Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/455

 -.¢_,_ ‘--1* v 9"-S. VI- N0v.»l0. 1900-1 NGTES AND QUERIES. 379 as well as more imaginative treatment, is, however, needed in some allusive or landscape designs, which are often false in heraldry. Among the copper- giste designs new given those of Lord_ Archibald mgbell, with an ornamental lambrequin or hood ; of T omas R. Taylor, ‘punnilra and humorous; of John Addington glmon s, he die; and a beautiful plate of Dame argaget Board, showing an old- ashioned garden at akehurst Place,_Sussex, at once arrest attention. The wood engravings cover a much wider field, some of them bemg,1ndee, no more than monograms, with or without ornamentation. In these cases even some artistic effects are obtained. A numerous collection of book;Flate designs may be obtained from the ‘ Marques ypograghiques ’ of M. Silvestre, a book`the va ue of whic_h as not yet won full recognition. In all artistic and typo- graphical resgects Mr. Moring’s two volumes are excellent. T ey cannot fail to appeal to the lover of book-plates, and should be in all collections dealing with the subject. So few of them are, however, issued that they are bound before long to rank as rarities. The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Frowde.) ` IN a charming little edition, on the Oxford India pa r, with gi t edges, and with a youthful portrait of Wennyson, appears from the Oxford University Press a collection of Tennyson s early poems com- prising ‘The Princess,’ ‘ n Memoriam# ‘llaud,’ ‘ English Id ls,’ and almost all the works by which the t is liest known. It is small enough to be easilpoecarried in the waistcoat pocket, is most suitable for a gift-book, and no less delightful as a possession. Atlantis .° the Book of the Angels. By D. Bridgman- Metehim. (Sonnenschein & Co.) Tms is a kind of book for which, we confess, we have little taste-a romance in which the ima 'nation un urbed b t ` ts f gi, c y anyres rain o reason or robability, is let run riot in an antediluvian woigd where everything is chaos and confusion. Taking as his starting-goint the enigmatical verse in the sixth chapter o enesis which sgeaks of the loves of the angels, Mr. Bridgman-Metc im gives us the self-revelation of an archangel named Asia, who pays a visit to the Atlantian city of Zul, and falls in love, to his undoing, with an earthly maiden, Azta. The author may here be let spea for him- self: “This Interpretation is the fullest account we have yet of the life antediluvium, filling in, with apparent accuracy, as far as I can judge, one of those maniy blanks in the earlier chgpters of Genesis, whic, were they all to be so fill , would make our great Bible several times greater without any good accruing to our minds in learning of the embryo formation of Earth and Man." To the latter statement we heartily subscribe. As through page after page we flounder on through dim colossal immensities of cosmogonic fog we marvel what it is all about, and the inflate style and language rove inexpressibl tedious and wearisome. T e light fanc of Buflwer Lytton or Rider Haggard might mage such a subject endurable, but in Mr. Bridgman-Metchim’s hands it is simjaly ponderous and incom rehensible. A curious mixture of Mexican, Igabylonian, and Egyptian names and ideas, with a varnish of arc zeological lore, ex- tracted chieiiy from the ‘ Encyclopaa ia Britannica] isemployed to give the required antediluvian com- plexion_ to the narrative, which remains, however, unconvincing. The author illustrates his romance with drawings from his own pen, some not devoid of a weird power which reminds one of Doré, but it is only a case of elucidating obscurius per obscurum. “Jub1late_deorum Q” exclaims the communicative archangel in celestial (?) Latinity, as he closes a cha ter on p. 244. After that, like Francesca, we read no more. Mn. Fnazzn concludes, in the Fortnighily, his valuable and eminenrtgg suggestive papers on ‘The Saturnalia and Kind Festivals] It is im ssible for_us to indicate the conclusions at wff§:h he arrives, and his treatment of the subject will be better discussed d propos of the forthcomin new edition of 'his epoch-makin ‘Golden Bou gf Al parallel between the Sandongllercules of Lydia and the Assyrian Sardanapalus is equally exact and ingenious, and the entire treatment of the burning alive _of the ancient rulers representative of the gods is of extreme interest. he subject cannot, owever, be fragmentarily treated, nor can a portion of the argument be conveniently or with any utility detac ed from the rest. Among the innumerable articles on T. E. Brown with which griodicals are overflowing, that contributed by r. Hughes-Games seems to convey the best idea of a man with whom some of us will have to form a closer acquaintance. As a poet Brown seems to have high claims; but we are so far disposed to rank him higher as a thinker and a humourist. The follow1ng_quatrain has been often quoted of late. _ ‘It merits all the publicity that can be given 1. If Dante breathes on me his awful breath I rise and go; but I am sad as death- I go; but turning, who is that I see! I whisper, Ariosto, wait for me. Other pregnant verses challenge attention. The complete edition of Brown’s poems is a boon. We go further, and declare it to have been indis- pensable. It is rather sad to find a writer em- ploying the pseudonym “ Zyx” ascribing to Byron ope’s well-known line a Every woman is at heart a rake. When will writers for periodicals learn the import- ance of verifying their quotations? When dic- tionaries of quotations are easily accessible mis- takes of this class are absolutely reprehensible.- Before his death Max Miiller fortunately com leted his important contribution to the Ninetcentl: Cen- tury on ‘The Religions of China.’ The list of members of the Administrative Reform Association would have been more serviceable, as well as more dignified and influential, had it been al habetical. The arrangement adorited is ine t. The title of Dr. Jcssopp’s article, ‘ he Lake-Bwellersf is mis- leading. It led us to expect an account of the inhabitants of lacustrine abodes. Instead of this we find some pleasant gossiglconceming the Words- worths and Coleridges Sout ey, Christopher North, and the rest. Beautiful as they are, our own sweet Northern lakes are not the only lakes. Disappoint- ment does not, however, survive the perusal of the article. We cannot class as literary, or even non- political, an “ American appreciation ” of ‘Elec- tioneering Women,’ but we read the comments of Miss Elizabeth L. Banks with amused approval. Mr. L. O. Morant writes ou ‘The Vulgarizing of Oberammergauf We are disposed to believe that