Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/487

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an accelerating rate. For reasons which the editor explains it has been found impossible to get into one volume, bulky as this is, the whole of the MS. constituting what is known in the Council Office Collection as Elizabeth Vol. X., 106 pages out of nearly 600 having to appear in the following volume. Among matters of picturesque and his- torical interest is the death in the Tower of Sir John Perrott, the natural son of Henry VIII. and consequently the brother of the queen. Not the slightest allusion can we trace to the circumstances under which this brave and turbulent spirit passed away, but it is easy to believe that his departure was a matter of relief to the Council. French wars and the support afforded to Henry IV. in his con- test with the League occupy a considerable space, and there is (p. 502) an account of a disaster to the troops of the Princes of Conty and Dombes at the hands of Spaniards and "Bretaignes" under the Duke of Mercury (Mercosur), in which the English contingent serving with the two princes was sadly mauled. News of this calamity was received by the Council on the last day of May, 1592. No great discouragement was, however, felt, and the first item in Vol. XXIII. (1 July, 1592) deals with the dispatch of 2,550 troops from the Low Countries to reinforce Sir John Norris. Resolute as was the Council, the public response was scarcely adequate, and we find the Mayor of Rye protesting that, as there were no walls to his town, he was unable to prevent desertion. Great care had to be exercised to prevent the recruits catching the plague or suffering from "the new ague," a disease then prevalent. Difficulties of transport seem also to have been almost insuperable. Everywhere the complaint is made of lack of funds. Money could, however, be produced for her Majesty's amusements, and we find warrants to the Vice-Chamberlain and Treasurer to "paie to the servantes of our verie good Lord the Earle of Hartfort for a plaie enacted before her Majestic one [sic] the Twelfenight last the some of ten poundes." A following warrant is for the payment to the Lord Straunge's servants of forty pounds, and "by waie of her Majesty's rewarde twentie pownds " for "sixseverall plaies by them enacted before her Majestic at the Court at Whitehall" on "St. John's daie, Innocents' daie, Newyeare's daie, Souday next after Twelfe daie, Shrove Sondaie and Shrove Twesdaie." Payments to the Earl of Sussex's men and to the queen's own players are also mentioned. Once more we have to express our regret that so little information in fact, no information at all is supplied us concern- ing the pieces given. Knowledge of the kind would fill up some gaps in our stage information. We still hear much concerning recusants and concerning seminary priests and Jesuits. Commissions to search for them and examine those committed by the Council are granted. The state of England seems to have been more settled than before, but abductions are still attempted, and deeds of violence on the part of masterless men and others have to be dealt with. The inhabitants of Muche Wendon in Essex make grievous complaint against one John Feltwell, "a verie troublesome and contencious person who prosecuted divers frivolous suites against them to their great charge and vexacion." One gets, indeed, from these volumes a livelier picture of life in England under Elizabeth than can be elsewhere obtained. Mr. Dasent's prefaces con- dense admirably what is of most historical value in the matters of which his volumes treat.

Beowytf,and the Fight at Finruburgh. Translated by John R. Clark Hall, M.A. (Sonnenschein & Co.)

THOSE who seek to form an acquaintance with a picture of Anglo-Saxon life such as is furnished in the lav of Beowulf ' cannot do so better than in the clever, scholarly, and eminently readable translation into modern English prose of Dr. Clark Hall. 'Beowulf,' it is recognized, gives us a picture of the life of heroes and of the weapons employed by them as vivid as is supplied in the case of the Greeks by Homer. No fewer than three trans- lations practically appear: the first in the shape of an argument heading each "Fit," the second in a connected and explanatory summary, and the third in the regular rendering. There is in addition an introduction supplying all information concerning the poem, its authority, and the existing MS. in the British Museum Library, a facsimile reproduction of a page of which is given. Besides these things, twelve pages of illustrations of armour, offensive weapons, and ornaments, with a map notes, indexes of names and things, &c., render the edition ideal. It is likely to be of highest service in the school curriculum and to the more advanced student.

The Dunbar Anthology, 1401-1508 ; The Cowmr Anthology, 1775-1800. Edited by Prof. Edward Arber, F.S.A. (Frowde.)

THE two volumes of the "British Anthologies" now issued are numbered respectively I. ana X., and are supposed to complete the series to which they belong. Without supplying every poem the reader is likely to desire, the series is the most ambitious and comprehensive that has yet appeared. Those who can be contented with anthologies may well rest satisfied with the work now finishea, and those even who prefer the complete works of the poets, and are not disposed to accept any " taster," may well find pleasure in glancing over poems to be found in few collections, or even, as in the case of 'The Dunbar Anthology,' to refresh their memories of works they have read before. In ' The Dunbar Anthology,' which is the earliest in date of the ten volumes, are included the poems of Occleve (or Hoccleve), Lydgate, and other con- temporaries of Chaucer. Few are those who have read these. We are of the few, however, having, apart from other perusal, gone through the writings with a view of supplying materials for the Philo- logical Society now happily incorporated into the ' H.E.D.' Small enough is the poetic worth of these writers, though that of Dunbar, Henryson, and Valois, Duke of Orleans, is greater. The best poems in the volume are, however, anonymous, consisting of ballads such as ' The Battle of Otter- burn,' ' Chevy Chase,' ' The Nut-Brown Maid,' and 'Adam Bell, dim of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee.'

'The Cowper Anthology' comprises, among other poets, William Blake, Robert Burns, Cole- ridge, Lamb, Southey, and Wordsworth, and does not, accordingly, suffer from want of material. The whole of 'Christabel' and 'The Ancient Mariner' is given. Southey is poorly represented; but very little of his work was produced during the period covered. We are glad to find some spirited songs of Joanna Baillie, and could have done with more. Are not " The winds whistle cold and the stars glimmer red" and "Hart and hind are in their lair" by her? Half a century has