Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/207

 9*8. XII. SEPT. 5, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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His scheme is perhaps too ambitious, since the various hells he describes have, in some cases, next to nothing in common. His treatment is, however, serious and erudite, and the element of popularity in his volume is confined to the illustrations, which are often appalling. The student of early literature is, of course, familiar with the horrors of the mediaeval hell as illustrated in primitive woodcuts and engravings. The picture of a huge dragon- mouth vomiting flames, and exhibiting crudely designed devils tormenting poor naked humans, may be continually seen in books concerning the miracle plays ; and in ornaments of ecclesiastical architecture, from the gargoyle to the misericord, we find the most comic and grotesque, if occasion- ally terrible, illustrations of the beings to whom, in the conception of the Middle Ages and that of long subsequent times, the future existence of the sinner was to be entrusted. With Buddhist torments, as depicted by the Chinese imagination, we were less familiar ; but those who know the ingenuity of the Chinese in devising tortures in this world were prepared to find that perplexing people no less inventive with regard to future punishment. In his ' Descent of Man ' Darwin, as stated by Mr. Mew, points out that while there is ample evidence of the existence of races with no idea of God and no name to express Him, it is otherwise with devils and ghosts. In the case of the Greek and the Latin, who came under Greek influence, and in that of the Assyrian, the Egyptian, and the Hebrew, what is herein treated as hell meant originally no more than the home of the dead, of ghosts, and is not associated with the idea of punishment, penal or expiatory. For giving us a book which is, in some senses, more repulsive than the more or less known works presenting pictures of the tortures of the early Christians of Father Gallonip, the ' De SS. Martyrum Cruciatibus,' or those in English and 'Dutch Protestant martyrologies, Mr. Mew seems to apologize by quoting, on a preliminary page, passages such as the " Sancti de poenis impiorum gaudebunt" of Thomas Aquinas and Father Faber's startling statement in 'Wonders of Divine Love': "The false delicacy of modern times in keeping back the scaring images of Hell, while in the case of children it has often marred a whole education, is a formid- able danger to the sanctity as well as to the faith of men." Mr. Mew, at any rate; escapes the rebuke of keeping back scaring images, for in his book there are sufficient such to supply weeks, and even months, of nightmares. One ot the best and most convenient works in which to see pictures of hell- mouth is perhaps Heywood's ' Hierarchic of the Blessed Angels,' in which the title-page and plates 6, 8, and 9 may be studied. Plate 8, showing St. Michael treading on the archfiend, would serve for a grotesque illustration to Milton. It is curious that in the design to Book I. of ' Para- dise Lost' (1688, folio, fourth edition, first illus- trated) Satan is shown tormenting or rousing his "associates and copartners" with a spear. Mr. Mew has given us a readable and interesting work from sources such as ' The Book of the Dead,' the 4 Sutta-Nipjita ' (translated by V. Fausboll), the Yii Ti ' (translated by H. A. Giles), ' Les Enfers Boud- dhiques ' of Riotor and Leofanti, and innumerable other writers, many of them little known. There is, indeed, something more than a show of erudition, and the task attempted is in many respects effi- ciently done. It only when we meet with expres- sions such as "a sybil" (sic) and "the Alkoran"

that we begin to wonder if Mr. Mew's scholarship is as exact as it is varied. -The rapid changes from heat to cold, which are frequently mentioned in the volume as part of the tortures of hell, are familiar. In * Paradise Lost' we are told of a portion of hell : Thither, by harpy-footed Furies hail'd, At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought : and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce, From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice Thir soft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infixt, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire. In spite of its horrors, perhaps partly on account of them, Mr. Mew's book is likely to enjoy a good deal of popularity. It is both readable and instructive, and may hope to rank, as its author claims for it, "as a sort of comparative eschatology." It steers carefully clear of polemics. Unfortunately or re- prehensibly, the book has no index.

Stevenson's Shrine : the Record of a Pilgrimage. By

Laura Stubbs. (Moring.)

THE title-page of Miss Stubbs's book is fully indicative of its pious purpose. A native of Australia (qy. Brisbane?) and an enthusiast con- cerning Robert Louis Stevenson, Miss Stubbs went out for a cruise amidst the South Sea islands in a Union Company's steamer, took the opportunity of visiting Vailima, climbed to see the tomb of Steven- son whom " in the flesh " she never knew and wrote concerning her journey a little work which is pleasant and sympathetic throughout, and to which a series of admirably executed illustrations from photographs add enduring value. With its descriptions abounding in colour, its fervour, and its agreeable enthusiasms and raptures, the book thus produced will take a permanent place among Stevensoniana, and it may claim to fulfil a primary duty of a work of travel of its species by inspiring a longing to visit the spots described. It is beauti- fully got up, and is worthy of a place on the shelves or the table in any cultivated home.

The Cloud World: its Features and Significance.

By Samuel Barber. (Stock.)

THE author's meteorological articles in various scientific periodicals have prepared us for the extended study of the forms and formation of clouds, the results of which are given in the attractive volume before us, and are the fruits, he tells us, of forty years' observations of the wonders and beauty of the daylit sky. Especially note- worthy are the chapters on the snow-cloud, the sun-pillar, the hail -cloud, and the auroral or magnetic cirrus. The illustrations, thirty-one in number, are of a high order of excellence, and the glossary of cloud forms, with which the work closes, is exceedingly handy for reference.

No. VI. of the Burlington Magazine (Savile Pub- lishing Company) opens with an account of ' The Lowestoft Porcelain Factory.' Titian's portrait of the Empress Isabella, from the Prado Museum, Madrid, finely reproduced, is accompanied by a copy of the picture from which Titian's masterly work was taken. Edifying in many respects is the contrast between the two. Following this comes the newly discovered portrait of a woman by Albrecht Ditrer acquired by the British Museum. The frontispiece to the number is formed by Spag- noletto's 'Great Executioner,' from the famous