Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/173

 12 S. V.JUNE, 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

167

BURT, MINIATURE PAINTER (12 S. iv. 47, 115, 194). Birmingham can be added to the list of towns in which Albin K. Burl: painted miniatures. I removed the oval glass and card from the red-leather case ; on the back of the card is written in ink : " Painted by | A. K Burt | Birmingham." HERBERT SOUTHAM.

BADULLA, CEYLON : TOMBSTONE INSCRIP- TION (12 S. v. 37, 78). I should have men- tioned in my reply that an illustration of Mrs. Wilson's tombstone, reproduced from a photograph, appeared some years ago in The Strand Magazine ; but I am unable just now to give the date.

PENRY LEWIS.

HERVEY OR HERVET (12 S. v. 95).- This surname is probably of continental origin, the Norman Herve being cognate with German Herwegh -a recent poet's name from kere-wic, army dwelling, or encampment. Hence we get Hervey, Har- vey, Hervot, Hervet, &c. Hervot, Hervet, Hervit, are doubtless diminutives, as Pierrot is from Pierre. N. W. HILL.

'Corn from Olde Fieldes: an Anthology of English Poems from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century. By Eleanor M. Brougham. (Lane, 7*. 6d. net.)

THE making of an Anthology forms a delightful occupation, and it is surely as much to that fact as to any other that we may impute the astonishing number of these collections. Miss Brougham's field of search lies, as a whole, so far behind us, that anything whatsoever culled from it possesses some interest, were it only through that quality of this volume gives pleasure to the reader as it certainly does it must have given tenfold greater pleasure to the compiler. In fact, it may be said that this pleasure has caused, now and again, too facile and indiscriminating an admiration. Most of the really admirable things here are well known and fairly easily accessible. The hitherto almost unknown pieces the bulk of the book if they had not the charm of age, would, in many cases, no more than bear comparison with the good magazine verse of to-day, and would, in some cases, not even so far hold their own.
 * quaintness " which time has imparted to it. If

It is, however, quite unfair to approach this pleasant compilation in the spirit which criticism of that sort implies. One should rather dip into it, or go through it, in the mood and with the expectations which one brings to a survey of old family letters and photographs, bits of china, plate or furniture, good and solid and desirable enough to have descended through several genera- tions, but not works of genius or proper for a museum. They have something in them that thrills ; but it is not their intrinsic value. It is,

actually, the fact of their being not choice, not rare, not linked with startling histories, but, at their own date, ordinary a part of the neat and comely banality of life, whose function was rather to make going easy than to arrest it is this itself which thrills. Now, in every generation, a certain amount of verse is part of the same scheme. Each period fashions its own to its liking, just as it varies the patterns on its china, and the outlines of its chairs and tables. So much of it as becomes commonplace gets to itself a peculiar significance, in virtue of that very commonplaceness, a worth and significance different, and differently to be judged, from the worth of classical achievements which live on in their own right. This is the kind of verse which has here been brought together, so far as the chief portion of the book is concerned, and it is by realizing, first of all, its true quality that it can best be enjoyed.

The poems chosen are grouped under the head- ings "Religion," "Love," "Death," with a ''Mis- cellany " at the end. The topics are much the same frcm one century to another the earlier having the advantage in directness, the latter in developed imagination. The compiler supplies short biographical notes, which, when they deal with writers like Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw, seem a little too crude and slight even for their necessarily small compass,but are good and sufficient when it comes to dealing with the several " mini- mus " poets whose effusions are brought before us.

Antiquaries and students of literature will find matter of interest here ; but we would recommend the book principally to the average person who cares for poetry and riot for great poetry only, but for the current expression in verse of every- body's ideas. Things made with the straight- forward simplicity and artless pleasure in the making which characterize most of these produc- tions hardly seem a matter for learned comment ; hardly can become so merely by being old. We hope this collection will have a fate uncommon among books drawn from bygone times that of being taken as it stands and enjoyed without more than a casual reference to the questions of scholar- ship with which it is connected.

The Story of Doctor Johnson : being an Introduction to BoswelVs Life. By S. C. Roberts. (Cam- bridge, University Press, 4s. 6d. net.)

BOSWEIX'S ' Life of Johnson ' is, as Mr. Roberts remarks in his Preface, " a long and, outwardly, formidable work," neglected by many who might enjoy it. Here is an excellent introduction to it, full of plums, and attractively illustrated with contemporary portraits and views. Mr. Roberts a member, we believe, of the staff of the Uni- versity Press before he went to the War is evidently a lover of Johnson and Boswell, and has used with, skill to fill out his picture other memoirs concerning the great literary dictator. His choice of passages from Boswell is admirable, and his sketches of Johnson's chief friends are always judicious. Sometimes we wish to emphasize a point he has hinted, or to give more detail, as in his sketch of Johnson as " The True-Born Englishman." This would, however, be taking the standpoint of a Boswellian rather than of an introducer, who cannot be expected or desired to say everything that matters. ' The Tour to the Hebrides ' has, quite rightly, a chapter to itself. We wonder how many people know that Johnson