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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. ix. MAR. 7, wit

/and a contravention of the Act of 1672." A description of the origin of the national flag of the United Kingdom (the Union Jack), which may be -flown by all British subjects on land, is included. The ' Manual ' contains 350 illustrations, and ^we heartily commend the volume to all students .and lovers of heraldry.

The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society for January (Headley Bros.) opens with an .article by Mr. Isaac Sharp on ' Our Biblio- graphers,' the third of the series. The previous articles treated of John Whiting and Morris Birkbeck ; the present one relates to Joseph Smith (1819-96), of whom a portrait is given. He is described as a walking encyclopaedia of (Quaker bibliography . " With Charles Gilpin, .afterwards M.P. for Nottingham, he opened a ibookshop in Bedford Street, Strand, but soon
 * afterwards removed to Oxford Street, Whitechapel,

where he remained upwards of forty years." His occupation enabled him readily to carry on the chief work of his life, the compilation of his ' Catalogue of Friends' Books,' which after twenty years of patient preparation he published in 1867. In this work he was materially assisted by John Thompson of Hitchin, to whose valuable collection he had free access. The book consists of 2,012 pages, containing the names of 2,174 authors (1650-1867) and 16,604 publications. In 1873 Smith issued his ' Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana.' This gives valuable biographical notices.

Other articles include ' Presentations in Epis- copal Visitations, 1662-79,' by Mr. G. Lyon Turner ; ' Personal Recollections of some Ame- rican Friends who travelled in England on Religious Service, 1835-52,' by the late Margaret Evans ; and ' Women's Meetings in Cornwall,' by Dr. Fox. The last-named shows the active and responsible part which women took in the conduct and maintenance of the] Society in its early days.

THE relics of Browning which for the last few months The Cornhill has been offering its readers can hardly be considered exhilarating, and no exception need be made for the present ' Robert Browning's Answers to Questions concerning some of his Poems,' contributed by the Rev. A. Allen Brockington. The only thing one can say for these answers is that they afford some evidence of good nature on the part of the poet, since the questions propounded argue an uncommon density. The chapter of Sir Henry Lucy's ' Sixty Years in the Wilderness ' on ' Mr. Punch and his Young Men ' is curiously well timed, with Tenniel as one of its chief figures, and his most impressive appear- ance that when he stood before the silent, expec- tant audience at the farewell dinner given to him at Bouverie Street in 1901 himself silent, the oration he had spent nearly two months in com- posing having slipped from his memory. " There was nothing painful about it," remarks Sir Henry. " There was, indeed, a prevalent feeling that nothing could have been better." Mr. C. H. P. Mayo's paper, ' After the Death of Euclid,' seems to our old-fashioned way of thinking to have much good sense in it. Prof. L. P. Jacks writes with his customary verve upon a subject well worth consideration ' New Brunswick : a Neg- lected Opportunity.' Miss Macnaughten's, sketch of Lord Strathcona is welcome and telling ;

and the Rev. W. C. Green's paper on ' Early Victorian Amusements : Eton and Elsewhere,' will make a pleasant addition to any collection of first-hand reminiscences of the nearer past. Prof. Bryan's article on ' The Piano and its Players ' is entertaining, and also full of good hints and information. A word may be said, too, of ' Brothers-in-Arms,' a dialogue between two aged survivors of the Mutiny which is a really charm- ing production.

The Fortnightly Review for March has no more than three papers on literary or artistic subjects. The editor contributes ' Some Notes on Balzac,' in which he draws attention to the part played in Balzac's work by imagination sometimes insufficiently recognized by critics who have expatiated on the minuteness and abundance of the great novelist's observations of detail. In Mr. Courtney's opinion it is hardly correct to consider Balzac the founder of a school ; where his influence may be most readily traced is not by any means in the " realists " of France, but rather in Russian fiction, and particularly in Dostoieffsky. Mr. Martin D. Armstrong, in ' Recent English Poetry,' sets out his estimate of the work of Mr. Gibson, Mr. Davies, Mr. Aber- crombie, and Mr. Masefield. The article is likely to interest the general reader in direct proportion to the blankness of his mind with regard to poetry. Mr. Herbert W. Tompkins has an article on ' Constable's Drawings and Sketches ' a very careful and workmanlike account of what Constable has left us in this kind. Mr. J. A. R. Marriott adds to his studies of the English Land System in the past a fourth paper on * The Future ' ; Mr. J. D. Whelpley discusses, in * The Overtaxed Melting-Pot,' the question of the alien in the United States ; and Mr. L. Gardiner, in ' The Fight for the Birds,' gives an able and vigorous statement with regard to the present situation in the matter of the trade in plumes and legislation.

THE March Nineteenth Century contains an article on the first English newspaper (with a facsimile) by our correspondent Mr. J. B. Williams, which, so far as literature is concerned, is the most interesting in the whole number. Madame Longard de Longgarde gives an account, on the plan which she usually adopts for her papers of this kind, of ' Recent German Fiction,' dealing with work by Kellermann, Bartsch, Schnitzler, Mann, Ertl, and Stratz. Prof. J. H. Morgan contributes an interesting discussion of Lord Morley's recent ' Notes on Politics and His- tory.' The other papers are all of social or politi- cal import.

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