Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/67

 9* S. I. JAN. 15, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

59

' ?haedra and Hippolytus.' We were previously t iaware that his conduct was so licentious as it j jpears to have been. Mr. Lee quotes with approval t bhnson's characteristic utterance that he was " one

< f those lucky writers who have, without much ] i,bour, attained high reputation, and who are men- i xmed with reverence rather for the possession 1 dan the exertion of uncommon abilities. Sir John i mith, 1534-1607, diplomatist and military writer, i i in Mr. Lee's hands, as are Walter Smith, jester,
 * nd William Smith, fl. 1596, poet, whose initials led

10 some confusion between him and Shakspeare. A model of condensation is Mr. Lee's life of Sir

< reorge Somers, the discoverer of the Bermudas,

< iccasionally named after him Somers' or the Sum- i ner Islands. A record of his shipwreck and life in -he Bermudas is said to have suggested the setting >f Shakspeare's ' Tempest. ' A very pleasant and in- structive biography is that of Will Sommers, fool to Henry VIII., commemorated in the comedy of ' Sum- mer's Last Will and Testament.' William Sotheby, ^he translator of Wieland's ' Oberon,' the 'Georgics, 3 and Homer, once a conspicuous figure in London .society, is painted, as is John Southern, poetaster, a distinct personage from Thomas Southern, the dramatist. An account of Robert Southwell, poet, Jesuit, and, in the estimate of some, martyr, shows that all his works have not even yet been published in their integrity, and says that abundant materials for a biography are accessible. In Mr. Lee's most ambitious memoir that of Edmund Spenser his name is associated with that of Prof. Hales. This splendid biography includes a full and emi- nently useful bibliography. Two of the most dis- tinguished Smiths, Adam and Sydney, are treated by Mr. Leslie Stephen. The character of Sydney Smith is vindicated from the opprobrium, heapea upon him by clerics of the day, of being a scoffer. "He was neither vulgar nor malicious," and his " ex- uberant fun did not imply scoffing." He had strong religious convictions, and could utter them solemnly and impressively, and " he took pains against any writing by his allies which might shock believers/ 5 ' Mr. Stephen is also responsible for the life of Spedding, the friend of Tennyson and Fitzgerald. Very high praise is bestowed on Spedding' s edition of Bacon, which is said to be an unsurpassable model of thorough and scholarlike editing. Sped- ding's personality is also put, naturally, in a very pleasant light. One of the most active and valuable contributors is Mr. Seccombe, to whom has been en- trusted the all-important life of Smollett. Doing full justice to the literary style of Smollett whom Leigh Hunt, " oblivious of Dickens," calls the finest of caricaturists Mr. Seccombe declares that there was in Smollett, beneath a very surly exterior, ' ' a vein of rugged generosity and romantic feeling." Amidst many important memoirs from the same source we may single out those of Robert Spencer, second Earl of Sunderland, and Thomas Smith, 1638-1710, Nonjuring divine and scholar, for their pleasant lite- rary style and condensed information. Among many excellent articles on naval heroes by Prof. Laughton, that on Sir William Sidney Smith stands pleasantly conspicuous. Dr. Garnett sends many important contributions, among which the very judicious lives of Robert Southey and Joseph Spence, of the ' Anecdotes,' are perhaps most noteworthy. Alex- ander Smith, the Scotch poet, of the so-called " Spasmodic " school, wins full recognition from Mr. Thomas Bayne. With Mr. Bayne's opinions we concur, and we hope yet to see Smith revived.

A life of Sir John Soane is one of the best of Mr. O'Donoghue's contributions. Space fails us even to draw attention to the capital biographies sup- plied by Mr. W. P. Courtney, Mr. Aitken, Mr. Rigg, Mr. Thompson Cooper, Mr. Tedder, Mr. Welch, Mr. Warwick Wroth, Sir Herbert Max- well, and others, who are to some extent the backbone of the undertaking. Miss Elizabeth Lee's life of Charlotte Smith deserves commendation. Mr. Firth and the Rev. W. Hunt are not very strongly represented. The only blunder we detect is in the life of Sothern, the comedian, where ' The Woman in White,' which is by Wilkie Collins, is stupidly substituted for ' The Woman in Mauve ' of Watts Phillips, an obvious instance of confusion of names.

The Antiquary. By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Edited

by Andrew Lang. (Nimmo.)

THE third volume of Mr. Nimmo's issue of the new and cheaper edition of the delightful " Border" Waverley has been reached. It contains all the illustrations of the two -volume edition, and is, unlike that, "not too bright and good" though it is both bright and good for the novel-reader's "daily food." It is, in fact, just the edition in which ' The Antiquary ' can be re-read. Beginning the reperusal of this novel, as we always do when the temptation presents itself, we note a mistake of Scott, to which, so far as we are aware, attention has not been called. Expressly stating at the outset that Sir Arthur Wardour is a baronet, Scott per- sists in calling him subsequently the knight. Sir Arthur might, of course, have been both, but most probably he was not.

A Dictionary of English Authors. By R. Farquhar-

son Sharp. (Red way.)

To the man with few books and but few chances of access to them this volume may be commended. It contains much matter in little space, and is inter- leaved for additions. As an official of the British Museum, Mr. Sharp is in a position to work with ease to himself and advantage to others. We are not quite satisfied with the arrangement, and would fain see omissions as well as additions. While obscure poetlings, whose names will be forgotten, if ever they have been known, are given at length, we find the name of J. G. Frazer, the editor of ' The Golden Bough,' certainly the most epoch-making English book of the latter half of the century, omitted. This is not the only case of the kind. Mr. Sharp seems a little carried away by the self-adver- tisement of the writer or of the bookseller. Hence his volume seems to us to lack proportion.

Masters of Medicine. William Harvey. By D'Arc y Power, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.C.S. (Fisher Unwin.) MB. D'ARCY POWER'S successful accomplishment of the life of Harvey forms the second volume of this popular series of medical and surgical biographies. It is concisely told, but interestingly and autho- ritatively, for Mr. Power has made much of the wide field of early English medical training and teaching his own. The choice of the two men- Hunter and Harvey to commence this series seems to be eminently judicious. The one was the father of surgery as an art and as a science, the other the founder of modern physiology, and hence of modern medicine. As was well pointed out by Dr. Payne in a recent Harveian Oration, Aristotle, Galen, Linacre, Caius, and Harvey form a progressive