Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/406

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. IIL MAY 20, m

Here but this is a mere matter of taste we should prefer, as easier :

I found me in a gloomy forest dell. Again, ' Inferno,' v. 27, for

Where smote mine ear loud wail and many a groan we should prefer, as simpler, Where loud wail smote mine ear and many a moan.

We could point to other cases where simpler phrase- ology would be preferable. Plumptre's translation has, however, won a recognized position, and his notes are excellent, and Dante lovers will be delighted to have the whole in so attractive a form.

WE imagine that not a few of our elder readers who knew George Borrow in life, or were enter- tained by his books when they came fresh from the press, will be moved to read the review of Dr. Knapp's ' Life of Borrow ' in the Quarterly for April before they turn to the political or social articles. Well will it be for them if they do so, for the amusement which they cannot fail to find therein will act as a wholesome stimulant, aiding in the digestion of things which the world, as at present constituted, regards as more instructive. Borrow was one of those men, at all times very rare, who without, as it seems, having to make any act of the will in the matter, saw things not as the newspapers or society see them, but as they appealed to his own consciousness. Like Rabelais, Montaigne, and our own Robert Burton, whether right or wrong, he could not help being original, and impressing his thoughts on other people. He was not a stylist, as the word is commonly used, and he had the perversely humorous faculty of making unexpected digressions whenever the fancy took him. How far some of the scenes he saw and the strange human creatures he met had any objective reality outside the limits of his own mind it is vain to inquire. They exist now, for he had seen them, and has introduced them to us. The reviewer has evidently as warm an appreciation of Borrow as Dr. Knapp himself, but perhaps realizes the man's limitations more fully. If the truth must be told, Sorrow's intellectual faculty was narrow on some sides, and, as in the case of other great men, when he had come to a conclusion, the result was like a judicial decision of the House of Lords there was no higher court of appeal. Attention is drawn to the fact, if fact it be, that Borrow once wrote a story called ' The Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller.' Is it possible to recover this unknown work ? Whether issued as a book or printed in the pages of some forgotten magazine, it is not likely that it has perished. Happy will the man be who finds it ! We like the paper on ' The Ideals of Heinrich Heine,' for it is written neither from the stand- point of idol-worship nor from that which delights in dwelling on the poet's personal imperfections, so as to let these things overshadow powers which have had a marked and, on the whole, beneficent influence on the literatures of the world. It has been the fashion for some to shrink from him because he mocked at things sacred, and for others to employ f ragm ents of his writings for the mere pleasure of giving pain to others. We may hope that such barbarisms have passed away (the present article is a sign of it), and that the treasure Heine has left in our keeping will in time to come be appreciated without being obscured by things insignificant.
 * Dante and the Art of Poetry ' is carefully written

by one who has knowledge of versification, and fully enters into what may be styled we use the word with no irreverent meaning the mechanics of poetry. This side of Dante's nature is worthy of interpretation, and perhaps enough has for the present been said about loftier things. We trust however, that no careless reader will carry awav the notion that we owe the ' Divine Comedy ' to any amount of mere intellectual pondering. Aswell nii"-li't we conceive that the great military geniuses whom we encounter in history accomplished their work by long-continued study of tactics as taught in the appropriate text -books. 'Velasquez and Rem- brandt' is written by one who has seen most of their pictures, and has a discriminating apprecia- tion. ' Old Oak ' is a light, gossiping paper which we are glad to have read. We hope it may have the effect of putting rich people on their guard against some of the cruder forms of prevalent im- posture. 'Mediaeval Warfare' is learnedly dull. We do not think sufficient evidence has reached us for the subject ever to receive lucid treatment.

MESSRS. GEORGE BELL SONS have issued a cheap and attractive reprint of The Shorter Poem* of Robert Bridges, which admirers of that poet will find exactly the thing to be slipped into the pocket and read under holiday influences. They are as a rule conducive to a meditative frame of mind, and repressive of mere wanton exhilaration.

MR. A. STAPLETON has published (Worksop, Sissons & Son), with additions, a lecture he de- livered before a Nottingham society, upholding the personality and actual existence of Robin Hood. It is a well-argued and a pleasingly illustrated pam- phlet, which may be commended to the attention of our readers.

We must call special attention to the following notices :

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.

To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rule. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. Correspond- ents who repeat queries are requested to head the second communication " Duplicate."

W. J. G. (" ' Witch-elms' in Tennyson"). H>A is the strictly accurate spelling ; a confusion with witch (wizard) led to the other. In Middle English both words were spelt without a t.

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