Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/366

 360

NOTES AND QUERIES. 12 s. i. APRIL 29, me.

It is questionable whether the method adopted

'of bringing out the Index in class sections is the

most convenient. It is, of course, understood

-that when these are collected into a volume the

arrangement will be in one alphabetical order.

! But there are drawbacks to even the temporary

.adoption of the present plan, the most obvious

being that we have to wait some time for any

rparticular section in which we are interested.

"Then, again, it is often uncertain in what section

we must look for a given subject. At first we

thought the valuable articles in The Athenceum

on Perceval had been omitted ; but we found

rthem noted under ' Arthurian Legends,' although

Sir Gawayn, who is more correctly Arthurian

-than Perceval, has a heading to himself. We find

the Stone Age in the ' Language and Literature '

section ; articles on health, disease, hygiene, &c.,

mot in the Dewey order, but under ' Economic and

Political Sciences ' ; and Bibliography and Library


 * Science admirably indexed, by the way

under ' Language and Literature.' A serious

difficulty arises from the classification of persons

under the subjects in which they distinguished

themselves, every list containing references to

many obituary and other bibliographical or

critical notices. Thus the list on ' Economic and

Political Sciences ' gives articles on the piratical

,Nutt brothers, on T. P. O'Connor, Sir Pherozeshah


 * Mehta, the politician and merchant J. W.

.Jagger, the journalist Denis Crane, Sir Hamar

Greenwood, M.P., Judge D. P. Hatch, John Hay,

Mile. Ivanitzky, and Lord Strath cona, with many

more. Doubtless, these are all correctly^classified ;

I but it is hard to call upon the consultant to


 * solve a problem in classification before he can find

.any reference. How is he to know that piracy

us a branch of ' Economic Science ' ?"-$We may

be permitted to hope that the other method,

continuous indexing, will be adopted in future instalments. This will probably save labour to the indexer, will certainly save greatly on the cost

-of combining the consecutive sections, and, we think, will spare the reader trouble. Two excellent

'features are the Author Index and the brief analytical notes inscribed in many entries not sufficiently explained by their titles.

In work of this peculiar kind, to avoid mis-

r prints and errors of arrangement would be super- human. Yet we have detected exceedingly few. Mr. D. Rhys Phillips has been made a doctor on p. 17 of the latest section, where we also notice trifling errors of accent, &c., like Bedier, Habl6t K. Browne, Merim^e (for Me"rimee), and Sevastopool. On p. 28 of this section it

ought to have been recognized and explained that the additional numbers of The Spectator recently published by Sir J. G. Frazer, as the " result of a renewed search among the papers

of The Spectator Club," were not genuine papers by Addison or Steele, but admirable imitations

-by the scholarly editor.

The Quarterly Review for April opens with a paper entitled 'Philosophy and Theism,' by Prof. J. A. Smith, being a discussion of the several positions taken up in recent works, on the one hand by Prof. Ward and Mr. A. J. Balfour in their defence of Theism, and on the other by Mr. Bernard Bosanquet, who maintains that religion " neither needs nor establishes any external or isolable God." Prof. Smith's con- Deluding paragraph is rather amusing in its cheerful

invitation to a despairing reader to " await further contributions, or perhaps a judicial summing up." Mr. Ernest Young has a good and well-timed account of the Boy Scout Move- ment, which, we hope, will be widely read by those engaged in education. Prof. A. V. Dicey 's ' Thoughts on the Parliament of Scotland ' is more in our own line. As he justly says, the Parliament of Scotland has not hitherto received the attention which its history deserves. These pages may serve as a good introduction to the study. Sir Home Gordon on ' W. G.' writes pleasantly upon a pleasant subject, though with a touch of aloofness obviously fitting but such as two years ago it would have been difficult to imagine in any one competent to discourse on matters so sacrosanct as cricket and a cricketer. Sir Archibald Geikie gives us a good example of the kind of classical essay he has made his own, product of a careful and scientific investigation of the terrain in question, combined with keen observation of its peculiar beauties and of its relations with the world outside, and informed by a vivid and so to say concrete reading of his author. This time it is ' Horace at his Sabine Farm.' Mr. Humphry Ward's article, on the recently published Granville Correspondence, is one of the most interesting in the number, perhaps for the very reason that the correspondence itself is entertaining and informing without being of first-rate importance. Mr. Ward quotes judi- ciously from Lady Bessborough's letters, and, in fact, is particularly good on the ladies who figure in the book.

The remaining papers deal with the problems of the moment, and two of them have in addition great scientific and historical interest : these are Prof. E. P. Stebbing's discussion of the importance of the forests of Finland, and Prof. F. J. 0. Hearn- shaw's survey of compulsory military service in England.

to C0rmp0tttonis.

We must call special attention to the following notices :

<. E < D mu B ^ L - commu nications 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

LjLn6

.-*

CORRESPONDENTS who send letters to be forwarded to other contributors should put on the top left- hand corner of their envelopes the number of the page of ' N. & Q.' to which their letters refer, so that the contributor may be readily identified.

To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries m the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- mumcation " Duplicate."

BARON BOURGEOIS, MR. F. W. CRAWFORD, and C. H. S. M. Forwarded.