Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/271

 «* 8. IV. Oct. 21, '99.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 339 Pace-Egg play as it was acted last year at Slatter- thwaite is printed. The commonest of surnames is Braithwaite, spelt many different ways. Words- worth was at school at Hawkshead, and traces of its influences are found in his works. Among notabilities associated with the district are George Sandys and Sir Henry Rawlinson. Mr. Cowper's work is liberally provided with illustrations from drawings and photographs by the author and others, with reproductions of old designs, and with maps. It is an admirable piece of work, is very handsome in appearance, and is calculated to delight antiquaries and all careful concerning the preservation of ancient lore or customs. A Farmer'* Year. Being his Commonplace Book for 1898. By H. Ridor Haggard. (Longmans & Co.) During its progress through the pages of Longman's Masjazme ' The Farmer s Year' of Mr. Rider Haggard attracted much observation. It will now, in book form, with the addition of thirty-six admir- able illustrations by G. Leon Little, appeal to a much larger public. Its principal aim, it may be assumed, is practical utility. Living at Ditching- ham House, on the Waveney, and farming land there together with the Priory Farm at Bedingham, Mr. Rider Haggard gives, for the benefit of agri- culturists, an account of his experiences, his pro- ceedings, his occuiMitions, and profits. Valuable as these things are for a certain class of readers, they would scarcely appeal to ourselves. Besides descrip- tions of rustic lire and scenery, however, written with his own acknowledged charm, Mr. Haggard gives us an insight into rustic proceedings, and is not above collecting scraps of folk-lore, bo clearly within our province does this bring him, that we have read him twico over—on the appearance of each separate instalment in Longmans Magazine, and now again in the volume. Occasional reference has been made to what most forcibly struck us in Mr. Haggard's contributions, and it is but a week or two ago since we drew special attention to his utterances concerning sport. There is, of course, much beside that will appeal to our sympathies or recollections. Here is what, two hundred miles from the spot described, used to bean experience of our own: " I know of few more curious and dreary sounds — though, in a way, it is an attractive music enough — than that of the wind rushing through the pine trees on the Vineyard Hills as it comes to the ear of the listener standing on the slope below. I can only compare it to that of .lEolian harps ; there is the same sweet dreariness about the quality of the note." This is written of February. It is only in the late autumnal or the winter months that such swooning music is to be heard. Concerning animals, notably horses and dogs, Mr. Haggard has much to say. He tells " sad stories of the deaths" of the latter, and he insists on the superiority of intelligence of the plough-horse over his more fashionable brother, on which we will leave others to answer him, if they are able. An edifying description is given of the differences between his various toads. Martha, for example, is "a bold-natured toad of friendly habit," while Jane, on the other hand, is " pale and thin, with a depressed air which suggests resignation born of long experience of circumstances over which she has no control." Subsequently, with an allusion to a famous Haymarket play, ™r- Haggard gives us " Further Manoeuvres of Jane." On p. 323 the reader will find an illustration of a brick marked in antique figures with the date 1393, concerning which they have already heard something. Mr. Haggard's book, indeed, overflows with matter readable, curious, valuable, or interesting. We commend it, illustrations and all, to our readers. But why, oh ! why does Mr. Haggard lend the sanction of his great name to such an abomination as " bye-law " ? Let him leave such an atrocity to Parliament and the railway companies. Why, the County Council has had the pluck to renounce it. Two Yean in Palestine and Syria. By Margaret Thomas. (Nimmo.) The present volume by the author of 'A Scamper through Spain and Tangier' is more noteworthy for its illustrations than its letterpress. It is, as its title in part indicates, an account of explora- tions undertaken by an artist during a two years' residence in the countries named. Travelling without any preconceived impressions, and with no theories of her own to support, deriving avowedly her archaeological and topographical Knowledge from authorities such as Robinson, Warren, Porter, and Lynch, finding the alleged sites of Hebrew and Christian mysteries too apocryphal to justify the pious raptures which a trip in Palestine is supposed to demand, and frankly owning that more dis- comfort than danger attended Tier explorations, Mrs. Thomas has written a book the modesty of which disarms criticism. She is not, unfortunately, possessor of a very good style, and her English is not seldom ungrammatical as well as slipshod; she has employed no competent linguist, friend, or reader to correct her mistakes in various languages, and she has ventured out of her depth in subjects philological and other. On these things we are not disposed to dwell. Animated and, we doubt not, accurate descriptions are given of the objects she has visited, and the scenes of worship at which she has been permitted to assist; and she has taken advantage of such opportunities as were afforded her of studying the social life of the very mixed populations amidst which she dwelt. These were tew, as will readily be believed by those who know the restrictions placed on intercourse between Europeans and Orientals. What Mrs. Thomas has done well has been to take a series of views (many of them of signal interest) of spots picturesque or his- torically celebrated and of ceremonial observances. Sixteen of these have been reproduced in colour, and convey an idea better than can easily be obtained elsewhere of life in Palestine and Syria. The most interesting of these depict spots in .Jerusalem, the frontispiece showing the Jaffa Gate, and others the Pool of Hezekiah, the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, the steps leading to the Holy Sepulchre, the Crusaders' Church, the Wailing Place of the Jews at the ancient wall of the Temple, and other places. A few figures are also given : Moses, Ben Abraham, the Rabbi of the Karaite Jews, and a woman of Siloam carrying her baby ; and there is a very attractive picture of ploughing in Abraham's Vineyard. The warm colouring is admirably preserved in these plates, and the book, like most of Mr. Nimmo's productions, is an artistic delight. To the reader generally, and the traveller past or prospective, we commend chap. viii. on religious ceremonial. An account is given of the church of St. Anne, and the monastery of the Peres Blancs, an order founded for African mission work by, it is stated, "the late Cardinal Lavigerie [we]." Our author and her companions—