Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/307

 9 th S. II. OCT. 8, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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fault we can find is that the biography is perhaps too short. Canon Ainger refrains from criticism, though he is communicative as to the reception awarded by the public to successive works. The biography is very interesting. It is characteristic of the amiable and accomplished biographer that the less pleasing aspects of the immortal poet (and he had such) do not appear. Is it quite accurate to say that the drama or ' The Foresters ' is "as yet unpublished"? We have now before us a copy with the name of Macmillan, New York and London, as publishers, and the date 1892. Of scarcely inferior interest from any point of view, and of even greater interest from one, is the life of Thackeray by his son-in-law, Leslie Stephen. This is the longest biography in the volume, and is eminently judicious and readable. Mr. Stephen has the courage to say that the action of Thackeray which led to Edmund Yates quitting the Garrick Club was "injudicious." It was no less. So popular was Thackeray with the members of the club in his time that the fight between the two men, even though Yates was championed by Dickens, was unequal. In writing the life Mr. Stephen has, it may be supposed, had access to all the material which Mrs. Ritchie is employing in her biographical edition of her father's works. Thackeray was a great club man. Apart from the more important clubs of which he was a member, the Athenaeum, the Garrick, and the Reform, some of the smaller clubs he helped to form are in a sense alive, and a few unpublished trifles of his throwing off in con- nexion with them could with some difficulty be traced. A great amount of important work has once more been assigned to Mr. Thomas Seccombe, by whom it is ably and conscientiously done. Among many excellent biographies by Mr. Seccombe are the Sir William Temple, Bonnell Thornton, John Thelwall, reformer and lecturer, and James Thom- son of 'Seasons' fame. This last is the most im- portant of the sub-editor's articles. Mr. Seccombe holds that in the possession of the true poetic temperament Thomson has not been surpassed even by Tennyson. He is far from regarding the poetical product of the two men as equal. A biography to which our readers will naturally turn is that of W. J. Thorns, the founder of ' N. & Q.' This is sym- pathetically written by Mr. E. I. Carlyle. Miss Kate Norgate has an admirable life of Thomas a Becket. Tillotson is treated by the Rev. Alexander Gordon. Under Theobald, Thurstan, &c., many eminently satisfactory lives by the Rev. W. Hunt will be found. Mr. Stanley Lane - Poole deals, under Temple, with Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister. Mr. C. H. Firth is still concerned with regicides and others of the Commonwealth period. Mr. Fraser Rae writes on Richard Tickell. Mr. Thomas Bayne, Mr. H. R. Tedder, Mr. Aitken, Mr. Churton Collins, Mr. Thompson Cooper, Mr. Lionel Cust, Mr. W. P. Courtney, Mr. F. M. O'Dowd, Dr. Norman Moore, Mr. Henry Davey, and Miss Lee are a few only of those whose contributions deserve a notice considerations of space forbid us to accord them.

MR. T. FISHER UNWIN has reprinted, in a shilling edition, Scott's Fortunes of Nigel, with the author's introduction slightly abridged and his notes, to- gether with a frontispiece presenting Margaret Ramsay in her page's dress.

THE only distinctly literary paper in the Fort- nightly consists of Mrs. Spear's ' An Italian Gold-

smith,' the title of which, we are free to confess, led us to expect a short story. It is to Goldsmith, the author of ' The Vicar of Wakefield,' that Mrs. Spear draws attention, and not to some worker in the precious metals in Genoa or Turin. Salvatore Farina is the novelist held worthy of a comparison that Britons must regard as honouring. Pleasant and readable enough is the article, but the trans- lated passages fail to convey to us, who do not know the author's works, an idea of the resem- blance on which Mrs. Spear dwells. Mr. John F. Taylor, Q.C., draws a parallel between ' Bismarck and Richelieu,' in which the balance of favour is on the side of Richelieu. Ouida has, under the head ' Canicide,' one of her vigorous protests against our treatment of animals. She tells some very shocking and almost incredible stories, and is once more in grim earnest. Mr. Demetrius C. Boulger sends an article on ' Twelve Years' Work on the Congo,' show- ing what has been done by the King of the Belgians in the way of founding a "Black Empire." The Congo region is described as twenty - three times the size of Belgium. The approaching visit of the Emperor William to Palestine is dealt with by one who elects to remain anonymous, and who dwells on the political significance of the under- taking. ' A Diary at Santiago ' is by Mr. Frederick W. Ramsden, lately British Consul for the Province of Santiago de Cuba, and is accompanied by a map. According to the statements made, it took in the bombardment fifteen tons of metal for every man killed. Still slighter than the space allotted to literature in the Fortnightly is that in the Nine- teenth Century^ wherein Prof. St. George Mivart, dealing with ' Helbeck of Bannisdale,' takes a view of the book widely different from that previously expounded in the same magazine by Father Clarke. The most amusing paper in the number is the species of apology for the French by Sir Hubert Jerningham. Sir Hubert's observations are based on Mr. Bodley's recently published work on France. Very difficult is it for the Anglo-Saxon race to understand the French, or for the French to under- stand the Anglo-Saxon. " They give it up and call us hypocrites. We give them up and call them frivolous. Both terms are inexact." Mr. Sidney Low asks 'Should Europe Disarm?' and seems disposed to answer, " Not yet." He has a serious complaint against that pestilent personage the modern military and naval inventor, whom he describes as " a cosmopolitan nuisance." Lady Wimborne's article on ' The Ritualist Conspiracy ' describes itself in its title. Mr. Henry de Mosen- thal writes a life of Alfred Nobel, ' The Inventor of Dynamite.' The story of the invention is very interesting. Mr. William Sharp concludes 'The Art Treasures of America.' The Hon. Walter Rothschild has a good paper on ' The Birds of the Bass Rock.' ' The Story of Murat and Bentinck ' lets one into some diplomatic secrets. Sir Herbert Maxwell writes on ' Tuberculosis in Man and Beast.' A very important paper is that by the Moulvie Rafiiiadin Ahmad on ' The Battle of Omdurman and the Mussulman World.' Thte frontispiece to the Century consists of a reproduction of Hoppner's exquisite 'Countess of Bedford.' A capital account by JM. Armand Dayot of Edouard Detaille follows. This has some wonderfully fine illustrations by Detaille, presenting that eminent painter in a quite new light. His sketches are full of life and cha- racter, and have in some cases marvellous humour. Another of Gilbert Stuart's ' Portraits of Women '