Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/26

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9* S. V. JAN. 6, 1900.

erected on the site (see Hon. Grantley T. Berkeley, ' Life,' &c., vol. i. p. 78, &c.). Cox's Museum appears to have stood on the site of No. 13, Spring Gardens, a house built by Mr. Decimus Burton for his residence, ad- joining the Council's offices to the northward, and now in the Council's occupation.

JOHN HEBB. Canonbury Mansions, N.

" KING OF BANTAM " (9 th S. iv. 419, 488, 526). I should like to make an addition to my note. In reference to Congreve's * Present Majesty of Bantam,' there is a tale by Aphra Behn, called * The Court of the King of Ban- tam.' In it a rich noodle, Mr. Would-be, believes himself the King of Bantam, and is duped thereupon in true Restoration fashion. If MR. PERCY SIMPSON will refer, he will find that Congreve very clearly had Mrs. Behn's tale in his mind. GEORGE MARSHALL.

It is good, as MR. GEORGE MARSHALL says, to see Jonson and Congreve quoted, but Mrs. Aphra Behn should not be forgotten, for did not that illustrious lady write * The Court of the King of Bantam,' which can be read with interest even now ? ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

The "descent" seems to imply a sort of apotheosis, a widespread superstition realized in the Christian "resurrection" and Plato's immortality. These people were probably Buddhists, so it represents an " avatar-ship," or new birth, a form of metempsychosis.

A. Jtl.

GROLIER BINDINGS (9 th S. iv. 518). The painted bindings are probably of a later date than the others. Mr. Herbert P. Hprne, ' The Binding of Books,' p. 89, dates this style of work as belonging to the middle of the six- teenth century. One may possibly put a similar interpretation upon the sentence referring to Grolier, at vol. iv. p. 41, of the of his later covers were resplendent with gold and coloured ornament, most elaborately tooled." This, however, is so general in its reference that it is scarcely evidence. The sequence of usage of the different mottoes is some help. It is most likely that the " ami- corum" motto, previously used by Maioli, came first (Quarterly Review, July, 1893, p. 189). The motto "^que difficulter," with the cloud, nail, and hillock design, came next ('Bookbindings Ancient and Modern,' Joseph Cundall, p. 34) ; and afterwards the " Portio raea Do I mine sit in | terra vi | venti | um" legend. There were others occasionally used. See l The Binding of Books,' supra, p. 78. An article in the Saturday Review for 30 Dec.,
 * Encyclopaedia Bri tannica,' which reads, "Some

1882, noticing the Beckford sale, second part, indicates that the "painted interstices" and the "scrolled tooling" were used with the " Portio raea " motto. On the whole it would seem that the painted bindings were, at any rate, of the middle, if not of the later, period. ARTHUR MAYALL.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

A Life of William Shakespeare. By Sidney Lee.

(Smith, Elder & Co.)

WITH a celerity all but unparalleled, and with an absence all but complete of serious opposition, Mr. Lee's ' Life of Shakespeare ' has established itself in supreme authority. A year or two ago it was but a solitary article although naturally the longest and most important in that great work, now on the point of completion, the 'Dictionary of National Biography.' A few months later it appeared in the convenient shape in which it will still be most read, and now, with illustrations that throw all the light obtainable upon our early stage and upon Shake- spqare's associates and friends, it comes forth in an illustrated library edition, fitted to grace the hand- somest and best-furnished shelves. So far as regards the text, Mr. Lee's scholarly and monumental work has undergone little alteration. Such errors and misprints as have been detected have been cor- rected ; the remarks on Shakespeare's autographs and handwriting have been expanded ; a descrip- tion is now given in the bibliography of the Sib- thorp first folio, recently brought to light, with its presentation from William Jaggard, the printer, to his friend and ally Augustine Vincent, the herald; and further details have been supplied concerning certain of Shakespeare's printers and publishers. None of these things affects, however, the original scheme of the work, nor has Mr. Lee, though some of his opinions have elicited, as was but natural, expressions of dissent and disagree- ment, felt called upon to modify any of his more important conclusions, and the book is practically the same that we reviewed little more than a twelvemonth ago (see 9 th S. ii. 458).

As a work of reference, and as a handsome and desirable volume, the work in its new shape gains greatly. Its beautiful cover, as a note inserted informs us, is taken from a fine binding of English workmanship of the sixteenth century in the British Museum, originally executed for Robert Dudley, the famous, or infamous, Earl of Leicester, Shake- speare's crest, in its proper heraldic colours, being substituted for that of the earl. The frontispiece consists of the monument affixed to the north wall of the chancel of Stratford-on-Avon Church, which is given in the colours believed to have constituted its original adornment. Four other likenesses are reproduced the Droeshout (or " Flower") portrait, the engraved portrait on the title of the first folio, the Ely House portrait, and the seventeenth- century bust in the Garrick Club. Then follow portraits all carefully selected by the author, with a view of facilitating the study of the poet's life of Shakespeare's closest acquaintances ; the quaint and anonymous picture of Queen Elizabeth, from the painting at Ditchley ; the Earl of Southampton, from an original painting at Welbeck ; Burbage,