Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/76

 60 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. JULY n, 1920. Oerman works, which, to a beginner, will, we | think, prove more useful than the views of the ruins. We should have liked ground-plans . especiallv in the account of Delphi. The trained archaeologist, especially if he be also an excavator can re-construct the complete original from the remains. In works of " vulgarization the con- trary method is the more fruitful, i.e., to build up first, in the learner's mind, an image of the entire edifice, and only after that is comparatively steadv and perfect, to break it down, as it were, into the ruins which are all that is left of it. This is the method of most archaeologists in the letter-press : but letter-press and illustration should, so to put it, pull the same way, especially in a popular .account. We are not urging that some of the photographs here given should have been omitted, but. only that ground-plans should have been supplied. Sir Francis Bacon, Poet, Philosopher, Statesman, t Lawyer, Wit. By Parker Woodward. (London, Crafton & Co., 10s. 6d. net.) THE kev-note of this book is struck at once, and we may as well put the sentences in which this is done before our readers. " The literary achievements of Francis Bacon cannot be apprehended until the initial fact is accepted that this Proteus masked himself as author under many names Sir Francis used to mask as ' authors ' the names of men-players such as Peele, Gosson, Marlowe, Greene, Lodge and Shakspere and those of clerks such as Spenser, Kyd ash, Whitney, and Webbe, and of clerics like ' Bright and Burton. One military man Bar nab e names such Watson,' ' Immerito,' ' Ignot A number of the men-players were paid for the use of their names. " Of these ' authors ' no biographies or serious essays were attempted until the ninteenth centurv, and then without satisfactory results. Those 'readers of this book who are not choked with indignation at the above extensive author- ship claims are politely requested to read on.' Being neither choked nor even indignant, we polite in our turn read on, and found the reasons why we should believe Bacon to be the offspring of a secret marriage between Elizabeth and Leicester rather entertaining. Looking then, to the end, to learn what we ought to believe about his death, we read the tale of his having simulated a departure from this life at Highgate by means of opium and having, on his recovery, secretly betaken himself abroad. In the pages between, . as the sentences quoted indicate, he is represented as occupied with the creation of the whole of Elizabethan literature. An exhilarating touch occurs at the beginning of the Epilogue. Our author says of the marvel he has evolved out of his inner : consciousness : "He was essentially . a thoughtful statesman from his early years." Such a book as this is almost impossible to review. To refute it if refutation were desir- able a volume would be required. The Baconian theory is well enough known not to need re- stating here.' Those who hold it will no doubt welcome this book as a sort of amplifier ; those who do not and who have the mtience to read
 * it will either be amused by it (for we think

ight and Burton, une military nan, 3 Kich, served on occasion, as did pen- uch as ' Euphues,' ' John Lyly,' ' Thomas ' ' Tmmerito.' ' Ignoto ' and ' Anonimous.' indignation is out of the question) or, like the present reviewer, recognising the industry and imagination which have gone to making it, regret that such good rcowers have been so per- versely employed. The PsifcMn- Research Quarterly, vol . i., no. 1. (London, Kegan Paul, 3s. 6d.) WE have glanced with interest through this new Quarterly though the topics with which it is concerned are not within our scope. Sir William Barrett's paper on 'the So-called Divining (or Dowsing) Rod ' is the one which would have mosfc claim on the attention of a reader of ' N. & Q.' is such. In it is propounded a derivation of ' dowsing-rod " which this reviewer must con- ess to finding new. It is supposed that German miners, coming to Cornwall in Elizabeth's reign, >rought this object with them, calling it a Schlag- riithe, which was translated " into the middle English then spoken " as " Duschan-rod," became next Locke's " deusing-rod " and finally our modern " dowsing-rod." What would Professor Skeat have said to that ? The paper has a repro- duction of a curious old wood-cut of a dowser fc work from Agricola's ' De Be Metallica,' and
 * ontains among other things, accounts of feats

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