Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/149

 12 S. IX. AUG. 6, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 119 his new suggestions as proved facts. Taking it as a whole, it is a book to be warmly recom- mended to all who have at least a smattering of this alluring science, for it maps out the whole field as well as presenting the latest theories on particular points. Mr. Burkitt is, perhaps rightly, shy of physical anthropology, which he regards as outside his own field. He is shy, also, and a little too shy, of geology. Useful as is his correlation of geo- logical and anthropological eras, it might have been carried further to the advantage of the student. Yet, when Mr. Burkitt gets to work on what he is justified in claiming as his own subject, we have nothing but praise for his chapters. They are full, clearly arranged, and exact wherever exactness is possible. He knows the tools of primitive man thoroughly, and, with the help of the admirable plates at the end of the volume, he makes the study of them easy. Speaking broadly, the distinctive feature of his book is the prominence that it gives to the idea of migration. The field of discovery is no longer cut up into isolated portions. We get the implications of the contact of one civiliza- tion with another and of one race with another ; and there are several instances in which this idea gives satisfactory explanations of points hitherto obscure. The relations of Aurignacian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, for instance, are the subjects of some of Mr. Burkitt's most fruitful suggestions ; and his inquiry whether the Piltdown skull and the Heidelberg jaw are of the same age, though of different type^ the jaw corresponding to the development in Germany of Chellean man into Mousterian, and the Piltdown skull to the development in France of the Chellean into the Acheulean is one of which all students of the subject will see the significance. In all cases Mr. Burkitt is desirous of elucidating the origin and movement of the arious races ; and such phenomena as, for instance, the effect of Solutrean upon Aurigna- cian (an effect largely due to the lower race's possession of a better spear-head which rouses Mr. Burkitt to a rather unkind com- parison) ; and the passing of the Neanderthal race, beetle-browed ard prognathous, before the far superior Cro-Magnon from North Africa become almost, one might say, matters, not of prehistory, but of history. Of all the chapters in this book none is more interesting and vigorous than those on pre- historic art. Mr. Burkitt, following Breuil, has mapped it all out pretty clearly. Art begins in the Aurignacian age with the engraving of the sinuous lines known as " macaroni," and then of the first simple animal figures ; and the painting in outline of animals. In the Lower Magdale- nian age the engraving in silhouette improves, and there is a tendency to greater exactness in detail ; while in painting we get the first shading and modelling, and stump-drawing comes into use. In the Middle Magdalenian, the engraving reaches its highest point ; but colour, employed largely in monochrome flat wash, destroys the modelling, and the next period, the Upper Magdalenian, shows colour trying to get back in polychrome the modelling pre- viously lost, and engraving poorer than ever. Last, in the Azilian age, there is no engraving at all. And the purpose of this prehistoric art ? Mr. Burkitt argues it out carefully, and comes to the conclusion that as a general thing neither decoration nor the expression of the joy of life, but magic, was the prime motive. The subjects often forbid the idea of joy ; the position of the cave-art, usually difficult of access and far from the front of the cave where man lived, makes the idea of decoration unlikely. The " art mobi- lier " engraved bones and weapons included, no doubt, " sketches " made by pupils or by artists preparing to execute a cave-work ; but, in the main, art was a matter of religion ^-of procuring a good supply of food, of protecting the home, or of other spiritual affairs. And Mr. Burkitt sees good reason to believe in the exist- ence of a caste of medicine men, who maintained and modified the artistic traditions throughout the widely separated areas inhabited. As with the tools, so with the prehistoric art : the illustrations are excellent and of extraordinary interest. Poems of William Edmondstoune Aytoun. (Oxford University Press. Oxford edition, 5s. net. Also hi the ' Oxford Poets,' 8s. 6d. net ; and on India paper, 9s. 8d. net.) IT is good to have a complete and handy edition of Aytoun. The ' Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers' are always fresh and stirring. ' Bothwell ' is not too long, considering the movement and vigour of its verse. In the ' Miscellaneous Verse ' there are beautiful things besides the well-known ' GEnone.' It is satisfactory to know which of the ' Bon Gaultier Ballads ' were Aytoun's (the ' Snapping Turtle ' was his, and so was the immortal and perfect ' Massacre of the Mac- pherson '). But the clou of this edition is undoubtedly the ' Spasmodic Tragedy,' Firmilian, by * T. Percy Jones,' and the review of the tragedy which was published before the work itself ap- peared. In tragedy and review Aytoun made hilarious fun of the poetic extravagances of such writers as ' Festus ' Bailey of Nottingham, and Sydney Dobell with his 'Balder,' and Alexander Smith with his ' Drama 'of Life.' No one who loves a witty burlesque but will enjoy these two brilliant specimens of it now first reprinted. Another side of this remarkable poet may be seen at its best in the ' Lament for Percy Bysshe Shelley,' written in the metre of ' Adonai's.' The book is well arranged and well printed, and the price of the cheapest edition is cheap indeed. A Contribution to an Essex Dialect Dictionary. Supplement II. (Reprinted from The Essex Review, July, 1921.) By the Rev. Edward Gepp, M.A. (Colchester : Benham, Is. 3d. ; post free, Is. 4d.) AT 12 S. vi. 239, we reviewed Mr. Gepp's original 'Contribution,' and at 12 S. vii. 380, we noticed the publication of the first Supplement. The second Supplement, just issued, amplifies the former works, comprising many new words and usages and new comments on and illustrations of words and usages already given. The Supple- ment gives also a few Essex dialect words not yet recorded in the author's own district of High Easter, Felsted and Little Dunmow, and some Suffolk and Norfolk words which may be found to occur in Essex. Not all the words given are exclusively Essex words. For instance, a " gaggle," or flight of birds, is the word that all