Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/99

 12 S. VIII. JAN. 22, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 79 BOOKS ON EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LIFE (12 S. vii. 511). I have in my possession a MS. of the eighteenth century, which states, on good authority, that the " Monks " or members of the Medmenham Society were as follows : " L* Le De Spencer, D r Benjamin Bates, jno wilkes Esq r, Paul Whitehead, Esq r , L d Sand- wich, BeV 1 M r Levett, M r Bivett, S r W Stanhope, S r John Delaval, S r W m Hamilton, S r Thomas Stapleton." A good deal of information about the society is contained in a book called 'Chrysal,' written "conjunctively " by the celebrated John Wilkes and a Mr. Potter, nephew to Dr. Potter, Bishop of Gloucester ; the story is founded on fact, but told in " a most ludicrous and exaggerated manner. " The " Monks ' ' are also dealt with in a modern novel called 'Sir Richard Escombe,' by Max Pemberton. This also appears to be somewhat highly coloured. BENJAMIN WHITEHEAD. 2 Brick Court, Temple E. C.4. A NOTE ON SAMUEL PEPYS'S * DIARY ' (12 S. vii 507 ; viii. 31). I wonder if your correspondent knows of the collection of Pepys's letters official, I believe in the charter closet at Gordonstoun near Elgin, the seat of Sir William Gordon Gumming, to whose ancestor I think they were written. They were shown to me some twenty years or more ago. R. B R. STEVENSON AND Miss YONGE (12 S* viii. 30). Someone has written me direct* referring me to : " ' The Young Stepmother ' (first published as a serial in The Monthly Packet 1857-60) where Gilbert Kendal is detected reading ' one of the worst and most fascinating of Dumas's romances ' and d'Artagnan is mentioned." As my informant omits name and address, I am unable to thank him except through 'N. & Q.', which I hasten to do; and in case the above information is not otherwise being sent to the Editor for insertion, here it is. EDWARD LATHAM. EARLY RAILWAY TRAVELLING (12 S. vii. 461,511; viii. 13,32). Humour in railway station design, described at the last reference, is not confined to Ireland. We have an example of it on the L.S.W. line at Dor- chester, amusing to the leisured, and ex- asperating to the hurried, traveller. There, trains may daily be seen rushing past their proper platform, and then solemnly backing to the appointed place. W. JAGGARD, Capt. Jiote rrn English Wayfariny Life in the Middle Ages. By J. J. Jusserand. A new edition revised and enlarged by the Author. (Fisher Un win, 25s.) WE are glad to welcome an old friend in a new edition of M. Jusserand's ' English Wayfaring Life.' It is now some five and thirty years since 'La Vie Nomade ' first made its appearance, and some thirty since the first English edition was published. Within this period there have been not fewer than nine impressions, a fact that vouches for the popularity of the work. The volume before us is the second edition, printed from new plates, revised in the light of modern research by its distinguished author,, virtually a new book. In format, too, we note a difference. Those who are, familiar with the older edition will not be displeased to find that this perhaps the most successful of M. Jusse- rand's labours has been brought into line with the author's more ambitious work ' A Literary History of the English people.' This is all to the good ; for in the later impressions the platea were beginning to exhibit distinct signs of wear and tear, and lovers of the book could not but hope that this delicate piece of work might escape the fate of most stereotyped classics. The pub- lishers are to be congratulated on their enterprise in undertaking the work in these difficult times and on carrying it through so successfully. In the preface to the new edition (in itself a graceful piece of writing) the author reveals to us the genesis of the work. In the first ardour of youth, when the shouldering of vast intellectual burdens is a matter lightly undertaken, he pro- posed to make his life companion a social history of England in the fourteenth century, that century of unique interest in which the amalgamation of race being all but complete, we see the definite emerging of English traits and characteristic?, and the first blossoming of a national literature. But diplomatic duties proved too exacting, and our author abandoning perforce the whole devoted himself to perfecting the part. The result is a classic, a classic of essentially French character. For it is in the selection of a limited field of research in the digestion of a vast amount of knowledge derived from original sources, and in the presenta- tion of the whole pleasantly leavened with a delicate play of wit and irony that the peculiar strength of much French scholarship lies. A somewhat similar tour de force lies to the credit of Maitland, whose rsum6 of our constitutional history is a classic in its kind. But here the field is larger and occasions for the lighter touch appreciably fewer. A further merit is that the book was virtually the work of a pioneer. Attempts had been made before to present social history in a more or less popular form. Matthew Browne is still readable ; but this was the first attempt of a competent scholar, the first attempt moreover based on original sources. The book we have said is virtually a new book. This is no exaggeration. The bulk has not been appreciably increased and a page for page collation with an earlier impression will not reveal a large amount of additional matter. What it will reveal is a systematic rewriting of the whole. There is hardly a sentence but bears the trace of labor