who was a strong Conservative, is followed by James Stephens, the organizer of the Fenian conspiracy.
 * he ' Dictionary,' is written by Sir Sidney Lee.

' Swinburne,' by Mr. Edmund Gosse, is full of interesting anecdotes concerning him ; it is amusing to read that Tennyson thought him " a very modest and intelligent young fellow." There is a slight slip as to Moxon, who is said to have been " terribly nervous " when the critics denounced many of the pieces in ' Poems and Ballads,' published in 1866, and " Moxon shrank before the storm." Moxon, as of course Mr. Gosse knows, died in 1858, and it was Berfrand Payne, then managing the Moxon business, who withdrew the volume from publication. Another publisher was found in John Camden Hotten, who was succeeded by Chatto & Windus,. the publishers of all Swinburne's works. We should have liked to have more about the intimate friendship that existed for many years between Swinburne and_.Mr. Watts-Dunton, but