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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. ix. MAY 2,

.during the Middle-English period i.e., before 1500 had been excluded, and the material of this kind, now incorporated with the dictionary, used lor the compilation of a large Middle-English Dictionary under another editor. Mr. Edmund Oosse in his charming ' A French Satirist in England ' gives an account of the ' Lazare ' of Auguste Barbier, a collection of lyrical pieces, describing England as Barbier saw her in 1836 darkest England, indeed ! and published in Paris in 1837, at the moment, unfortunate for the poet, when the accession of a girl-queen to the English throne made violent abuse of English wajs, however well-deserved, out of the question among a people so gallant as the French. As poetry Mr. Gosse's quotations show that ' Lazare ' is, if not consistently of the highest, yet of a very high order, and, in particular, there are some stanzas on Shakespeare which are well worth notice. ' Magic or Religion ? ' Dr. Marett's criticism of ' The Golden Bough,' is one of the .best papers in the number: pleasant to read because of the easy style a gift in which the .author is favoured beyond most writers on anthro- pology and acute both in its praise and in the objections it raises. Mr. Orlo Williams has a careful and well-balanced study of Carducci ; .and Mr. H. C. Shelley's ' Irish Viceroys before the Union ' summary though much of it is .should be made a note of by students of the period. Mr. Walter De la Mare on * Current Literature ' says several good things ; and there is an unsigned article on ' The Significance of Kingship ' which is interesting both in itself and as indicating a modern current of thought.

THE new Fortnightly gives us the first instal- ment of its editor's work on ' The Idea of Comedy/ pleasant and suggestive pages, at the end of which .the writer says that Shakespeare's " conception of comedy falls short of the real range and value of the comic spirit," because, while there is no lack of humour, there is " no criticism of life." Mr. Henry Newbolt's ' Futurism and Form in Poetry ' puts with a skilful clearness objections to the Futurist view of poetry which many lovers of poetry must have felt. As far as he goes, he should, we think, prove convincing. Dr. Georges Chatterton-Hill has a rather attractively written, but curiously futile article about ' Bruges-la- Morte,' in which he makes use of the characters in Bodenbach's novels as if they were real persons, a proceeding which demands a tact not here displayed. M. Jean d'Auvergne's ' The Moscow Art Theatre ' well deserves attention, and will doubtless be considered side by side with Mr. J. F. Macdonald's criticism of ' Pygmalion.' The most charming article of all is Mr. J. Budge Harding's ' Dramas of Bird-Life.'

THE May Cornhill Magazine is distinctly good. Di. Shipley, who has the knack of doing such things particularly well, contributes a sketch of Sir John Murray, in which he gives a succinct .account of the scope of the oceanpgrapher's work, as well as a brief, but admirable portrait. ' Hodge, 1830,' by S. G. Tallentyre, is, as the title .suggests, the biography of a farm labourer. It necessarily challenges comparison with Mr. Bourne's books on the same subject, and, indeed, does not ill sustain comparison. Sir Henry Lucy's ' Sixty Years in the Wilderness ' include chapters on ' Mr. Punch and his Young Men ' and on * Edmund Yates,' and some interesting examples

showing the range of Gladstone's information. Sir Edward Clarke writes on ' Charles Dickens and the Law,' a paper of which, perhaps, the most interesting point is the identification of Sydney Carton. Gordon Allan, Sir Edward tells us, was his name in real life. The number opens with a poem addressed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Lord Lytton. Perhaps in the Mid-Victorian times people were different, but to a reader of the present day the first thought these verses suggest is, " How embarrassing to have received them 1 " Only the most authentic poetry would avail to carry off such vehemence of sentimentality, and that is certainly wanting. Still, from the modern collector's point of view, the poem is good to have.

The Scottish Historical Review for April in its notes and comments has a communication from our valued contributor Mrs. Charlotte C. Stopes, entitled * Irish Praise of King James VI.' Mrs. Stopes, as every one knows, is always on the war- path, and she has turned up among the manuscripts at Trinity College.Dublin (F. 4. 20. 652), a small collection of early seventeenth century verses, the chief contributor being Sir John Davies. There are also verses by "J. B.," who dedicates his con- tribution, * A Funeral Elegy on Kinge James,' to Dr. Donne. Mrs. Stopes gives the entire poem, and in a note states that " there is an unfinished copy of this same poem in Sloane MS. 1394, p. 176, in which the name is signed in full, ' James Barrye ' ; probably he who was born in Dublin in 1603, and afterwards became Baron Barry." The poem depicts the King as having but changed his crown, and his chariot " drawne by Angells, into Heaven's Whitehalle," and closes with these lines :

The world is thy Tombe, all Poetry shall bee Thine epitaph, all Prose thy History.

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