Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/459

 12 s. vii. NOV. 6,1920] NOTES AND QUERIES.

379

Serjeant Robinson adds "he was looked upon as the hardest Judge on any Bench as regards the sentences he pronounced upon criminals. ' '

There is also a most affectionate reference to Judge Payne in ' The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G.,' by Edwin Hodder, 1886, vol iii. chapter 31, pp. 261-3. Lord Shaftesbury 's words are

" My dear old precious friend and fellow- worker .... What shall I feel without him ? . . . . During five and twenty years we have been associates in the happy toil on behalf of the poor innocents of London."

FREDERICK CHARLES WHITE. 14 Esplanade, Lowestoft.

CORONATION OF Louis XI. (12 S. vii. 289). MR. T. PERCY ARMSTRONG should consult 'Le Grand Larousse,' in loc. for very ample verification of the "sacre " of Louis XI. The last king of France sub- mitted to it was Charles X. (1820), of which ceremony the famous historical painter Gerard has left a picture. There is no mention of Charles XII. of Sweden having been crowned in France.

EDWARD WEST.

MISSING WORDS (12 S. vii. 232, 296, 338) - C. B. E,'s memory is at fault in ascribing to the first wife of George Meredith the lines,

Come not when I am dead

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave. It is possible they may have been quoted by this lady, but they are Lord Tennyson's. In my copy of his poems they are indexed among ' English Idylls and other Poems,' under the reference
 * Come not when I arn dead.'

WM. SELF WEEKS.

0tt

French Civilization from its Origins to the Close of the Middle Ages. By Albert Le"on Gue>ard. (Fisher Unwin, II. Is.)

As an Introduction to what is, perhaps the most deeply interesting study within the bounds of European history, this work may well be recom- mended. Critics will be apt to find fault with it much as one may with an anthology. In a selection from multitudinous well-known facts, as Lin a selection from the huge field of literature, no two minds will agree as to what claims are beyond gainsaying. Thus the present writer would have curtailed the chapters on prehistoric man in favour of a chapter or two at the end comparing the mediaeval civilization of France with that of the other countries of Europe, and illustrating both what the rest of Europe owes to France and what France to the rest of Europe. In general it may be said that distinctive French development is not sufficiently clearly brought out as such,

considering, that is, the somewhat slender degree of knowledge evidently assumed irv the student.

The introductory chapter will please an.d stimulate the reader though some of the state- ments challenge objection ; as when our author says that " Religion is the crown of culture." The pages on French geography, and the French population and life as connected with this, are- very well done ; and the picture of Roman Gaul gives the main features clearly.

Subsequent chapters, where the material to be dealt with is so greatly more abundant, sufljer a little from the work having been conceived first as a University course. The chronological se- quence in development, almost impossible to convey orally over so large a field, is thereby weakened.

On the other hand the account of the essential character, and the actual working out of feudalism is as good as any we have seen, and we found the chapters on mediaeval life and culture ad- mirable of their kind.

M. Gue>ard's view of Christianity and the social conditions in France during the Middle Ages is that of which the best-known historical expression appears in the work of M. Luchaire. The chief note of this, representing the main trend of modern feeling and opinion, would seem to be a new familiarity a rapprochement. The Middle Ages, whether scorned or over-praised, have for many generations been regarded as aloof and strange. The spiral of history at a different altitude be it granted is now turning towards them, a movement accelerated by the experience of the Great War, but having its origin many years before it, in the closer study of sources. . M. Guerard makes a spirited and happy contribu- tion to that rapprochement.

Here and there an omission might be remedied: e.g., does not the Cathedral of Soissons deserve^ mention ; and a slip corrected as on p. 166 where- the Orders to which St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura respectively belonged have become interchanged. And here and there occur enter- taining " flings " which might puzzle the beginner : as when we are told that " Chateaubriand had still to dethrone the heathen gods from the temples of French poetry. The literary mind is tenacious in its worship of fallen idols " which seems to us a meaningless epigram. But, on the whole, alike for its solid judgment, well chosen illustra- tion, and lively handling, we gratefully welcome this book as a good work of popularisation.

Moby-Dick or the Whale. By Herman Melville. With an Introduction by Viola Meynell. (Humphrey Milford.)

THIS is vol. 225 of " The World's Classics," and one of the best of the series. Miss Viola Meynell's Introduction has a touch of extravagance about it : but in an age where things must be writ very large if they are to stand out and attract their due attention, one need not cavil at her enthu- siasm. It will put a new reader in the right mood, and on the right tack of expectation in regard to a marvellous book, in which the secrets of the sea are opened up with the knowledge of a true sea-farer and the genius of a great writer. The human beings, figuring on that mighty scene are conceived so generously, their tears and!