Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/462

 380 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.ix. NOV. 5,1021, J2otrs on Modern English Biography. By Frederic Boase. Vol. vi. (Supplement vol. iii.) L-Z. (Truro : Netherton and Worth, 2 2s. net.) THE monumental work of Frederic Boase was designed, as most of our readers will know, to give biographies of notable characters who died during the half-century 1851-1901. Perhaps reiterated commendation grows wearisome ; commendation, most amply deserved, has already been lavishly bestowed upon this great and most useful undertaking, and on the way in which it has been carried out. Yet we cannot refrain from expressing anew our sense of the great debt under which Boase has laid all cultivated persons to the end of time. There is no service which any serious student can rank much higher than that of the good guide who will prevent waste of precious time by giving what we may call basic facts, and offering the first clues for further study. A great proportion of the " notable characters " appearing here bear names in everybody's mouth, whom yet one might find the utmost difficulty in tracking down, if one needed a date connected with them or some note of a work of theirs. One rather curious omission not perfectly consistent throughout, but so frequent as to seem considered is that of the names of wives. The husbands of remarkable married ladies are duly entered, but, for all this volume tells us, William Morris (to take one example) might have been a life-long bachelor. As in the previous volumes, some of the best material is furnished in interesting notes to the main biography ; and reference, from another point of view, is facilitated by an excellent index of the most important and curious facts included. A study of these entries reveals the compre- hensiveness of the work, as no mere reading through of the columns can. Here we are told of the invention of the expression " Towers of Silence." for the places where the Parsees expose their dead ; of the last conviction for simony ; of the identity of characters represented in well-known novels ; of strange deaths ; pseu- donyms, and the last man in England to wear frills. The Preface supplied by Miss A. K. Ranee gives a very brief outline of the author's life. Mention is made of his contributions to our columns, and the names of the late W. P. Courtney and of Mr. Ralph Thomas happily still with us make further links between ' N. & Q.' and this work. Mr. Thomas, we are told, has read the whole of the proofs, and throughout has given the aid of valuable suggestions and criti- cisms. We do not know whether any one has in hand a work similar to this for the years 1901 to 1951. It is certainly much to be desired. The Quarterly Review for October is a number of exceptional interest. No doubt many readers will turn first to Mr. Esme Stuart's story of how the precious Van Eyck, the great treasure of Ghent, was preserved from the Germans. Twice, we are told, it was conveyed across the city under their very noses. Its actual hiding-place is naturally not revealed. We fancy that even this much enlightenment will make the conveyance of treasures through a captured city more difficult in future. Mr. Frederick A. Edwards's account of the air raids on London will not only recall their experiences to many Londoners but add several fresh details to what has been generally known. Mr. Haines writes very pleasantly on recent Shakespearian research, but does not seem to be aware of the latest discoveries which have de- finitely fixed the site of the Globe to the south of Maid Lane. Mr. Garnett on Tchekov and his art should prove useful to the enthusiasts who have so diligently been heightening the pedestal of the great Russian. Their zeal is not invariably according to knowledge. A very charming article is Sir J. G. Frazer's study of Roman life in the time of Pliny the younger. In ' The Origin of Hindu Serious Drama ' Sir William Ridgeway carries further his argument, already known to students of Indian religion, that not exclusively in the worship of Krishna, but also in the worship and propitiation of the dead, must the sources of the historical and tragic drama of Hindustan be sought. Mr. C. E. Laurence gives utterance to several wholesome truths in a lively essay on ' Best Sellers,' and we could almost wish that his trenchant paragraphs had appeared in some periodical read generally by less enlightened readers. We have for several years followed the historical work of Professor Tout with more than ordinary interest, and have accordingly seen with great pleasure the competent appreciation of it in Dr. Liebermann's ' New Light on Medieval Eng- land.' We confess to an opinion that enough for the present has been written about Cardinal Manning, but Mr. Algernon Cecil, if he rather con- siders that familiar figure from his own angle than adds appreciably to our understanding, at least writes very agreeably. Mr. MacColl, in his dis- cussion of Sir Reginald Blomfield's ' History of French Architecture from the Death of Mazarin till the Death of Louis XV.,' contributes one of the best papers of a number which, to repeat what we started with, is unusually good. to Correspondent*. EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' ' Adver- tisements and Business Letters to ' ' The Pub- lishers " at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4 ; corrected proofs to The Editor, ' N. & Q.,' Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4. ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the name and address of the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately. WHEN answering a query, or referring to an article which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses im- mediately after the exact heading the numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the con- tribution in question is to be found. WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor correspondents are requested to put in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of ' N. & Q.' to which "- letter refers. ithe