Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/32

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. VIL JAN. 12, 1901.

"best" I presume is meant most superior and influential, but which is the book combining these qualities ? Surely not any of Carlyle's books. Superior they are in cleverness, self- assertion, dogmatism, and needless obscurity of style ; influential, too, within a certain, but limited area ; but overtop all others by either quality they most assuredly do not. Moreover, influence spells popularity, and no single book Carlyle ever penned was or possibly could be popular. If popularity be the measure of best-ness, then Carlyle never has had, nor will have, any chance in the race with Scott and Macaulay and Dickens as competitors. Their grooves may differ from his, but the test is there all the same- superiority of wider influence. Nor is the test of matter less conclusive. Ruskin approaches him nearest under this head, and assuredly the radius of his influence is less restricted than Carlyle's. Has not society been captivated from base to summit by his peerless eloquence, or the simplicity of his diction, or the wisdom of his ethics? 'The Stones of Venice' has impressed a mul- titude where 'Past and Present' has in- terested a group. But I am far from maintain- ing that even Ruskin's works are the "best " of the century. They are so of their kind, as Carlyle's are of his, and Darwin's and New- man's and Tennyson's are of theirs. But no one book of any one author focuses in itself all the excellences of all other books the bril- liancy of Macaulay, the grasp and range of Gladstone, the poetry of Keats, and the supreme use of language of Ruskin. I confine the inquiry to English nineteenth-century literature. And yet Sir Walter's thesis demands^uch predicates. Had he qualified it as sni yeneris only, I had no dispute with it ; because he formulates it unequivocally I demur to it. Unique of its kind 'Past and Present' undoubtedly is (as is 'Sartor Re- sartus ') ; the best book of the century it undoubtedly is not either in matter, influ- ence, or style. The theory that it is so is as untenable as the now famous "hundred best books" contention. The best book, or num- ber of books, of the century is that, or are those, which appeals or appeal most to each reader individually. J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

[Such discussions are, we think, rather futile.]

KEOIMEXTS AT CULLODEN. As the recently published works of Mr. Lang and Mr. Terry give no clue to the modern numerical or territorial designations of the regiments which took part in the battle of Culloden, I have drawn up the following list, which may

prove

useful to some readers of 'N. &

1 (it Mr.

is noteworthy that both Mr. Lang an Terry write " Ely th " for Bligh} : Humphrey Eland's Dragoons, 3rd Hussars ; Cobham's Dragoons, 10th Hussars ; Lord Mark Ker's Dragoons, llth Hussars ; St. Clair's Royal Regiment, 1st Royal Scots, Midlothian ; Howard's Regiment, 3rd, the Buffs, East Kent ; Barrell's, 4th, Royal Lancaster ; Wolfe's, 8th, Liverpool ; Pulteney's, 13th, Somersetshire ; Price's, 14th, WestYorkshire ; Bligh's, 20th, Lancashire ; Campbell's, 21st, Scots Fusiliers, Ayr ; Sempill's, 25th, Scottish Borderers ; Blakeney's, 27th, Inniskilling Fusiliers ; Cholmondeley's, 34th, Border, Carlisle ; Fleming's, 36th, Worcestershire ; Monro's, 37th, Hampshire ; Ligonier's, 48th, Northamptonshire. James Wolfe, the future hero of Quebec, was not in his father's regi- ment, the 8th, but was at Culloden as a captain in the 4th Regiment, and employed on the staff as brigade-major. His account of the battle is to be found in Wright's * Life of Wolfe,' p. 84. He has been represented by some writers as a lieutenant-colonel at Cul- loden, but he was not even a rnaior until 1749. W. S.

SNUFF. (See 9 th S. vi. 460.) The opinion expressed at the above reference, to the effect that snuffing is "a filthy habit," recalls two passages in the 'Memoirs of Eighty Years,' by the late physician and " parable-poet," Dr. Gordon Hake. At p. 104 he tells a sparkling anecdote, showing how George IV. illustrated the method of cleanly snuff-taking ; and at p. 228 he describes his own "snuff- rnull " one presented to him in 1875 by Rossetti, and now, undoubtedly, duly prized as an heirloom and then defends snuffing with a certain air of scientific reasonableness. He says :

"And would you know the reason of my per- sistence in taking snuff? It not only wakes up that torpor so prevalent between the nose and the brain, making the wings of an idea uncurl like those of a new-born butterfly, but while others sneeze, and run at the eyes and nose, my schneiderian membrane is impervious to weather, or, to be explicit, I never take cold in my head."

As a transcript from experience this has a value of its own, for although, as a matter of course, there is an element of waywardness 'n the passage, it is not mere chaff and lothing more. THOMAS BAYNE.

' DlCTIONAEY OF NATIONAL BlOGRAPHY ' AND

PORTRAITS. The 'D.N.B.' is a model of what such a work should be, and now that it is completed a separate alphabetical index of J ;he persons dealt with, giving their call-