Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/365

 12 S. II. OCT. 28, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

359

" la Duchesse de Bourgogne," so much beloved by Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon. She was the elder daughter of Anne, Queen of Sardinia, who was originally Duchess of Savoy and younger daughter of Philip, Duke of Orleans (brother of Louis XIV. of France), by his beautiful first wife, Henriette Anne (Stuart) of England, who was^herself the youngest child of King Charles I., and the idol of her brother King Charles II. until her untimely death.

A. FRANCIS STEUABT. 79 Great King Street, Edinburgh.

" DON'T BE LONGER THAN YOU CAN HELP "

(12 S. ii. 227). This error is common every- where, and was noted by Whately in 1862. But see the ' N.E.D.' under 'Help,' B. lie. where instances from Newman and others are given. C. C. B.

GRAVE OF MARGARET GODOLPHIN (12 S. ii. 129, 176, 218, 274).!. The church was under restoration in 1890 and 1891. To examine the grave was the outcome of natural curiosity.

2. I understood from the late vicar, the Rev. Jocelyn Barnes, that the coffin was replaced in the same spot.

3 and 5. Speaking from memory of what Barnes told me, I think it was opened, and nothing recognizable found.

4. I never heard any suggestion about Lord Godolphin's remains being laid with hers according to her wish. What does ' D.X.B.' say ? YGREC.

0n

Political Ballads illustrating the Administration of Sir Robert Wai-mole. Edited by Milton Percival. Vol. Vlll. of " Oxford Historical and Literary Studies." (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 8. 6d. net.)

STUDENTS of the earlier half of the eighteenth century may be recommended to make a note of this book. It contains seventy-five ballads in full, with an Appendix which gives the titles, provenance, first two lines, and a few particulars of one hundred more. No such collection was before in existence, and to bring this together Dr. Percival has ransacked the Harvard Library, the Public Record Office, Prof. Firth's private library, and the greatest libraries of England. It may be useful to note that the material of which tliis book is the fruit is now deposited in the Harvard Library.

The series begins with ' Robin's Glory ; or, The Procession of the Knights of the Bath 'ridiculing the revival of the Order of the Bath, and belonging to the year 1725. This is the first political ballad directly aimed ut Walpolo which Dr. Percival has ound. Thenceforward these ballads come thick

and fast, various in their points of attack, unequal in wit and skill, but, taken together, forming a pretty formidable assault upon the Government. To the Government, we think, Dr. Percival renders somewhat less than justice, as he is perhaps inclined to rate the ability displayed in the best of these skits somewhat too high. He rates the second and third best at their proper worth.

A good Introduction sets out the place and function of the ballad in days when the possi- bilities of the newspaper were still unrealized, so- that these verses were esteemed a political engine of at least equal force. It is justly noted that in order to appreciate them fully one should know the tunes to which they were written, and we are- sorry that these have not been included in the volume. The ballads which go to ' Packington's Pound ' especially need their tune.

We should be inclined to support Dr. Percival's opinion that four or five of the anonymous ballads against the Government are Pulteney's work. Not that we discover all the wit and irresistible funniness that he, their editor, does in them but that, upon a comparison with the rest, they certainly show superior ability and verve, and if they are not Pulteney's it is difficult to imagine whose they can be. Two ballads, for the same- sort of reason, he would assign to Hervey, the best wit on the Government side. To him is thus imputed the ' Journalists Displayed ' which, with ' The Negotiators,' ascribed to Pulteney, we agree with Dr. Percival represents the high-water mark of the book so far as pure satire is concerned, ' Admiral Hosier's Ghost ' being a masterpiece of a different order.

If we were asked to give some general idea of the character of the English political mind in the eighteenth century as revealed or implied in this collection, we should not be able to say much that was favourable. There is a striking absence- of political instinct ; and a strident note of heavy self-complacency which reminds us of the old widely current accusation against us of hypocrisy. The political ballad went out, we think, because apart from the mordant wit of a few masters of satire it rather misrepresented than fairly rendered the general character of the people or the truth of a situation. We do not seem as a nation ever to have had a genuine turn for satirical verse on political as distinguished from social or domestic subjects. Perhaps our sense of humour is not sufficiently detached to be gay or to simulate gaiety, and yet is too great to allow us often the full effectiveness of bitter wrath or hatred.

JOTTINGS FROM RECENT BOOK CATALOGUES.

WE have read many tempting descriptions of goodL books in Mr. Reginald Atkinson's Catalogue No. 21. He has a first edition (1597) of Boissard's ' Icones quinquaginta virorum ' the first of four similar collections which includes portraits of Columbus,. Erasmus, Dante, Petrarch, and Albertus Magnus and is not dear in good condition, at 31. 3s. An inexpensive item which some student of the eighteenth century may be glad to note is a first edition of Glover's ' Leonidas ' (1737), 10s. Qd. For 4J. Mr. Atkinson offers an early eighteenth- century ' Recueil d'estampes ' (tome premier), which contains 135 engravings, many _ by \\rll- known engravers and suitable for framing or for