Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/465

 s. in. JUNE 10, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

459

is inknown. The date of publication of the volume is onjectural, and nothing is to be learnt concern- in it except that it was reprinted in 1725, and that be h the first and second editions have of late been uii )btainable. The philological value of a book su h as this diminishes with the progress of the va ious important dictionaries now in course of publication. Not so its interest. Romany lan- gu ige, thieves' jargon, and similar matters appeal diiectly to a certain class of minds, and even wl en words are included in authoritative dic- tionaries, men will be found to prize the nai've and cu ious definitions of works such as the present. The explanations, even when, as is not seldom the cate, inaccurate according to the light of modern science, have a certain interest of their own. Who, for instance, that can consult the 'H.E.D.' under 'Bay-windows,' will miss the account here given: "timbowed, as of old, standing out from thi) rest of the Building. Stand at bay as Deer will, when closely pursued or being hard run, turn Head against the Hounds"; or that of " Bill-of-Sale, a Bandure, or Widows Peak " ; or, again, a proverb such as " Fork is often Rakes Heir, or after a the words scarcely seem slang, as " Molinet, a Choco- late Stick or little Mill." Not a few of them are too coarse or too naive for extraction. A ' ' Rumford- iLyon," we hear, is a calf. The book is handsomely '.got up on excellent paper and in a limited edition. lit is a mine of curious information and of amuse- ment in the shape of quaint terms of expression.
 * scraping Father comes a scattering Son " ? Some of

The Cathedral Church of Durham. By J. E. 1 Bygate, A.R.C.A. (Bell & Sons.) To the welcome " Cathedral Series" of Messrs. Bell & Sons has been added an account of the noble Cathedral of Durham, the most magnificently situated of English ecclesiastical edifices. Few buildings have suffered more severely than Durham Prom the work of iconoclasts, and the name of VVyatt, to whom is due the demolition of the fine )ld Norman chapter house, which stood until icarly a century ago, is not the only one which stinks in the nostrils of the lover of ancient art. But for the interference of the Society of Anti- luaries, there is no knowing how far the ravages >f this vandal would have extended. In dealing vith the Cathedral Mr. Bygate has depended hiefly on his own knowledge. He has consulted, owever, the works of some recent authorities, lie illustrations are from sketches and drawings y the author, and also from photographs. Though ighter than some previous volumes, his work stifles its inclusion in the series.

WE have drawn attention more than once to the leories concerning totemism which Mr. Frazer has it forward in the Fortnightly on the strength

the recent work of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen n 'The Native Tribes of Central Australia,' His lews are opposed in the present number by Mr. ndrew Lang. It is impossible to recapitulate the irious points to which Mr. Lang takes exception, .e refuses, however, to accept as " thoroughly rimitive savages" the Arunta tribes, with which Lr. Frazer is concerned, finding in the insti- .itions under which they live a vast advance on 'hat is thoroughly primitive. The opponents are venly matched, and we can but commend to those \ our readers whom such subjects interest a study

an argument it is impossible for us, within the

limits assigned us, to explain. Mr. H. C. Shelley writes very sympathetically on ' Thomas Hood's First Centenary,' and supplies from a private collection aome interesting letters, previously un- published, of Hood. These are, as a rule, character- istic, and the sketch generally of Hood's relations with his mother-in-law, his future wife, and her sisters has profound interest. t We have always been of those who hold Hood a serious poet, and are glad to find our views apparently in accord with those of Mr. Shelley. Bernard Barton was of the same opinion, judging from what he says con- cerning "I remember, I remember," in a letter from Woodbridge, dated April 26th, 1828. We wonder if as a fact the letter, which is all in the second person, is so dated, or is not rather " 26th of 4th month," which at that time was the Quaker way ? The Baron Pierre de Coubertin continues his ' France since 1814.' Mr. Archibald Little contrasts London with Peking, and Mr. Lowry Whittle deals with 'Egypt after Omdurman.' Writing in the Nineteenth Century on ' Shakespeare in France,' Mr. Sidney Lee deals at some length with M. Jules Jusserand's recently published work on the subject. To this he gives an adequate tribute, and he deals with the literary relations between the two countries. The most interesting part of his paper consists of a description of a work of Charles Nodier entitled ' Pensees de Shakespeare extraites de ses CEuvres.' This work, unknown to English scholarship, since no copy is in the British Museum, and apparently to French scholarship also, as it finds no mention in M. Jusserand's work, contains some delightful expressions of homage. " Shake- speare," says Nodier, a man dear to the book-lover, "is a friend whom Heaven has given to the un- happy of every age and every country"; and he adds in his concluding sentence, "lam content to cast a flower on his grave, since I am not able to raise a monument to his memory." Mr. Ernest M. Bowden gives, as the result of a conversation with Raja Sivaprasad, an account of ' Jainism,' which commends itself to us as the most merciful religion yet discovered. There are three articles consisting wholly or principally of wail one, very eloquent, from Dr. Jessopp, called ' The Cry of the Villages '; a second, by Mr. Richard Davey'. on ' The Decline of Singing'; and a third, by the Rev. Anthony C. Deane, on ' The Falling-otf in the Quantity and the Quality of the Clergy.' All deserve to be read, and will repay close study. There is, indeed, a fourth article, similar in tendency, on ' The Decay in our Salmon Fisheries and its Remedy,' concern- ing which we are not able to speak. Mr. Henniker Heaton advocates warmly ' An Imperial Telegraph System,' and Dr. Arabella Kenealy answers Mrs. Ormiston Chant on the subject of ' Woman as an Athlete ' with a courtesy and a logic which are not common in feminine discussions. Mr. Bur- nand, of whom a capital picture is given, supplies to the Pall Mall some opening ' Punch Notes.' These begin with Mr. Burnand's connexion with the periodical, to which he sent some de- cidedly clever drawings, the first of which was reproduced by Leech. An account of his intro- duction to Mark Lemon and the beginning of the comic account of Mokeanna is very interesting; not less so that of the first Punch dinners and of the writer's earliest association with Thackeray, The revelations are likely to form a popular feature in the Pall Mall. An account of the life of John Jacob Astor is given by one of his descendants,