Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/64

 NOTES. AND QUERIES. [9- s. vm. JULV is, 1901.

and what is of far more importance in ]u man and his time, we have little or nothing beyond peculation to help us in determining how it was tmtt if occurred to him to form a mixed order of

stitutions of this

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rSetL E W abnepos," whose appearance so far

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men and women. In the East institutions or this kind had been well known, and similar houses had flourished in this country in earlier days, but they had all been swept away by the Danes. Ihe his- tory of th? order of Sempringham has an especial ffirest on account of this recurrence to a custom BO venerable; one, too, concerning which we may assume, the founder had but slight knowledge even if he were aware that such double houses had ever existed before his own time. It is also noteworthy as being the only religious order founded in this country. It never spread elsewhere, not even into Scotland, and as a consequence, when the order fell here, it, unlike the others, having no branches m foreign countries to carry on the tradition, became

Miss Rose Graham has done well the work she has undertaken. She has, it is plain, an accurate as well as a full knowledge of her subject, bne understands, too, many of those conditions of mediaeval life without a due knowledge of which any rational appreciation of the monastic orders is impossible. The details of the life of^ St. Gilbert are unhappily very scanty. Miss Graham has avoided the error, into which many well-intentioned writers have fallen, of eking out by pietistic verbiage the deficiencies of her authorities.

The accounts of the various Gilbertine houses are good. That they are scanty is no fault of the writer. She seems to have consulted every source of information that was open to her, and we fear that there is not much reason to hope that new facts will come to light, though we still cling fondly to the hope that a MS. of Capgrave's English ' Life of St. Gilbert' may be found. There was one in the Cotton Library, but it perished in the disastrous fire of 1731.

The Poll of Alumni in Arts of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, 1596-1860. Edited by Peter J. Anderson. (Aberdeen, printed for the University.)

THE subject of Scotch graduates is familiar to 4 N. & Q,,' and of great interest. Aberdeen has justly a very high reputation as a nursing-mother of men, and the work of the University Librarian which in many points corrects less careful sources, is invaluable. Mr. Anderson's lists are admirably produced in every way, the index in particular being most excellent. It shows the persistency o certain families: Andersons, Barclays, Camerons Campbells, Clarks, Cummings, and Gordons, to men tion no other names, are very plentiful, while Forbe and Fraser are each good for a whole page of th' index. On the other hand, there is only a solitar instance of Con, Don, Duke, Hart, and Fisher, th last two being very common names in England The lists are so beautifully printed that they are pleasure to the eye. Looking over them, one come

t TuaUfications ot'herways? Aberdeen may

ay Quee regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? and many students will thank the University Librarian for his painstaking work.

ht to have noticed before the Biblio-

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form is uue L*J DUG \vi.v> *.*** ~ -- -. , Prideaux. We say " taste because it is just the literary quality, the judgment of the scholar and the writing of the man who reads as well as collects or chronicles which are often wanting m biblio- graphers; but yet it needs such qualities to .make their work of interest to a wider circle than that of the mere seekers after " first states " and ' rarities. Col. Prideaux shows his capabilities m the notes e has added, for instance, to such a masterpiece s ' Christabel,' and the thoroughness of his research s evident everywhere. Briefly, we may say that is bibliography is what a good performance of the .ind should be, something like a literary history f its subject in skeleton form. THE Oxford University Press will issue ' An ^nglish Commentary on Dante's "Divina Uom- nedia,'" by the Rev. H. F. To/er. Mr. Tozer has ollowed the new Oxford text of the 'Divine Comedy.'

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across many notable persons, though the frequency I at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G. of the same names may be a trap to the unwary We beg leave to state that we decline to return may make one think for a moment, for instance, ' communications which, for any reason, we do not that the economist Adam Smith was an Aberdeen print ; and to this rule we can make no exception.