Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/509

 12 S. X. MAY 27, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 419 THE CBOSSED KEYS AT YORK (12 S. x. 328, 375). My inquiry related only to the blazon attributed to, or assumed by, the capitular body, and made no reference at all to the archiepiscopal arms. If your kind correspondents will refer to Dean Purey Cust's ' Heraldry of York Minster,' vol. i., they will find as frontispiece a coloured en- graving of the bearings of the Dean and Chapter of York in which the keys, both or, are surmounted by a mitre of the same metal, whereas Drake (p. 534) and Poole and Hugall ( ' York Cathedral,' p. 200) give ancient ex- amples in which the " chief " is occupied by a mitre, and the crown, which Mr. FOBMAN seems to regard as inevitable, is not to be found. ST. SWITHIN. Jloteg on Excursions in Victorian Bibliography. By Michael Sadleir. (London : Chaundy and Cox. 1 Is. net.) THERE must be many book-collectors, novices as yet in the great fraternity, who are casting about both for a special quarry and for guidance in pursuit. Let them hasten to possess themselves of this book. To one or other among them an author among the eight dealt with by Mr. Sadleir may prove to be the very man he was looking for ; and those who find here no such particular suggestion will get a most valuable insight into the principles of bibliography, as well as an excellent grasp on the total work of each several writer, a clear idea of what to look for in the way of cditiones principes, and tests by which to estimate any finds of their own which fall within this scope. There is an excellent note on the terms used in these bibliographies, which comprises as well observations on Victorian bookmaking and recommendations to collectors. The novice, then, will certainly come to be grateful to Mr. Sadleir, but it is the practised book-collector who will most heartily appreciate his work. He alone will realize what delightful but laborious hours went to the attainment of this completeness, and to the making of these brief but lavishly provided notes ; he alone can draw to the full what the compiler meant to be drawn from it confirmation of real good luck, caution as to a doubtful prize, and the satis- faction of offering here and there an addition or correction. On Charles Reade and Mrs. Gaskell, Mi'. Sadleii -i< s us little or nothing by way of introduction ; the rest are provided with an introductory essay, which groups the writer's works according to their character (thus supplementing the chronological arrangement of the bibliography) and gives some critical estimate of them. This is done un- pretentiously but well, especially in regard to the appreciation of the inferior writers. The " guide to Trollope," which is the most consider- able of these essays, though, inevitably, it strikes one as less adequate to the subject, is satisfactory as carrying out the purpose intended. Besides all this there is a more elaborate essay, called an ' Advertisement,' in which our author ! lets us come to much closer quarters with him- self. It is something of a piece of prose as I well as an account of the rise and progress of book- collecting, and that in the traditional manner of the essayist. The writer lights up his theme with charming bursts of confidence : " For my part to love an author is to collect him, for I can read no borrowed books, and only with difficulty such j as are not first editions " thus he proclaims hirn- I self an aristocrat in the realm of bibliophily. " To the extent possible in fact and a little beyond that permissible in money I have contrived . . . to keep myself fairly supplied with * reading firsts ' " thus he engagingly mitigates our awe, and unites himself to the best-beloved of book- collectors. The account of his own history as a reader is of substantial interest. His youthful imagination was caught by the " decadents," to re- act from them presently to the " new brutality " and then to encounter the war. Nothing can enthral the mind of an old lover of literature, who 1 has kept the faith, more pleasingly than the observation of the men of letters now approaching i their prime, who are beginning to show where some such line of experience as this is to lead them out. Mr. Sadleir provides at least two words for the supplement of the ' N.E.D.' He speaks of his own " flapperdom " we had supposed the word " flapper " to be restricted to little young ladies ; he also speaks of the backs of books as their "spines," a use which the Dictionary does not record. Anglo-S'ixon and Norse Poems. Edited and translated by N. Kershaw. (Cambridge Uni- versity Press. 14s. net.) Miss KERSHA.W has here brought together six Anglo-Saxon and seven Norse pieces, which have been known to scholars for some time, and have all been in greater or less degree subject of discus- sion, but were certainly in want of editing, and worth editing. Whether the student is occupied with language or with verse-forms and traditions of construction, he will find that each poem, in its measure, repays a careful study ; and there is none but will add something to the more intimate understanding of the old Northern poetry, and of the resemblances and differences between the Norse and the Anglo-Saxon. Each piece is preceded by a most careful introduction, setting out everything of importance that has been said, discovered or conjectured about it. An abun- dance of references makes good the statements, and notes on minuter details are lavishly supplied. Indeed, the painstaking scholarship shown in this may be praised without reservation. The Anglo-Saxon poems are the so-called ' Wan- derer,' ' The Sea-farer,' ' The Wife's Complaint,' ' The Husband's Message ' and ' The Ruin ' from the Exeter Book, with ' The Battle of Brunan- burh.' The intrinsic interest of the poenrs from the Exeter Book is to a great extent bound up with their" typical or abstract character. Miss j Kershaw reasonably connects this with the taste for riddle poetry, and she might, we think, have gone on to connect it also with the love of simile i in its more extended development, such as we