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NOTES .AND QUERIES.

. ix. FEB. i, 1902.

none the less, omnivorous reading and wide re- search, and may be taken up at any time, ransacked with satisfaction, and laid aside. For this class of book we have, however, a dislike. Your purveyor of matter for magazine and periodical may turn to it and obtain a cheap and spurious reputation for knowledge. No genuine scholar will often em- ploy in his work information he has not himself quarried, and the experienced critic mistrusts the assertion that A calls B such and such a thing, with no hint where this is done. Such assertions are, as a rule, misleading when not inexact. No great harm is perhaps done, since work constructed on facile principles is like jerry-built houses that collapse of themselves. We could suggest to Mr. Wale one or two extracts that might with advan- tage have appeared, but refrain, since his book is large enough. Apropos of the Georges I., II., III., IV., he might with advantage supply in his next edition the well-known lines beginning

George the First was always reckoned Vile, and viler George the Second.

The Babylonian and the Hebrew Genesis. By H.

Zimmern, Ph.D. (Nutt.)

THE value of a book like this the third issue of " The Ancient East " series is not to be estimated by its size, which is small, or by its price, which is only one shilling. It gives us the mature and reasoned judgment of a great scholar on a problem of the most far-reaching interest no less than the origin and development of those early beliefs which are recorded in the opening pages of the HeUrew Scriptures. No sincere and earnest student of the Old Testament should fail to possess himself of this concise but authoritative statement of the most recent results of Babylonian discovery in their bearing on the Book of Genesis. If the large num- ber of people who profess to be readers of the Bible, and also lovers of truth, ignore this valuable series of manuals which Mr. Nutt is placing within their reach, we can only say that it is one more instance of the cant and obscurantism which are often characteristic of the popular religionism of the day. Our fathers, such people argue, did not, because they could not, know of these discoveries and therefore we will not. " This they willingly are ignorant of.

AMOXU the many subjects of historical interest in the later numbers of the Intermediaire may be mentioned the faith -cures of Prince Alexander Leopold ot Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst uncle of the late German Chancellor. The notes on the conduct of Rossel, immediately before his execution after the fall of the Commune, are also worthy of attention. Antiquaries who make a study of Christian relics will find, in a communica- tion relating to the so-called nails of the PasskS, that there used to be " une dent de Jesus-Christ" at Noyon. Unfortunately, however, the authority tor this curious fact is not quoted.

ne still C9ntinues to add to the hoard of ancient customs, rites, and beliefs which M. Gaidoz Sg tog S eth e e l r? W - WOrker ' S ^ ind ^gablo in bring-

THE library Journal gives all kinds of i n f. turn on the methods used in developing the public

TraTH f f. Americ *-. V the average man oT the I ransatlantic communities does not speedilv become a model of erudition it will be becWe ^inherent

tendency still leads him to expend whatever energies he may possess in personal action on his own en- vironment rather than to the acquirement of book- learning.

DR. F. G. LEE, F.S.A., who has just died at the age of seventy, after the announcement of his con- version to the Church of Rome, was a well-known antiquary, and was long recognized as an authority on all matters pertaining to ecclesiological lore. As an author he will be best remembered for his large and learned volume on the ' History and Antiquities of the Prebendal Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Thame,' published in 1883. This was a work of singular interest and value, and one of which the late Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Stubbs) had the highest opinion as a learned historical work. He edited three editions of that well-known volume the 'Directorium Anglicanum,' which was originally brought out by his friend Mr. Purchas in 1858. He likewise compiled a * Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Terms,' containing many illustrations from his own pen and that of Mr. Pugin, and a 'Manuale Clericorum,' both dealing with many interesting liturgical questions. He contributed numerous papers on antiquarian subjects to the pages of Arcnceplogia, the Herald and Genealogist, the Ecclesiologist, the Ecclesiastic, the Records of Buckinghamshire, and many similar serials. He was a contributor also to ' N. & Q.' He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, as well as of Scotland, and an honorary member of the Archaeological Societies of Normandy and Rome, and of many bodies of a like nature. Dr. Lee, who was educated at Oxford, where he won the Newdi- gate in 1854, received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the University of Salamanca in 1864, and that of D.D. from the Washington and Lee University, in Virginia, in 1879. H. B.

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M. L. R. B. ("The Essenes "). Shall appear next week.

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