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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. L MAY u, 190*.
elusions. Of course we must admit that the line
taken by George III. and his advisers was technic-
ally defensible unanswerable, indeed, from the
pedant's point of view but this affords no justi-
fication whatever for a reversal of the verdict which
posterity has almost unanimously given against it.
Our Civil War of the seventeenth century had then
been fought out little more than a hundred years.
Now it has become a mere matter of history, like
the Crusades or the Plantagenet wars in France,
known to the non-reading class from school-books
or, it may be, university lectures ; but then many
men were alive whose grandfathers had suffered in
the contest, and traditions were living in every
ounty nay, in alniost every village of the sorrows
and hardships which Englishmen had endured. We
are aware that the issues on the two occasions were
by no means strictly parallel, but they were nearly
eo, and to the American mind as well as to the
sympathizers at home they presented a far closer
analogy than they now do to the student who views
them in the dry light of history. The hiring of
German soldiers, also, to slaughter our own people
across the Atlantic was an unpardonable outrage,
which it is hard to forgive even now, though far
more than a century has passed away ; but an even
deeper stain rests on the rulers of those German
states, who saw no harm in selling " their subjects
to be slaughtered in hundreds or thousands in a
cause of which they had no knowledge, and in
which they had no concern." ' The Women of the
Renaissance,' so far as it treats of its birth-land
Italy is exceptionally good ; but we can say little
in commendation of the latter part, wherein the
ladies of France are noticed. In France a move-
ment which, on its inception, was distinctly a
matter of culture only, soon became so blended
with narrow theological schemes that it lost its
humanistic flavour. The Renaissance in its purity
was to be found in Italy, and, as it seems to us,
nowhere else, though in diluted, and often cor-
rupting, forms it spread its influence over the
whole of the west of Europe. We hear much of
Isabella d'Este, a stately and lovable figure, of
whom we can never tire, though, with all her
learning and attractiveness, there were traits in
her character which give pain to the modern mind.
For example, when the wife of her brother Alphonso
died her "only idea was to send him her dwarf for
consolation." This was perhaps not so strange as
it seems. There may have been reasons which,
could we know the details, would change the aspect
of this grotesque incident into a real act of thought-
ful kindness ; but it is impossible to find any excuse
for her treatment of the painter Mantegna when
old, poor, and in debt. To take from him his
greatest treasure, "an antique head a Faustina
which he loved more passionately, perhaps, than
any human being," and then not to fulfil the terms
of her cruel contract, was a piece of heartlessness
which it is impossible to excuse. Yet she was a
woman of deep and constant affection, as is shown
by her treatment of her husband when she had
much to complain of. It is indicated also, as some
will maintain, by her having a cypress-shaded
cemetery for her favourite cats. ' The Letters of
Horace Walpole' relate to a fascinating subject.
What the writer stigmatizes as "Lord Macaulay's
fierce assault on Walpole "we admit required an
answer, and here we have it executed with great
care and discretion; but as the Whig historian
failed in one direction, so the present writer has
done in another. No one will question that the
Walpole correspondence is valuable on account of
the multitude of social facts embedded therein ; so,
for that matter, are Tom Hearne's diaries ; but
there are persons who, not content with this, regard
Walpole's carefully elaborated style as a something
good in itself. He was a man of moods and feelings,
and his attitude to many of his contemporaries
shows an incapacity for appreciating characters
different from his own. Had this arisen from
political prejudice many excuses might be made,
for -we all know how very far political hatreds
reach ; but we are convinced that Walpole's ani-
mosities arose from far shallower motives. ' The
Philosophy of Herbert Spencer ' is one of the fairest
articles we have encountered on a subject which
is now undergoing discussion everywhere.
To the " Little Library" of Messrs. Methuen has been added a complete edition of The Poems of Henry Vaughan (the Silurist), edited by Mr. Edward Hutton. It includes ' Silex Scintillans,' 'Olor Iscanus' (1651), 'Thalia Rediviva' (1678), 'Pious Thoughts and Ejaculations,' 'Hymns,' and other writings o_f an author whose works are not, easily accessible in so comprehensive and convenient a shape. Messrs. Methuen have also issued a useful and well-illustrated guide to Hampshire, by Dr. J. Charles Cox, F.S.A.
To Bell's "Miniature Series of Musicians" have been added satisfactory lives, with portraits and other illustrations, of Mendelssohn and Handel.
10
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Hie ET UBIQUE ("Rime v. Rhyme"). Because the former, invariably used by Shakespeare, is correct, and the latter an error, based on a mis- conceived analogy with rhythm.
Q. E. D. ("Women and Crests). See the long discussion on the right of women to arms, 9 th S. ix., x., xi.
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