Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/468

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460


NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vn. JUH. 7, 1013.


THE MS. records of Wadham Book Club and a complete file of receipted book-bills from 1824 provide material for an article of curious interest contributed by Mr. Joseph Wells to The Cornhill. 4 The Annals of a College Book Club ' illuminates the literary tastes of young Oxford in Early and Mid - Victorian days as much perhaps by its omissions as by its contents. Mr. A. D. Godley supplies felicitous, mocking lines addressed ' To a Graven Image ' ; and the Hon. Gilbert Coleridge studies mendicity and mendacity under the heading ' The Little Brothers of the Pavement.' Archdeacon Hutton muses ' On Shakespeare's Deathday.' Sport is represented by Mr. F. L. Farrer's picturesque ' Wild-Goose Chase.' The tendency to focus national sentiment on the long record of progress and Imperial expansion, while neglecting to keep green the memory of past glories and sacrifices, is viewed with dismay by Col. E. Macartney Filgate. In the course of his centenary article on ' Vittoria and its Historic Field ' he convicts Napier of an error in nomen- clature, of which it is interesting to note the pro- bable genesis according to Spanish theory. " Whoever prepared the map in Napier's volume probably pointed indefinitely towards the cluster of hamlets in which Lermanda lies, and asked the Spanish guide 'Que es eso ? ' ('What is that ? '), receiving the reply, ' Estan en Hermandad ' (' They are in brotherhood '), an allusion to the old-world socialism in accordance with which these Basque hamlets voluntarily group themselves in a common fraternity for such objects as the care of the sick, supervision of watercourses, and so on. In any English works I have seen Hermandad ^appears as the name of the hamlet, and the error is perpetuated."

Mrs. Henry de la Pasture's serial ' Michael Ferrys ' is brought to conclusion. The number

also includes two short stories one a very actual

study connected with Council - school manage- ment and a sketch of the revoltee as she appears to Sir James H. Yoxall.

THE varied interests of contemporary life reflected in the pages of the current Nineteenth Century include both international and home politics, the first three articles being concerned with these. Social diseases are diagnosed and remedies prescribed by Mr. J. A. R. Marriott, Miss Edith Sellers, and Mrs. Anna Martin re- spectively, under the titles ' The Problem of Poverty,' ' Sober by Act of Parliament,' and ' The Mother and Social Reform.' Dr. William Mac- donald sketches the rise and progress of a new branch of agricultural science in ' A Rainless Wheat ' ; and military matters occupy the attention of the Duke of Bedford and Capt. Archibald J. Campbell. ' The Alienation and Destruction of Church Plate,' by Messrs. Harrison Evans and Arthur F. G. Leveson-Gower, has been from time to time the subject of communications to * N. & Q-' References to secular vessels devoted to sacred uses occur in 9 S. viii., besides an instance of a chalice restored to its original

Sarish bearing an additional inscription showing tiat it had been presented as a prize at the Cheltenham races, 1833. Grave risks attend the common practice of keeping plate, registers, and old parish accounts at the parsonage. The more light thrown on such irregularities as the authors unveil the better, specially when coupled with remedial suggestions. ' Empress Frederick in


the Light of Truth,' by Prof. G. A. Leinhaas, is the somewhat high-sounding title of a very slight paper. A vivid and painful interest attaches to Mrs. Bennett's record of the experiences of her girlhood during ' Ten Months' Captivity after the Massacre at Cawnpore.' Few curtains were ever lowered on a more dramatic scene than that with which the first portion of her narrative concludes. To students of Shakespeariana Italian " civility " of the latter half of the sixteenth century is a fascinating subject. Sir Edward Sullivan treats it delightfully in connexion with ' An Italian Book of Etiquette in Shakespeare's Day.' We must also mention Prince Serge Wolkonsky's earnest advocacy of new principles with regard to ' The Ballet.' He writes lucidly on a subject which does not lend itself easily to verbal expression, pleading for a more complete fusion between the two equivalent elements of the visuo-audible art sound and movement.

The Imprint for May 17th contains a sketch of the history of wood engraving by Mr. J. H. Mason, who is to be congratulated on the amount of information he has condensed into eight pages. The illustrations include a reproduction of the ' St. Christopher ' now in the John Rylands Library, which bears the date 1423. Until 1844 this was supposed to be the oldest impression of a woodblock bearing a date, but on the 23rd of November of that year The Athenceum informed its readers that an earlier specimen had been discovered, and on the 4th of October, 1845, a transcript of the Malines print bearing the date 1418 was given. We believe that up to the present time the Malines print ranks as the earliest known. A reproduction of it appears in ' John Francis and " The Athenaeum," ' vol. i. p. 79. Among the other articles in the number are ' Some Eighteenth- Century Song-Books,' by Mr. W'illiam Maas, and ' Intaglio Printing,' by Mr. Powell.

WE have to thank Mr. W. Hugh Spottiswoode for another delectable Printers' Pie, which deserves to be known as ' The Universal Pie,' for it every- where obtains a welcome. The contributors number seventy-one, twenty-one of these being authors, and fifty artists ; while the numerous advertisers contribute a substantial and useful outside crust.


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CORRESPONDENTS who send letters to be for- warded to other contributors should put on the top left-hand corner of their envelopes the number of the page of 'N. & Q.' to which their letters refer, so that the contributor may be readily identified.

A. N. BRAYSHAW ("Do ye ken John Peel with his coat so grey?"). The question whether the last word should be "grey" or "gay " was asked at 11 S. ii. 229, the replies at p. 278 supporting " grey."

S. ("I shall pass through this world but once "). The authorship of this saying was discussed at 10 S. i. 247, 316, 355, 433 ; v. 498. There is a long note on the subject on p 448 of ' Cassell's Book of Quotations,' in which Mr. Gurney Beuham mentions a number of persons to whom the saying has been attributed.