Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/303

 us. VIL APRIL 12, 1913] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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At the Restoration he was condemned to be drawn on a sledge yearly, on 27 January, from Tyburn to the Tower, a sentence afterwards altered to transportation to Tangier. He appears, however, to have died in Antwerp. The later Mildmays number among them several examples of longevity, the most notable being the Carew Hervey Mild- may who died in 1784 in his 94th year, and Jane, Lady Mildmay, in whose hands the greater part of the Mildmay wealth came to be concentrated, who died in 1857', aged 92.

We have nothing but praise for the care with which family and public records have been ran- sacked to furnish details ; but we confess we could have wished for a somewhat more skilful handling of all this material, in itself both interesting and valuable. It is not merely that the writing is apt to be careless ; the arrangement also is often con- fused. A full genealogical table would have been of service, that in the appendix being inadequate ; and, in the absence of an index, it would have been as well to give some indication as to where mention of the minor members of the family might be looked for.

Books that Count. Edited by Mr. W. Forbes

Gray. (A. & C. Black. )

THIS " Dictionary of Standard Books," edited by Mr. W. Forbes Gray, will prove, as the 'careful com- piler desires, " a help to the ordinary reader, and to the young student." The survey embraces 5,500 books, and includes works published as recently as last October. The arrangement is alphabetical, and divided into fourteen sections. The first is Biography. After the names of eleven Dictionaries, of course including the monumental ' Dictionary of National Biography,' we have, under ' Individual Biographies,' five hundred re- corded. The head-lines give the work selected by Mr. Gray as being the chief biography ; this is followed by other biographies that have appeared on the same subject. As was to be expected, there are omissions ; for instance, under Bacon mention should have been made of Hepworth Dixon's ' Personal History ' of him from unpublished papers (Murray). It is strange that there is no reference to Dixon in any part of the book. Under London his history of the Tower entitled ' Her Majesty's Tower,' in four volumes, the most important on the subject, ought to have been included. Visitors to the Tower should remember Dixon with gratitude, for it is owing to his influence that it is open free to the public. Under London might also have been included his ' Lon- don Prisons ' as well as Mayhew's ' London Labour and the London Poor.'

Under Green's ' Short History ' the illustrated edition in four volumes is omitted, Mr. Gray having apparently mistaken the ' History of the English People' for an enlargement of the 'Short History.' An illustrated edition of the ' Short History ' was published in four volumes, edited by Mrs. Green, after Green's death. In this she was assisted by Miss Kate Norgate, whose services in forming the wonderful collection of plates she gratefully acknowledged. The ' History of the English People ' is an entirely distinct work. Mrs. Green states in her Introduction to the illustrated edition of the 'Short History' that her husband "had at first proposed merely to prepare a library edition of the 'Short History,' revised and corrected. In his hands, however, it

became a. totally different book, the chief part of it having been rewritten at much greater length and on an altered pla,n." On referring to Mac- millan's most valuable 'Bibliographical Cata- logue ' of works published by them from 1843 to 1889, we find that the four volumes were issued at intervals, the first in 1877, and the fourth in 1880, the price being sixteen shillings each (not ten shillings, as stated by Mr. Gray).

Under History we should have liked to see Miss Kate Norgate 's 'Angevin Kings,' a work of great research, like all she writes.

In offering these suggestions we congratulate Mr. Gray on having produced a very useful book, and as he requests inaccuracies and omissions to be pointed out, and suggestions for improve- ments to be sent to him, each edition should increase in value.

The Deaths of the Kings of England. By James

Rae. (Sherratt & Hughes.)

THESE studies were originally offered as a thesis for the Doctorate of Medicine at Aberdeen, and the main substance of them has appeared in The Clinical Journal. The method is, first, quotation from con- temporary, or the earliest available, accounts of the death of each king, and then a diagnosis based on the information thence obtained. Medical details almost exclusively are attended to ; and the grim and painful story of the death of Philip II. is given a place. In an interesting Introduction the writer makes such few generalizations as the subject- matter admits of. The book might have been yet more valuable if its scope had been somewhat less narrowly circumscribed. Thus, to give one example, though the state of health of Henry VI. has no direct bearing upon the mode of his death \ it being certain that he was murdered, the accounts in the Chronicles of his attacks of melancholia would have been at least as well worth giving and discussing as the passages from Fabyan and Leland imputing his murder to the Duke of Gloucester which are given at length.

THE most important article in this month's Burlington Magazine is that by Mr. Baldwin Brown and Mrs. Archibald Christie on 'St. Cuthbert's Stole and Maniple at Durham.' This is only a. first instalment, and consists of a very minute dis- cussion of the technique of the weaving and em- broidery, though there is subjoined a detailedl description of the designs and figures on the vest- ments, which are also illustrated. The whole should be carefully studied by any one who is interested in ancient figure -work, whether in embroidery or in stone. Mr. G. F. Hill continues his useful 'Notes on Italian Medals,' and Mr. Aymer Vallance his papers on ' Early Furniture.' There is a curious silver-gilt cup in the Trea- sury of St. Mark at Venice, the provenance of which has not been made out: this Sir Martin Conway gives reasons for attributing to an Ostro- gothic artificer, and, if these hold good the objects for comparison are but few it does, indeed, seem as likely as not that the cup once belonged to Theodoric. The early date of the Bewcastle and Ruthwell Crosses, which there is an inclination in some quarters to impugn in favour of a twelfth- century origin, is vindicated in two papers by Mr. Baldwin Brown and Mr. Lethaby, which could not, of course, be other than scholarly and highly in- structive. Critical, again, in their scope are the