Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/106

 100

NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 s. in. FEB. 3. 1917.

pp book. The illustrations deserve a

cognition.

j three volumes before us,*perhaps Mr. Aldis's on ' The Printed Book ' is the one ,n will make the widest appeal. Out of the j,ss of material to choose from, the writer has oleverly selected the details which would best catch the attention of the average reader. The historical part is particularly well done. The slight peevishness to which experts in books seem prone crops out now and again in the prac- tical criticisms and advice, as does some little exaggeration with regard to 'the care that books require. A busy man must be excused from making a sort of ceremony of taking a book from Ms shelf ; nor do books appear to be so liable to fall to pieces as one might suppose if one had only these pages to go upon. We ourselves do not observe in the use of our own books all the elaborate precautions that Mr. Aldis recommends, nor do we know any one who does, except it be a collector touching his greatest treasures, and yet only here and there, and in the course of years, do we find a book come to grief. Again, while echoing his unfavourable criticism of spongy and glazed papers, we are inclined to think that Mr. Aldis is tmreasonably fastidious as to the paper to be used for the common pur- pose of work-a-day books. Perhaps here we touch the real point of our difference, and Mr. Aldis would not be so ready to concede as we should be that work-a-day books are essential to modern life. The mention of paper brings to our mind another small criticism we think that the persons for whose benefit it was deemed necessary to include fairly elementary details as to the construction of a book might also well be deemed to require a little more detail about the processes of the manufacture of paper. Let us conclude, however, by saying that we enjoyed going through this little work, and expect it to prove of real utility.

Fresh Light on the Family of Robert de Eglesfeld, Founder of the Queen's College, Oxford. By John Richard Magrath, Provost of Queen's. (Kendal, printed by Titus Wilson.)

THIS valuable brochure is a reprint from the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society's Transactions (vol. xvi. New Series). It is the outcome of search among the data supplied by Dr. .Tames Wilson's edition of the Register of 'the Priory of St. Bees, which includes as supplements certain docu- ments at Hesleyside and Hornby which were likewise of service to Dr. Magrath. Besides these he has worked at six documents belonging to Netherhall of which a transcript was made for Provost Septimus Collinson in 1807.

The result is a pedigree ascending from the founder to the sixth generation, and throwing light on the persons alluded to in the founder's Statutes as the children of his father and mother, and " the other children " of Thomas his grand- father. In one or two particulars recent infor- mation has corrected earlier identifications for example, we have the discovery of an Adam de Eglesfeld who was brother to the founder, a separate person from the uncle mentioned in the Statutes. The relations between the Eglesfelds and neighbouring families are extremely in- teresting, and the topographical detail is both .abundant and enlightening. It seems almost

superfluous to say that the material is dealt with exhaustively and with the characteristic judg- ment of a scholar ; but we cannot forbear men- tioning that the somewhat dry particulars of grants, quitclaims, and other such instruments are greatly enlivened by the imaginative bon- homie with which they are presented.

THE February Cornhill begins with a tribute to the memory of Reginald Smith by Mr. A. C Benson ; and in saying with how much interest we perused this, we desire to associate ourselves with the regret of all men of letters for the loss of so rare and generous a personality, and to offer our sympathy both to the great publishing house of which he was the head and to the staff of The Cornhill. Major F. C. T. Ewald, D.S.O., contributes a striking account of the operation of relieving a company in a trench. It is one of those descriptions which are more welcome because they relate to the routine of war more difficult to imagine correctly in its details than are some instances of actual fighting. Mr. Horace jHutchinson gives to the public some intimate and touching letters written by General Gordon to console one in great suffering. We think Mr. Hutchinson lays too much stress on the unusualness of the combination of soldier, mathematician, and mystic in Gordon. Miss Ella C. Sykes writes well, and has plenty of good things to say about her experiences "at a Y.M.C.A. Hut somewhere in France." Mr. Lewis R. Freeman's ' Beating Back from Ger- many ' is one of the best accounts of a prisoner's escape that we have yet seen.

The Athenceum now appearing monthly, arrange- ments have been made whereby advertisements of posts vacant and wanted, which it is desired to publish weekly, may appear in .the intervening weeks in *N. & Q."

to (ftomspmttoirts,

MR. G. W. WRIGLEY. Forwarded to Mr. Hirst.

MR. C. MONTAGUE. For the Hampton Court Vine see 10 S. ii. 506. It was planted in 1768.

FITZH. " Qui ante diem periit," &c. See Sir Henry Newbolt's poem ' Clifton College Chapel.'

IRISH (VOLUNTEER) CORPS, c. 1780 (See 12 S. ii- 390). W. R. W. writes : " Will not MAJOR EVERITT find an answer to his query in ' N. Q.,' 12 S. ii. 446, where, under the heading of ' Bibliography of Histories of Irish Counties and Towns,' Ulster, appears the ' History of the Volunteers of 1782,' by Thos. MacNevin, Dublin, n.d.?"

DR. WILLCOCK (Dante, ' Inf.,' iii. 42). The in- terpretation suggested is the one received, and undoubtedly the right one. Brunone Bianchi, for example, says : " cioe avrebber di che van- tarsi nel confronto della vilt& di quelli coll' atto audace da loro tentato ; e vedendo che collo starsi a se incontrarono alfine lo stesso grado di dannazione."

CORRIGENDUM. 12 S. ii. 515, * FTenry Fielding : Two Corrections,' for "from Wednesday, June 26, 1754. . . .until Friday, July 19," read until Saturday, July IS.