Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/168

 160 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL FEB. 23, 1001.

fact that the beast is held sacred as being the abode of the spirits of their ancestors, and also as the progenitor of the Malagasy race, the punisnment did not err on the side of severity. The views of tropical scenery are excellent. There are also some striking portraits of native women.

NAPOLEON'S captivity is the subject in the Quar- terly Review for January of an article which has been no doubt suggested by Lord Rosebery's striking book. It does not contain much that is new, but Napoleonic literature has become so vast, and is growing so rapidly, that we are grateful to a com- petent person like the present writer for giving within the limits of a few pages the results of careful study of the authorities. We rarely find Crabbe held up for admiration in these days, and are therefore glad to have an estimate of the man and his work by one who is in general sympathy with both. To us, much of Crabbe's verse is painful reading, and here and there we come upon passages of commonplace quite unworthy of him, but he is rarely dull in the ordinary sense of the word. All he wrote was, we imagine, with the purpose of pointing out that much of the sorrow of the world might be avoided by a steadfast clinging to moral order. Poetry, we are well aware, should not be a sermon in disguise, but one cannot but have a certain reverence and liking for one who used such faculty as he had on the side of justice. ' Virgil and Tennyson : a Literary Parallel/ shows great familiarity with both the earlier and the later bard, and brings out in a way we have never seen done before some very striking similarities. Tennyson knew his Virgil well, but there is no reason to suppose he ever consciously imitated him ; for to be like Virgil in careful preparation and self- restraint is not imitation. The paper on ' Michelet as an Historian' gives the great Frenchman a higher place than we can concede to him. As to his style, it is not likely that its merits will be exaggerated. He was also an incessant student, but the inferences he drew were constantly marked by political and religious partisanship unworthy of a serious historian. There are appreciative papers on Prof. Huxley and the Amir of Afghanistan, both of which will repay careful reading.

THE Edinburgh Review for January is somewhat heavy, but nearly everything in it is worthy of attention. The paper on ' Cicero ' shows remark- able acquaintance with the literature of the subject. The writer takes a more kindly view of the orator's personal character than we can consent to do, but it must ever be borne in mind that in estimating the men who flourished when the Roman Republic was in its death agony great allowances have to be made. Mommsen's estimate, to which the present writer draws attention, is, we believe, on the whole unprejudiced. Had Cicero not written works on philosophy and used forms of rhetoric which will always be attractive to certain minds, we may safely assume he would now have suggested little except to a few specialists. ' The Early History of Foxhunting' is by some one who is master of the literature of the subject. It seems that there are at the present time about 300 packs of hounds kept for this sport. The writer hesitates to make any estimate of the money directly and indirectly expended on this amusement. We have heard it reckoned at upwards of a million and a half. 'Velazquez' contains a highly compressed body of information, but is too full of dry detail to

interest the ordinary reader. The literature re- lating to Cromwell grows so rapidly that those reviewers who have anything to say find no little difficulty in keeping up with it. We have here what seems to be a fair estimate of Mr. Morley's recent book. It must be remembered, however, that it is the production of a politician, not of an historian. 'Fiction and Polities' deals with the political novel, and we have also a well- written article on the sad fate of the wife of George I. As we have not examined personally the documents at Lund which are assumed to prove her guilt, we are not in a position to controvert the conclusion here arrived at.

Man : a Monthly Record of Anthropological Science. The second part of the new anthropological pub- lication is an advance upon the first. One of the most interesting communications is that by Mr. A. L. Lewis, a Treasurer of the Anthropological Institute, 'On the Damage recently sustained by IStonehenge.' It is illustrated by designs show- ing the results of the fall in January, 1797, and those of that at the end of the last century. The necessity of underpinning the stones and taking other methods for their preservation is insisted on. Mr. C. H. Read, F.S.A., President of the Archaeo- logical Institute, sends an account of ' Relics from Chinese Tombs,' which also is illustrated. The Oxford Boden Professor pays a tribute to Max Miiller. Important contributions are also supplied by Mr. Sidney Hartland, F.S.A.

MESSRS. PICKERING & CHATTO have issued three opening parts of an illustrated catalogue of rare and curious plays, which seems likely, when complete, to be an interesting bibliographical possession.

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ERRATA. P. 134, col. 2, 1. 22 from bottom, for Mask" read Black. In the' Index to the last

volume (p. 547) " Southey (Thomas)" should be

Southey (Robert).

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