Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/446

 438 NOTES AND QUERIES. [u s. vn. May si, ran. Holts on IGoohSo The Life of Sir Harry Vane the Youiujer, Statesman and Muntic (161S1W2). By John Willoook. (Saint Catherine Press.) Therk was room for this biography, and the room has been adequately filled. The book before us will undoubtedly, for no short time, constitute the chief authority for the life of the younger Vane. ])r. Willcock knows his period well, spares himself no trouble in the marshalling of detail, has found also in this study at least one opportunity for the capturing of facts that have hitherto eluded notice. More than that, the character and the intellect of Vane seem to exorcise a considerable attraction for him, and his sympathy not tiresomely obtruded, but at once persuasive and illuminating—makes a good medium through which to become acquainted with one of the most enigmatic characters in English history. It is, we think, from a rar«ly accurate under- standing of his man that Dr. Willcock judges, with a leniency that is at first sight surprising, yet can hardly be called unjust, the one or two instances in which Vane's actions redound not to his honour. Such was his possessing himself—surreptitiously from his father's papers—of the piece of evidence which brought Strafford to the block ; and such his complicity in a plot to kidnap Charles II. which is the chief new contribution to history in his present work. Both, we take it, were instances of the moral obtuseness of the doctrinaire; of the infirmity of vision which, in concrete practical matters of right and wrong, besets the idealist—as the man with long sight is apt not to focus it well on things in his hand. From several points of view, nothing in Vane's life is more interesting and instructive than his success in the administration of the Navy. We should have been glad of yet more details of this than Dr. Willcock has given us. Here, apparently, was a sphere in which his astonishing natural capacity could display itself unhindered by the egoism of the theorist, because it lay outside the vital range of his theory. The study of the relations between Vane and Cromwell is one of the most valuable parts of the book, and the secret of Cromwell's mastery of England could, perhaps, hardly be more vividly brought out than by the contrast the two present. For years agreed, or at any rate suiting one another, in thought, action in time differentiated them. It became plain that, despite his religious outlook, the principles which governed Cromwell were such as had their operation well within the visible world and conformably to its demands; while Vane, mystio and "seeker," sought to force the visible into conformity with what he apprehended to be the laws of another world. Those who definitely make this endeavour, though they may effect but little, are seldom felt by their neighbours to be negligible: " The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane" is the utterance of a fairly typical irritation : it is not to be wondered at that no more than Cromwell himself could the leading Puritans either follow Vane, or easily put up with his attitude. Yet in the greatest matter in dispute, religious toleration, time nas justified Vane against those who opposed him. His subtle mind perceived the subtlety of each individual's relation to the unseen world, just as his forthright love of liberty assured him of the individual's right to his own in that matter. Dr. Willcock relates the circumstances of his end and his manner of meeting it with a restrained but evident admiration. We agree that the treatment he received was shameful: as also that his conduct of his trial was tine—magnificent even. But the closing scene lacks simplicity, and by that some- what lacks dignity; one is driven to wonder how one who was preoccupied with the thought of what he was going to could trouble his head so much about what he was leaving. One gets here more insight than elsewhere into the reasons why Vane was not i>opular. We think that Dr. Willcock is a little harder than need be on Charles, especially during the latter years of the war. Save for that, his treatment of the men who took the side opposed to Vane is markedly kindlv and careful of their due. Indeed, without long disquisitions or purple patches of rhetoric, the book as a whole nas some unusual touch of humanity about it. There are no uncalled- for "lacrimse " :—yet " mentem mortalia tangunt." Trecentale Bodleianum. A Memorial Volume for the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Public- Funeral of Sir Thomas Bodley, March 29,1613. (Oxford University Press.) The Delegates of the Clarendon Press have generously taken on themselves the cost of the present book, which, beautifully printed with Fell type, forms a charming addition to their Tudor and Stuart Library. The careful reader will echo the words cf the Preface that " the grateful thanks of all who care for the [University] Library are due to them for this graceful act of courtesy and appreciation." The little work contains: (1) Bodley's brief life of himself written in 1009, first printed at Oxford in 1647, and now printed from two Bodleian MSS. : (2) his letter of 28 Feb., 1598, to the Viee- Chancellor offering to refound the University Library, now printed from the copy preserved in the University Register; (3) his first draft of the Statutes for the same in English, printed from Bodley's autograph MS.—the basis of the first Latin Statutes of 1610 ; (4) extracts relating to the Library from his will, collated with the original: (5) the Latin Funeral Oration given in the Divinity School by the Deputy Public Orator, Richard Corbet, at that time Proctor and Senior Student of Christ Church, and subsequently Dean of Christ Church, and Bishop of Oxford and of Norwich—a reprint of the 1613 edition ; (6) the elaborate Latin Funeral Oration delivered in Merton College Chapel by the " ever-memorable" John Hales of Eton, then Fellow of Merton and public lecturer on Greek in the University, reprinted from ' Bodleiom- uenia' (the Merton tribute to Bodley of 1613), and Hales's first publication, which was done into Eng- lish for the Commemoration Service; (7) Bodley's critical letter to Bacon concerning the latter's ' Cogitata et Visa,' first printed in Richard Parr's ' Life of Ussher,' 1686; and (8) the form of Com- memoration Service held in Merton College Chapel on the three hundredth anniversary of Bodley's burial, the first of the three appropriate Psalms then used being the twenty-seventh, the first three words of which in the Vulgate version are "DominuB illuniinatio mea," the University motto.