Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/97

12 s. vi. MARCH, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES. LEPER'S WINDOWS: Low SIDE WINDOW (12 S. vi. 14, 45). See also 9 S. i. 186, 392. 493.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATIONS WANTED.

(12 S. vi. 15.)

When wild in woods the naked savage ran. The line as iisually quoted is from Dryden: I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran. ' The Conquest of Granada,' pt. 1, Act I., sc. i.

C. A. COOK. Sullingstead, Hascombe, Godalming.

The correct version is: "When wild in woods the noble savage ran," and is from Dryden's 'Conquest of Granada,' pt. i, Act I, sc. i. The late Andrew Lang once wrote an article in The Morning Post headed "When wild in woods the noble Marquis ran," and said: "The remarkable line which heads this paper may be found, I think, in the early works of Sir George Trevelyan." Is this so or was Andrew Lang's memory misleading him? W. A. HUTCHISON.

32 Hotham Road, Putney. S.W.

Some of Almanzor's bravest lines were parodied and put in the mouth of Drawcansir in the Duke of Buckingham's ' Rehearsal.'

EDWARD BENSLY.

[MR. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT and MR. H. COHEN also thanked for replies.]

Sidelights on Shakespeare. By H. Dugdale Sykes. (Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-on-Avon, Is. Qd.)

WE reflect with sorrow that Mr. A. H. Bullen, one of the soundest of our Elizabethan scholars will write no more on his favorite subject. Whether anything of note remains among his papers we do not know; perhaps his 'Publisher's Note' to Mr. Sykes's volume is the last fruit of his ripe knowledge. Publishers are apt in these days to praise their goods without always scrutinizing too closely their literary worth. But Mr. Bullen was a learned critic as well as a publisher, and experts will we think, endorse his opinion of the worth of Mr. Sykes's researches which, like those of our old contributor, Mr. Charles Crawford, bring forward parallels and correspondences as a guide to the authorship of dubious or disputed plays. This method of discovery can, as in many Baconian books, be grossly and foolishly overdone; but the work of Mr. Sykes supplies an accumulation of evidence not relying on commonplaces which deserves serious consideration. The Shakespeare Apocrypha are a fair field for conjecture and discussion. 'Arden of Feversham' good critics have not generally, we think, followed Swinburne in regarding as Shakespeare's, and the pages before us offer strong reasons for assigning it to Kyd. It has passages of unusual power, but we quite agree with Mr. Bullen in not regarding these as signs of Shakespeare's workmanship.

'Henry VIII.' is in several ways, that the ordinary reader does not perceive, different from the authentic plays of Shakespeare. We think he may have touched it up here and there; but general assent will be given to Mr. Sykes's views that it is the work of Fletcher and Massinger.In metrical quality it is markedly unShakesperian. ' A Yorkshire Tragedy ' and a part of ' Pericles ' are assigned to Wilkins. All readers of taste will be glad to find Shakespeare relieved of uncouth stuff with confusing elliptical constructions which does not seem worthy of a master-hand. Mr. Sykes's examination of ' A Yorkshire Tragedy ' is one of his most telling pieces of argument, supported as it is by abundant learning. Another dramatist who takes on a new importance is Peele, who, if he is the author of ' The Troublesome Reign of King John,' stands at the head of the English school of chronicle-dramas. A book like this makes one realise how widely as well as bow wisely Shakespeare adapted the plays of others, a fact which is sometimes forgotten by those who exclaim at the amount of work he gofc through. Certainty on such questions is a difficult matter, to achieve; but we bad sooner read one essay by Mr. Sykes than a dozen pretentious books explaining that Shakespeare was somebody else. He is both erudite and careful, and we regard his arguments as " good gifts," if we may use a Shakespearian phrase. We hope that he will pursue his inquiries.

Catalogue of Printed Music published prior to 1801 now in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford. Edited by A. Hiff. (Humprey Milford, 7s. 6d. net.)

FOR some a catalogue may not be full enough and for others it may seem inconveniently bulky, but in this volume it would be hard to find any serious fault: it seems to fulfil exactly the purpose for which it is intended. It is a short but sufficiently detailed hand-list of the printed music in the Christ Church Library, which in no way attempts to compete with Mr. Arkwright's larger work, but sets out to provide a convenient list with just enough information to make it generally usefulMr. Aloys HifE has, we think, fulfilled the expectations of his friends and co-workers in Oxford, but those of us who may wish to incorporate the volume in future musical bibliographies would have liked the compiler to explain the system of " finding " or class-marks which he has adopted.

Tales by Washington Irving. Selected and edited with an Introduction by Carl van Doren. (Humphrey Milford, 3s. Qd. net.) HERE is a welcome addition to the "Oxford Edition of Standard Authors." Interest in Irving's work is apt to be confined to 'Bracebridge Hall' and 'Rip van Winkle'; but there is much more that is really attractive, and in the admirable Introduction the merits and defects of the man who first gave a strong lead to American fiction are fully explained. We only regret that nothing is said of Irving's charm as a man, his life as a bachelor with the nieces who stood to him as daughters, and his generosity, which eased the difficulties of his publisher, 'if we remember right, at a serious crisis. Irving was historian, wit and essayist as well as story-teller; but in. the last line only lies his claim to general recognition to-day. His stories, too, are not "short stories "