Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/413

 12 s.x. APRIL 29, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 339 when this office presented an engine to the City of Norwich. Compare illustrations (p. 6) in 'The Early Days of the Sun Fire Office,' by Edward Baumer (1910). ALECK ABRAHAMS. PEDWARDINE FAMILY (12 S. x. 272). In the ' Lincolnshire Pedigrees,' edited by Canon Maddison for the Harleian Society, p. 1,295, is a pedigree of this family, which states that Sir Roger de Pedwardyne, who married the Darcy heiress, was son of Roger de Pedwardyne by Alice, d. of Henry de Longchamp, and grandson of Walter and Maude de Pedwardyne. Under Walter's name there is a note, " For earlier pedigree see ' Monastic, Anglic.' under ' Llanthony.' ' In the only edition of Dugdale's * Monasticon ' to which I at present have access I have failed to trace this reference. There is another pedigree of the family on p. 764 of the same work, which differs in some respects from that quoted above. H. J. B. CLEMENTS. FRANCES CALDERON DE LA BARCA (nee INGLIS) (12 S. x. 250). Born in 1804 in Edinburgh, daughter of William Inglis, who was descended from the Earls of Buchan. Details will be found in the interesting Introduction, by H. Baerlein, to ' Life in Mexico,' in Dent's " Everyman's Library." A. G. KEALY, Maltby, Yorks. Chaplain, R.N., retd. AUTHOR WANTED (12 S. x. 273). Is not the quotation derived from Juvenal's tenth satire ? " Evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis Di faciles." Dryden translates : " Whole houses of their own desires possess'd Are often ruin'd at their own request." H. MAYNARD SMITH. 8, College Green, Gloucester. on Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose. By Reynold A. Nicholson. (Cambridge University Press. 8s. 6d. net.) DR. NICHOLSON in his Preface tells us that his choice of passages for this collection was guided by the belief that translators do best in translating what they have enjoyed. The principle has served him well. His evident enjoyment acts in a useful degree, as some sub- stitute for that which is incommunicable, even by the happiest translation, between one lan- guage and another, so that his versions, besides their notable elegance we would use that old- fashioned praise in its earlier and ampler sense possess their own vitality. They are, in fact, so much poems in their own right that, in several places, we wished Dr. Nicholson had hearkened yet more closely to their rhythm and music and made some slight alteration, which, without losing the meaning, might have enhanced their native claim as poetry. The very possibility of such a wish furnishes a justification of his decision to use metre for rendering the poetry. There are, indeed, many passages here which would almost lose significance if left in the looser form of prose. A word must be said in appre- ciation of the examples which imitate the Arabic metres, of a few instances of monorhyme, of the skilful and amusing translations of Hariri, and. in general, of the happy choice of ordinary English measures. The selection consists of 175 passages, taken from about fifty authors and given in chrono- logical order, with a brief biographical note at the head of each group. A few examples may give some small idea of the riches offered. We have Labid's vivid comparison, with simile heaped on simile, between the camel and the oryx ; an excellent rendering of Sharra's elegy ; Ka'b's ode, with its description of the ideal camel ; the dirges of Fari'a and Maisun, each a sister mourning for her brother ; from Firdausi the story of Bizham and Manizha ; from Hafiz a dozen or so examples very delicately rendered. The specimens of gnomic verse are particularly successful. The prose is perhaps somewhat less satisfactory than the poetry. It might be main- tained that, if any strict fidelity is to be observed, Eastern prose is more difficult to translate than Eastern poetry, in that the difference in the working of the mind between East and West becomes more apparent. Five illustrations are provided all interesting, and one, the picture of Faridu'ddin 'Attar, which can only be called delicious. By the way, the word " lintel " is used three or four times in the sense of " threshold." Is this deliberate ? And is there authority for it ? Social TAfe in the Days of Piers Plowman. By D. Ohadwick. (Cambridge University Press. 10s. 6d. net.) Miss CHADWICK has provided a useful summary of what may be gleaned from the pages of ' Piers Plowman ' of fourteenth- century life and manners. How far that poem faithfully illustrates the his- tory of the time is a matter of opinion. The previous volume of this series ' The Pastons and their England ' is based on the celebrated Paston Letters, which unquestionably reflect the life of the fifteenth century, for they are the actual letters which passed between the members of a family living partly in the country and partly in London. They are particularly rich in illustration of the social customs of the time, relations of parents and children, marriage and the life and position of women generally. Langland's poem is naturally different from a record such as this. It is the work of a strange being, part mystic, part reformer, concerned more with the abuses he descries in Church and State than with the everyday life around him. The facts to be gleaned from it seem to us neces- sarily to give a somewhat one-sided picture of the life of the period ; of a negative rather than a positive value. The defectiveness might have been remedied had Miss Chadwick chosen a