Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/106

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JA. 29, ma.

Archceolo(/ical Excavation. By J. P. Droop.

(Cambridge University Press, 4s. net.) THIS is a very sensible, practical, and, as the author claims for it in his Introduction (p. x), entertaining handbook on the subject of archaeological exca- vation. It runs a slight risk of falling between two stools, as being too technical for the amateur, and not sufficiently technical for the trained archasological excavator. It may seem strange to describe such a book as this as entertaining, but the entertainment lies in the gentle irony which pervades its pages, in the quaint intro- duction of proverbial sayings, and in the construc- tion of an archaeological Decalogue, in which the -Scriptural prohibitions are cleverly parodied, and the archaeological counterparts of murder, adultery, and falsehood are cleverly described (pp. 50-51). We do not agree with chap. vii. about the co- operation of women. It might have been written by the founder of the Society of Antiquaries. This is a book which every beginner at excava- tions would do well to possess.

The Edinburgh Review begins its first number for 1916 with a profoundly sympathetic article irom the pen of Mr. Edmund Gosse on ' The Unity of France.' We remember in the early days of the war a poem in which Mr. Gosse lamented, with some measure of passion, the dis- abilities of the man past military age. He may, we think, justly take to himself consolation ; he has done notable service in deepening, strengthen- ing, and also in enlightening our eager goodwill towards our heroic ally, and nowhere with more force and abundance of detailed information than in the pages before us. Particularly interesting -is his reference to the influence of Eugenie de Gu^rin, and particularly useful his demonstration of the fact that the France we all love and admire is the old France, whose high qualities have been but hidden under superficial appearances to the eyes of the equally superficial observer. Mr. Wilfrid Ward gives us a somewhat rambling criticism of Mr. Balfour's Gifford Lectures a criticism which goes over the same ground more than once, but breaks at last into a statement of the writer's own theory of the development of the religious sense in man, which is really worth reading. Mr. Algar Thorold writes on ' The Ideas of Maurice Barres,' in an essay which is one of the best we have seen by this writer, though it rather leaves on one side that aspect of Barres 's work which is represented by ' Colette Bau- doche.'

Mr. Francis Grabble has certainly had his share of what we may call civilian or passive war ex- perience. His account of the opening of hostilities in the passage through Luxemburg has no little value, for meagre indeed, is the testimony we can expect from the particular angle he occupied. We notice that he does not subscribe the legend of the Grand Duchess's protest from her motor on the Pont Adolf. A barricade formed of the Luxemburg variety of " Black Maria," hastily removed, by the gendarmes in charge of it, seems to have been the protest the Germans actually en- countered. The paper following Mr. Gribble's is one we would commend with some special emphasis to our readers as being more definitely antiquarian in tcope than most of these articles are : it is ' The Psychology of Sumptuary Ideals,' Iby Mr. J. E. G. de Montmorency, not only excellent

as a study of English temperament and custom, and a good r&3um6 of the legislation affecting domestic life throughout the Middle Ages, but also full of humorous detail and of timely counsel for the English of our present day. We have always been nearly as remarkable for our extrava- gance as for our insubordination. Nevertheless as Mahan, we believe, first brought home to us our extravagant ways have done us singular good service in the matter of our naval supre- macy.

ONLY two of the papers in the new Quarterly Review deal with literary topics, and 'one even of these is almost more closely concerned with the war than with letters. Three papers bearing no signature, ' British Diplomacy in the Near East,' ' British Government and War,' and ' The Censor- ship and its Effects.' will probably attract serious attention in several quarters; and that will equally, we hope, be the fortune of M. Henri Davignon's ' German Methods of Penetration in Belgium.' The two articles to which we referred at the outset are Madame Duclaux's ' A Chaplet of Heroes ' and Mr. A. C. Guthkelch's ' The Prose Works of Joseph Addison.' The latter is, in reality, a somewhat slender subject, for of Addison, as of many another writer, it is true to say that he is better worth reading than reading about. Never- theless, these are decidedly pleasant and welcome pages. Madame Duclaux despite the rather unfortunate fancy with which she sets out writes with all her wonted charm, and with the poignancy which only real pain can achieve, an account of five French men of letters fallen in the war. The men whom she celebrates are Peguy, Psichari, Lafon, Alain-Fournier, and Emile Nolly ; the first four of them fortunate in heroic death in battle, Nolly no less heroic through his slow dying in hospital.

to (K0msp0ntonis.

EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to "The Editor of ' Notes and Queries'" Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lishers "at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.

DUBLIN. Forwarded to C. B.

HASTINGS. Forwarded to MR. PIERPOINT.

PROF. MOORE SMITH. Forwarded to MR. PAGE.

MR. B. K. BALFOUR ("An Austrian army awfully arrayed"). These lines were printed in full at 3 S. iv. 88, and were discussed in vol. i. of our Tenth Series at pp. 120, 148, 211, 258, 277, 280. Their authorship has been the subject of some conjecture. They may be found in The Trifler, May 7, 1817, and in Bentley's Miscellany, March, 1838.

MR. ANEURIN WILLIAMS (" Citizens of no mean citizenship)." If this instance of an adaptation of St. Paul's phrase v. Acts xxi. 39 has anything particular about it, perhaps some of the context in which it occurs could be given.

j Q. v. We do not insert queries as to the value of old books. Booksellers' catalogues might be consulted with advantage.