Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/47

 9 th S. II. JULY 9, '98. ]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

39

indirect. We are surprised to find Dryden quoted as saying, when a boy, he thought "inimitable Spenser a mean poet in comparison of Sylvester's ' Du Bartas.' " The rhyming competition between Sylvester and Ben Jpnson is unmentioned, doubt- less as of no authority. Among many interesting contributions of Mr. Seccombe one concerning Robert Surtees, the Durham antiquary, stands conspicuous. The playful humour of Surtees, his hospitality at Mainsforth, and his impositions upon Scott are pleasantly described. Among many excel- lent historical studies by Mr. C. H. Firth are those of William Strode, politician, and Walter Strick- land and his brother Sir William. A capital life of Agnes Strickland is by Miss Elizabeth Lee, who also writes on Lady Emmeline Stuart- Wortley and others. Some comparatively modern writers are treated by Dr. Richard Garnett, who dwells appre- ciatively on the work of John Addington Symonds, and treats sympathetically Judge Talfourd, but has the courage to say that much of his verse is "unduly loquacious ana declamatory." John Taylor, the Water Poet, is in the hands of Mr. Gordon Goodwin, who supplies an admirable notice and an elaborate bibliography. Mr. Goodwin also supplies a most interesting life of Strype. Strutt, the anti- quary, is in the hands of Mr. Miller Christy. Dean 1 remantle praises Archbishop Tait. Nahum Tate finds a competent biographer in Canon Leigh Ben- nett. Jeremy Taylor has been entrusted to the Rev. A. Gordon, and Tom Taylor, the dramatist, is treated very indulgently by Mr. Charles Kent. The rather mythical life of St. Swithun is dealt with scientifically by the Rev. William Hunt, who also supplies all that is known concerning King Sweyn. Mr. Thomas Bayne discusses the merits of Tanna- hill and other Scottish poets. Dealing principally with the representatives of literature, we nave been unable to devote the space they deserve to the contributions of such supporters of the 'Dic- tionary ' as Mr. Russell Barker, Mr. W. P. Court- ney, Mr. Rigg, and Prof. Laughton. Mr. Aitken, Mr. Thompson Cooper. Mr. Milner-Gibson-Cullum, Mr. Lionel Cust, Mr. H. Davey, Dr. Norman Moore, Mr. F. M. O Donoghue, and Mr. Warwick Wroth are well represented.

Masters of Medicine. William Stokes. By his Son,

Sir William Stokes. (Fisher Unwin.) THOUGH no one could pretend to place William Stokes on the same platform with his three prede- cessors in this series, Hunter, Harvey, and Simpson, yet his life well deserved to be written as the record of one who in great part founded the Dublin school of clinical teaching and who was a singularly acute observer of mankind, nature, and art. This record has been well and interestingly written by his son, who holds the position of burgeon in Ordinary to the Queen in Ireland. William Stokes's acumen perhaps can be shown in no way better than by stating the fact that while still a student he, much in advance of the bulk of his future profession, saw the greatness and importance of Laennec's dis- covery of the stethoscope, and published a treatise on its use, for which he received the sum of seventy pounds. As might be guessed from this beginning, the chief publication 01 his life was a ' Treatise oi Diseases qi the Chest,' which is a medical classic for the descriptions of disease, as we should expect from one who was such an admirable clinical observer. He was also no mean archaeologist, and he stimulated Petrie to bring out his well-known

work on the ' Round Towers of Ireland,' as well as ihe late Lord Dunraven to complete the unfinished work on 'Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture.'

WE have received Mr. Mayson M. Beeton'a aamphlet entitled The Truth about the Foreign bugar Bounties (Simpkin & Marshall). -It deals mainly with politics, British, colonial, and foreign, which are out of our orbit. We may, however, remark that some of the statements referring to the abolition of slavery in the West Indies now a purely historical question call for confirmation or authoritative contradiction.

THE article in the Fortnightly that will, in certain circles at least ? attract most attention is that of M. Augustin Filon on Edmond Rostand and Jean Richepin, the authors respectively of ' Cyrano de Bergerac and ' Le Chemmeau,' plays concerning which the English mind is being considerably exer- cised. Both works come in for high commenda- tion, the writer saying with deliberation that 'Cyrano de Bergerac' "is France France at her best France at the culminating point of her genius." This is unstinting, and we are disposed to think, though we dare not say so, excessive commen- dation. ' Cyrano de Bergerac' is, however, we will concede, from the literary standpoint, a master- piece. Mr. Knox Johnson writes on ' Leopardi,' and supplies an eloquent eulogy, with naturally perhaps necessarily a comparison with Schopen- hauer, and "so he [Leopardi] passes into gloom, a great and weary soul, proud and unhappy as some

creation of Dante's and yet, after all, it is the

submissive Christian Pascal who comes before us." Sir Henry Irving's Rede Lecture on 'The Theatre in its Relation to the State,' delivered in Cambridge last month, is printed, and commends itself to wide perusal. Very interesting is the paper of Mile. Yetta Blaze de Bury on ' 1 rench Women in French Industry.' Mr. T. H. S. Escott writes pleasantly on ' Heredity as a Social Force,' and Prof. Max M tiller has a contribution on 'Coincidences,' which is of high literary interest. Mr. Stanley Young, in tho Nineteenth Century, gives one of many articles which appear on ' Cyrano de Bergerac.' With the drama of M. Rostand, by this time familiar to a section of playgoing Londoners, he deals com- petently enough. What is strange, however, with him as with others, is that, taking a well-known figure in French literature, he treats it wholly from the point of view of the dramatist. M. Rostand has presented with incomparable talent a Cyrano de Bergerac ; but there is another Cyrano concern- ing whom a student of literature should know more than is said by Th^ophile Gautier, Charles Nodier, or even M. Rostand. Writing on 'The Wagner Mania,' a title which, of course, pledges him to a view, Mr. Cuthbert Hadden has the courage to say that "we are having too much Wagner," and to indicate the results to be expected from such excess. ' The Art of Letter- Writing ' is illustrated by Mr. Herbert Paul, the text of his sermon being found in the letters of Byron, which he holds "by universal consent" a strong phrase among the best, if not the very best, in the English language. He also calls them " the most readable letters in the world." The Rev. Canon Wood has an article on ' The Just Punishment of Heretics,' showing the "amazing intolerance and equally amazing cruelty" of our forefathers. Sir Edmund Verney advocates 'Rural Education.' In 'Civilization in the Western Soudan" Canon Robinson holds