Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/576

 480 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9th s. vi. DEC. 15.1900. Le Gallienne. Too invidious were it, however, to descant on the right of our latest bards to survive. We merely remark that the poets of modern humanity, progress, and patriotism have, to be frank, not arrived. Such there will be, we doubt not, but fair science and Minerva have rather frowned than smiled on recent outpourings of the sort. Religious poetry is rather sparsely represented, as if the editor had thought of taking up this side, and then dropped it in despair of his limits. We are a little surprised to see that he cares to repeat Rossetti's inevitably humorous and therefore un- successful phrase about " playing at holy games" in ' The Blessed Damozel.' Is it fair to do this when the poet has altered the thing himself for the better ? Another matter which has struck us is that we hardly get a fair representation of light poetry and the jolly muse. We no more expect a poet to be always full of high seriousness, the philosophy of love or religion, and other lofty sentiments, than we expect a railway station to be venerable. Bishop Still sings here of " good ale and old," but where are Peacock's excellent bacchic things, and where are the masters of sentiment—every-day ordinary sentiment, if you will, but none the worse for that ? We come across Lord Cults, Lord Lyttel- ton, and even that splendid sycophant Lord Mel- combe, who perhaps never regarded himself, for all his confidence, as a select poet. Now we would give all these titled gentlemen away to repair what is, after all, perhaps the one serious omission in this book. No poem lay Thackeray appears. Before presenting our tinal thanks to Mr. Quiller- Couch for the great care and taste that have gone to the making of this volume, we ought to add that it is not confined to England. Ireland and Scotland get some of the recognition they have long deserved. There are two pieces by Walt Whitman, one from the Australian H. C. Kendall, one from Bliss Carman, this last a true poet, of whom too few have heard, born to outlast the purveyors of slang and the torturers of our tongue who sell their reputations for a song, or what aims at being such. Elegies we have, and sonnets galore, and good rhetoric, but where are our lyric poets of to-day and the fine simplicity they need ? Let them come, and we shall feel on safer ground than we do now in endorsing the view of the preface to these pages that English is the language which the Muse " among living tongues most delights to honour." Shakespeare's Lift awl Work. By Sidney Lee. (Smith, Elder &. Co.) MESSRS. SMITH, ELDER & Co. have published in a slightly abridged edition, and at a price which brings it within the reach of the general mass of students, Mr. Lee's monumental life of Shake- speare. The omissions will not be perceptible to the majority of readers, and the book includes the bibliography, appendices, and many admirably executed illustrations, including the Flower Por- trait' of Shakespeare, in photogravure. In its present shape the work must command a general circulation. Slwlies in Fossil Botany. By D. H. Scott, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. (A. & C. Black.) DR. SCOTT is already well known for his admirable books on flowering and flowerless plants. He has now added to these a well • informed and weU- documented discussion of what palaeontology baa contributed to the restoration of fossil plants. The book is admirably illustrated, but not one for the beginner, as it requires a good knowledge of geology and botany as recently understood; indeed, its details are too technical to be discussed in these pages with advantage. We need only say that such matters as the inflorescence and fructification of the Equisetaceas and allied groups are discussed with conspicuous fairness and knowledge, though, certainty as to correlation of the various groups, and even the external form, of these fossil ferns ia unattainable. Dr. Scott is pleasingly ready, as the best authorities always are, to give credit to other workers, foreign and English, in his complicated subject. MR. A. COTGRKAVE, a well-known librarian, has published A Contents-Subject Index to general and periodical literature (Stock). It covers much the same ground as Poole's well-known ' Index,' but it is much cheaper, and it is highly creditable to find any one willing to give so much valuable time to a work which cannot fail to be widely used. Nothing ia more difficult than to find readily old magazine articles. This task will be much simplified by keeping such a compact volume as this within reach. Readers must, however, be careful about accepting the authority of information given in magazines. We should, for instance, go not to the Leisure Hour for an article on Greek literature, but to sources of more special authority, such as Prof. Gilbert Murray's 'History.' The book ia best at general information. Scribner's Magazine reached us too late to be included in our monthly summary. The most notable of its contents is an essay on Puvis de Chavannes, with coloured reproductions of some of his wonderful decorative designs. to &0m2p0nfrcnis. We must call special attention to the following notices :— ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith. WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately. To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication " Duplicate." J. G. W.-B.—You should refer to exact page in your replies. NOTICE. Editorial Communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries'"—Advertise- ments and Business Letters to "The Publisher"— at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C. We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rule we can make no exception.