Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/147

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

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is trivial to those who are able to afford any books whatever. Those who have once known the advan- tages attending possession and consultation will be little disposed to abandon either.

An English Miscellany. Presented to Dr. Furnivall in Honour of his Seventy-fifth Birthday. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.)

PROCEEDINGS in honour of Dr. Furnivall, the well- known F. J. F. of our columns, have been in pro- gress since 12 July, 1899, and have resulted in a tribute to that eminent scholar as novel in this country as it is gratifying. No English writer has stronger claims upon recognition such as is now afforded ; none has worked with more unstinted energy, with more disinterested motive, more self- denying zeal, and, let it be added, with more con- spicuous success. We have to go back to the period of the Renaissance, to the time when learning was a passion, to find an instance of a devotion to letters such as Dr. Furnivall has shown. In recog- nition of his services, Profs. Ker, Napier, and Skeat, representing English studies in London, Oxford, arid Cambridge, began a movement in which, from the first, America and Germany took an active share, and towards which French, Dutch, and Scandinavian scholarship has also contributed. The offering comprises a portrait of Dr. Furnivall, now in preparation, the presentation of a boat, and other things, of which the present volume is the most striking. This is somewhat more than an album amicorum ; it is what is called in Ger- many a Festschrift in Dr. FurnivaH's honour, to which scholars have been invited to contribute. Most handsomely have they responded to the call. So far as our knowledge, of such things extends, there are two volumes in English literature which, though different in nature and intention, approxi- mate in some respects to this. The first is ' Jon- sonus Virbius ; or, the Memory of Ben Jonson revived by the Friends of the Muses,' a work edited by Dr. Bryan Duppa, Bishop of Winchester, and published in 1638, a few months after Jonson's death. It consists entirely of elegiacal poems in honour of Jonson by Lords Falkland and Buck- hurst, Sir John Beaumont, Henry King, Thomas May, William Habington (the author of ' Castara'), Edmund Waller, James Ho well (of the ' Familiar Letters '), John Cleveland, Jasper Mayne, Owen Feltham, and very many others, some of no less reputation. A similar tribute was paid the famous Duchess of Newcastle in " Letters and Poems in Honour of the Incomparable Princess Margaret, Dut chess of Newcastle. Written by several Per sons of Honour and Learning. In the Savoy, 1676.' This seems to have originated with the Senate of the University of Cambridge. Writers in i1 included Jasper Mayne (who, it seems, wrote ir both compilations), George Etherege, Henry More Thomas Hobbes, Jno. Glanville, Thomas Shadwell Bishop Pearson, and the like.

From these works the present volume differs in being written while the recipient of homage is alive and well, and in not being confined to verses in his praise. Such, naturally, appear. Prof. Skeat in a pretended extract from an old MS., imitates humorously, and applies to Dr. Furnivall, a well known passage in Chaucer. Prof. Saintsbury and the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke send also verses Most of the contributions deal, however, serious!} with matters of literary or philological interest bo numerous and so short are, for the most part

hese, that to describe them would be but to give , catalogue raisonne of the contents of the book. A large number of the articles deal with dramatic ubjects. Mr. Sidney Lee sends a valuable paper Dn 'Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Playgoer,' Mr. W. A. Craigie writes on ' The Gospel of Nicodemus ' and the ' York Mystery Plays,' Mr. Pierce Butler on 'The Origin of the Liturgical Drama,' Herr Swald Fliigel on ' Udall's Dialogues and Inter- udes,' M. Jusserand on ' Pageants and Scaffolds Hye,' Mr. Arthur F. Leach on ' Some English Plays and Players,' Mr. M. W. MacCallum on 'The Authorship of the Early " Hamlet,'" and Mr. G. C. Moore Smith on ' " King John" and " The Trouble- some Raigne.'" Prof. Herford sends a scene from lis translation of Ibsen's 'Love's Comedy,' Mr. Eenry Bradley writes on ' Some Prehistoric River Barnes,' Mr. J. Earle on ' The Place of English in Education,' Dr. Garnett on ' The Romance of the Lily,' Mr. Gollancz on ' The Quatrefoil of Love,' Prof. Ker on ' Panurge's English,' Prof. Napier on ' The Franks Casket' and other subjects, M. Gaston Paris on ' Amadas et Idoine,' Prof. York Powell on ' Beowulf,' Mr. W. H. Stevenson on ' English in English Schools,' Prof. Skeat on 'Andreas' and ' Fata Apostolorum,' Mr. Paget Toynbee on ' Dante,' and Mr. H. Sweet on 'Shelley's "Alastor."' We have given some only of the names, leaving very many distinguished writers unmentioned. The mere list quoted shows, however, how hope- less would be, in the space at our disposal, the attempt to supply any criticism or comment upon articles every one of which challenges serious con- sideration. They constitute "chips" from some of the finest literary workshops in two continents, and they are a monument to Dr. Furnivall the most gratifying and honourable that a worker such as he can well receive.

Acts of the Privy Council of England. New Series.

Vol. XXI. A.D. 1591. Edited by John Roche

Dasent, C.B. (Stationery Office.) THE contents of the present volume, like those of its predecessors, are taken from the MS. known in the Council Office collection as Elizabeth, vol. ix., and cover the time between 25 March and 30 Sep- tember, 1591. The event of most importance with which the volume deals consists of the dispatch to France of two expeditions intended to assist Henry IV. in his combat with the League. Few historical periods are more familiar than this to the student. These expeditions, respectively under the conduct of Sir John Norris and Lord Essex, were principally drawn from the forces in the Low Countries. Their dispatch furnishes Mr. Dasent

with the opportunity, of which he avails himself, to compare the Netherlands as a source of supply o: > "* T 1- ' theenc

troops in the sixteenth century with India at the end of the nineteenth century. Very edifying subjects of study for the Englishman of to-day are furnished in the manner of raising troops for service abroad and in the contemplation of the rapacity of our officers and the difficulties that beset the private soldier in his efforts to secure his pay. The con- ditions of payment were, indeed, such as to facilitate and encourage dishonesty on the part of the cap- tains. Another matter of high interest consists in the abortive attempt to capture the Spanish plate fleet. There is, of course, much trouble with Non- conformists. Much is heard of the fear, very well grounded, of invasion, and strict orders are given to Sir Fraunces Drack, Sir John Gilbert, and others