Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/207

 9* s. i. MAR. 5,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

199

t eals first with the 1,028 hymns known as the ' Hymns of the Rig- Veda,' to listen to which on the 1 art of a Sudra, or one of non-Aryan blood, became I efore long an offence punishable by pouring in the tirs molten lead, while to recite them, or even to i amember the sound, was to be visited by still more Edvere penalties, involving death. Dismissing as i nprobable the expectation that comparative philo- logy will solve the interesting problems connected v/ith the past of the Indo-Aryans, our author finds i i the Vedic hymns not only the first literary land- marks in the history of India, but almost all that can be definitely asserted concerning the primitive Beliefs of the Aryans. The date of the Vedic hymns seems to recede with the progress of light, and there are those who date them so far back as 2,500 years B.C. Sacred treasures of the race, and "full of the sound of the rush of moving waters," the verses tell of the glories of the land the Aryan has come to conquer and make his own from the Indus to the distant Ganges. What we know of custom, culture, and belief is found in these records of the poet-priests. It is needless to say that here is a storehouse for the student of comparative mytho- logy. Passing by the Brahmanas, in which the Brahmanic ritual, its origin and significance, are incorporated, Mr. Frazer comes to the evidences of a changing order of things found in the disquisitions of the Upanishads. Before the teaching of the Vedas and Upanishads was systematized in the Brahma Sutras arose the strange belief, so deeply impressed on the history of India, known as Bud- dhism. The progress from Brahmanism to Buddhism is closely traced, as is that of the ascetic and the forest-dweller while the sacrificial fires still burned in India. We cannot follow Mr. Frazer in his history of the life of Buddha, or show its influence as a revolt from Brahmanism, its failure to break through the bonds of caste, and its ultimate banish- ment "to its natural resting-place amid the Scythian race." On these and other matters with which our author deals, in a long and closely arguec work, the reader must consult the book. Most interesting and valuable chapters are those on the epics and the drama, many translations from the latter being given. Not a few will turn to the closing chapters, in which the influence of Western I civilization upon Indian thought is traced. It is difficult to overestimate the erudition or the import interested in primitive culture or careful about the future of imperial interests in the most precious o our Eastern possessions.
 * ance of a book which demands close study from al

William Hogarth. By Austin Dobson. (Kegan

Paul & Co.)

THE appearance of a new edition, revised and en larged, of Mr. Austin Dobson's admirable mono graph on Hogarth is a matter on which the lover of literature and art are to be congratulated During the seven years in which the work has been before the public it has maintained its position am its authority, its worth as literature never havin been disputed. The welcome accorded it from th first was enthusiastic, and it has been held up as model of the manner in which the biography of a artist should be constructed. Though a tempting the great eighteenth-century satirist is not wholl a remunerative subject. Facts known concernin him are few ; his life after his successful elopemen and happy marriage was unromantic ; and his bi graphy is, in fact, little else than a record of h

rtistic production and an account of his friendships nd feu da. For the purpose of extracting a bio aphy from such inadequate materials Mr. Dobson the best equipped of English writers. To a know- edge of his subject and a sympathy with it such as ne other writer alone possesses he adds a fami- arity with the surroundings of the painter and tie period in which he lived almost, it not quite, nique. In the literature and art of that eigh- eenth century, the more serious aspects of which re hidden behind a veil of artificiality, Mr. Dobson s steeped. He is, moreover, the possessor of a .terary style both lucid and picturesque, and he .lustrates his subject from the stores of a rich and aried erudition. We have not now to treat his rork as a novelty. The additions that further light pon Hogarth has enabled Mr. Dobson to amass are isible in every part of the subject, and are most bvious, perhaps, in the bibliography, in which, resides new entries, some of those previously xisting are revised and enlarged. The index is lotably augmented, to the great gain of the student, tour new plates are said to enrich the edition. ?here are, however, more than four added illustra- ions, one of the. most interesting being Mr. E. A. Abbey's delightful design of ' A Hogarth Enthusiast.' )ne new pHotogravure is the portrait of Henry Fielding. STothing is to be added to what has been said concerning Mr, Dobson's work, except that in ts later form it is even more desirable than in the brmer.

Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum. By W. G. Searle,

M.A. (Cambridge, University Press.) A DIRECTORY is not generally considered a book of absorbing interest ; and yet to the seeing eye and understanding mind it IB a veritable museum of primitive survivals and fossilized remains of an- tiquity. We remember a well-known philologist, now gone to his rest, who used to find a never- iailing source of entertainment, when he took his walks abroad, in noting and commenting on the names which met his eye over shop doors. An " onomasticon " is hardly more than a directory very much out of date, and that which now lies before us, carefully compiled and edited by Mr. Searle, though it may seem to the general reader a barren list of unmeaning vocables, will prove a valu- able quarry to the student of names, whether per- sonal or looal. It is, in fact, a register of Anglo-Saxon E roper names some 25,000 items in all gathered
 * -om all quarters, from the time of Beda down to

the reigp of King John. Mr. Searle is content to efface himself and present his raw material without any attempt to annotate it or to point out the inter- esting bearings which his work possesses. For instance, many of these Anglo-Saxon names, which as Christian names or prenomens are utterly ex- tinct, still enjoy a posthumous existence in the shape of surnames. We have quite forgotten Put- toe, but we know Puttick (and Simpson). Godsall is evidently the modern representative of Godes- scealc ("servant of God" Heb. Obadiah), as Askell is of 2Esc-cytel, and Thurkell is of Thur-cytel. Wulfsige still lives in Wolsey, Regenweald (Reg- nold) in Reynolds, Regenhere and Reinere in Rayner. So Stan-cytel has passed through the forms Stannechetel and Stanchil into our present- day Stantial.

Moreover, the investigator of place-names will find here suggestive hints in such words as Dulwic, which seems to throw some light on the enigmatical