Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/487

. xii. DEC. 12, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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unlikely that the Sonnets were published through his influence and with his cognizance." After studying the Sonnets so closely that he has com- mitted them to memory a praiseworthy and almost indispensable preliminary, in which he is not alone he declares his preparedness to "show conclu- sively that Prof. Minto's conjecture as to Chapman's identity as the 'rival poet' is absolutely true." These be strong words, and they are followed by others equally strong. How far our author succeeds in establishing his case we will leave the reader to judge. If he carries his point, no matter at what price of rearrangement of the Sonnets and subversal of the accepted order of the plays, he has done more than has been accomplished by any of his predecessors. This is surely enough to justify every Shakespearian scholar in undertaking the rather arduous task of studying the volume. A point on which stress is laid is that Holofernes in ' Love's Labour 's Lost ' is George Chapman. In the supposed allusion to Southampton as Ganymede in Chapman's 4 Shadow of Night' a point of interest is approached; but Mr. Acheson insists that an essential line has " dropped out." We see no trace of this, and the rimes are perfect. At the close of his volume Mr. Acheson prints poems of Chapman in which he finds attacks upon Shakespeare. In these, and in much of Mr. Acheson's argument, there is matter to interest and stimulate thought. If we remain un- convinced we may acknowledge that this is a state of mind familiar to us in presence of Shakespearian criticism and emendation. Were the subject theo- logical we might perhaps plead the crassa igno- rantia which the most zealous and orthodox accept as a mitigating condition in cases of heresy.

The Story of Nell Givyn. By Peter Cunningham.

Edited by Gordon Goodwin. (Bullen.) AFTER appearing in serial shape in the Gentleman' 1 s Magazine for 1851, ' The Story of Nell Gwyn : and the Sayings of Charles the Second,' as it was origin- ally called, assumed book-form the following year and sprang into immediate popularity. Before long it became although its trustworthiness had been to some extent oppugned one of the scarcest and most-prized volumes of modern theatrical literature. Within the last decade a new edition, with further notes and a life of the author by Mr. H. B. Wheatley, who continued Cunningham's 'Old and New London,' saw the light; and this has in turn been followed by an edition entitled simply 'The Story of Nell Gwyn, 3 and edited by Mr. Gordon Goodwin. The latest editor has been fortunate enough to add somewhat to our knowledge of the frail and vivacious heroine, and the present issue may count as the best. It is specially pretty and convenient in shape, and it contains in addi tion to views of Nell's reputed birthplace at Here ford and other spots associated with her a series of brilliantly executed portraits of herself, her off spring, her associates, and her rivals. Nell Gwyn on a bed of roses, with Charles II. in the distance after Gascar, serves as frontispiece. There are reproductions of four portraits by Lely : one from t picture at Montagu House ; one as Cupid, of the ut most rarity, by Richard Tompson ; and presentations of Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, the Duchess of Cleveland, James, Lord Beauclerk, and others. So strongly do these recommend the book that the possessors of the other editions will be disposed or obliged to add this to their collection It is in all respects a dainty little volume.

yictionctry of Historical Allusions. By Thomas Benfield Harbbttle. (Sonnenschein & Co.) ^HIS useful work is intended to rank with the ^Dictionary of Quotations ' of the same author and }ol. P. H. Dalbiac. A work of this kind is, on its- irst appearance, necessarily tentative, and will in- he course of successive editions be greatly enlarged. ?he reader who uses it will be saved much trouble, ince the information it supplies covers a period! rom the beginnings of literature up to to-day. .n some cases additions to what is told might with advantage be supplied. To ' Chouans ' might
 * >e appended the information that they were

10 called in consequence of imitating the cry of -he chouan, or long-eared owl. There are, more- >ver, curious confusions of date. There could scarcely have been an Earl of Mar a Jacobite leader n 1813; we know of no Cyprus Treaty of 1788 >etween Great Britain and Turkey; Baillie, the eader of the Jerviswood plot for preventing the Duke of York from succeeding Charles II., could not have been executed in 1634, when the duke was only a year old ; and Steele, ob. 1729, and Addison,, ob. 1719, could not have been members, as is stated,, of a club founded by prominent Whig politicians o promote the principles of the French Revolution. Senri III., who died in 1589, could not have issued n 1785 an edict withdrawing all the privileges accorded to the Huguenots, nor did that monarch ever receive the nickname of Mignon, which was. applied to his favourites.

Great Masters. Part IV. (Heinemann.) THE latest part of 'Great Masters' opens with Romney's lovely painting of Mrs. Drummond Smith, from the collection of the Marquess of Northampton at Castle Ashby. One of the most beautiful of Romney's portraits, this work is com- paratively unknown. The bright, handsome, boyish face which follows, and is entitled 'A Young Cava- lier Writing,' is by Gabriel Metsu, and is from the fine collection of Mr. A. Beit. It is a masterpiece- of a Dutch school no longer in highest repute, and is a magnificent reproduction. From Lord Sack- ville's gallery comes Gainsborough's portrait of Miss Linley (Sheridan's wife and the subject of his famous duels) and her brother, and shows its two subjects dishevelled in a gipsy fashion. It is, as the commentator says, inferior in ex- pression to works kindred in class by Sir Joshua,, but the beauty of the faces, especially that of the boy, is indescribable. The Earl of Carlisle lends the original of the landscape of Rubens with which the part concludes. In behalf of this work it is claimed that it is one of the finest landscape paintings produced in his great days by one of the most original of artists, to whom

"Nature was a living, striving, palpitating

entity, who saw Nature like a myth-maker, saw Pan in the woods, Aurora in the dawn, Jove in the sky, Boreas in the gale." With this part the pub- lisher offers special privileges to subscribers, bring- ing the charge per plate to a price out of comparison with anything that has previously been offered the public. Attention is being drawn by Dr. Bode, Director of the Berlin National Gallery, to the fact that, whereas all mezzotint engravings must neces- sarily be one artist's interpretation of another, we have in the present instance a perfect reproduction of the artist's design with every detail perfect. There can be no question of the beauty of the work- manship, and the owner of the one hundred plates