Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/191

 S. V. MARCH 10, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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done. The effect is shocking. Naturally, the work, which used to fetch such a price as sixteen guineas, has gradually fallen, till now it can be procured for til. or so. There are only too few of Harvey's drawings. It had been far better to have given him the whole work ; it would have inspired him, for he was exactly suited to illustrate the past, having a sort of magic romance in his touch.

Messrs. Black issued an edition in 48 vols. in which many of these woodcuts made their reappearance ; but, of course, they were hardly suited to so small a page.

The issue that was edited and prefaced by Mr. Andrew Lang was, perhaps, the most luxurious and costly of the modern attempts. The publisher was Mr. Nimmo, who spared nothing to do honour to the work. Paper, print, illustrations, editing, were all of the best. And yet the result is something unin- teresting. There is a lack of simple feeling and grace about the whole. The illustrations are almost amusing for their incongruousness. The artist had little power of throwing him- self back into the period he could not do so if he would. For the great artists who worked for Scott were under a glamour ; they were filled with the story ; they were transported back to the old days, and this feeling inspired their ^encil. Hence those sympathetic, living scenes drawn by Leslie and the rest, which quite expressed the situations. The modern was all at sea. He knew nothing of the glamour ; he could only show the men and women about him, and whom he knew, dressed up in old-fashioned clothes. This sort of garnish was far better away as it is discordant. It is the same with another rival edition, the "Dryburgh."

An unsatisfactory, but well-meant attempt at reviving Sir Walter's personal interest or glamour was made by Messrs. Constable, the firm of our day. It was a literal reproduc- tion or rather imitation of "the author's favourite edition." The type, order of lines, &c., are all copied exactly ; the pretty en- gravings, vignettes, &c., are reproduced. Never was there such an odd result. The favourite edition was on fine stout paper ; this is on thin paper. The plates are " pro- cessed," with inferior effect. So the whole has an inefficient air.

Another incongruity was Fisher's edition, illustrated by George Cruikshank. This was an extraordinary bizarrerie, and the effect of looking at the brilliant George's grotesques in company with the author's romantic strain was extraordinary. It seemed as though some plates of ' Fawkes ' or * Windsor Castle '

had slipped in by accident. There were not, however, many of them.

The modern editions are scarcely worth notice. They are mostly of an artificial cast, made up, as it were, from old plates, com- pounded and fashioned, but with nothing spontaneous. So it goes on with the "Cabinet," "Illustrated," " People's," and the rest. There was a rather starved edition, meagrely printed, one novel in each volume, issued, I suppose, sixty years ago. But it is undeniable that there is a luxury of enjoy- ment in imbibing these matchless stories from the old original jars.

The only other writer that I can call to mind whose editions were treated in this lavishly artistic fashion was Byron. Early editions of the poet, issued by Murray, show the same luxe and variety. Every class of buyer was tempted. There was first the sumptuous and massive quarto ; then the crown octavos, with illustrations by Smirke, Turner, and others ; then the duodecimos. As you look, you hardly know which to prefer. Not long since I carelessly lost a chance of securing all Scott's ' Poems,' in their original quarto shape, bound in russia, for 25s., and a right royal row they made. PERCY FITZGERALD.

MAIL SHIRTS FROM THE SUDAN.

I HAVE just made a careful examination of one of these taken in the spring of 1898 from the body of a Dervish warrior slain at the battle of the Atbara. The particulars may interest many of your readers, and perhaps information as to where and when the shirts were made may be forthcoming.

The shirt is made of rings, every ring from a piece of steel wire \\ in. long and about one- sixteenth of an inch thick. The ends of the piece of wire are flattened out, holes are punched through them, one end is turned on to the other, and they are fastened together by a small rivet. Every ring connects four others. The wire differs somewhat in thick- ness, not by design seemingly so as to make one part of the shirt stronger than another, but from material of uniform thickness run- ning short. In parts where the rings are free to jingle together they are worn very thin. Round the neck is a band of three thicknesses of reef leather, stiff like the stock worn formerly in our army ; it is 2| in. high, and on the outside is decorated with orna- mental lines like toolings made by a book- binder.

The shape of the shirt is that of a night- shirt with the sleeves cut off above the elbow,