280
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* B. in. APRIL s, m
is said about the publication in Leeds of his first
volume of poems, a matter of some interest. 'In
Vienna in the Mad Year of '48' gives a vigorous
account of misgovernment and revolt. A sketch of
Alexander Poushkin is interesting. Walpole's letters
are frequently on the tapis just now. A paper on
' The Earlier Letters of Horace Walpole ' is sound
in judgment and pleasantly written. In the
Gentleman's is a paper on those ' Early Tuscan
Poets' to whom Rossetti, in his translation of
Dante's 'Vita Nuova,' first introduced many of
us. ' Froissart's Chronicles,' ' George Crabbe,' and
' The Princess Charlotte ' are also the subjects of
papers. ' An Honest Publisher,' it is sad to find, is a
Frenchman, Eugene Randuel. The title, we suppose,
does not imply that he is the only one. The English
Illustrated has once more three capital coloured
illustrations. One depicts that 'Mimicry in Ani-
mals ' to which safety in the midst of innumerable
foes is not seldom due. Two papers are upon
' Submarine Boats ' and 'Voyaging under the Sea.'
An eminently interesting account is given of ' The
London Missionary Society's Museum,' with many
illustrations of idols.' More Superstitions and
some Humours of Arcady,' by Miss C. Trollope,
which appears in Longman's, is quite delightful.
Scarcely less good is 'A Sketch in Scarlet.' Lord
Chesterfield is discussed in 'The Great Letter-
Writers,' and Mr. Rider Haggard's 'A Farmer's
Year ' and Mr. Lang's ' At the Sign of the Ship ' are
well continued. In the New Century Mr. Joseph
Collinson speaks up warmly in favour of ' The Per-
secuted Owl.' The two Morrises, William and Sir
Lewis, are both discussed, the former in connexion
with his fantastically worn Socialism.
MB. VINCENT STUCKEY LEAN. In the Times of 29 March appeared the announcement of the death of Mr. Vincent Stuckey Lean, of the Middle Temple. It stated that he died at the Knowle, Clevedon, Somerset, the residence of his niece, on 24 March, aged seventy-eight. This statement would have passed unnoticed, save by a fe\y friends at the Temple, but for the paragraphs in the Times and other papers on the following day recording his charitable bequests. He has left 50,OOW. to the British Museum for the improvement and extension of the Library and Reading-room, and 50,OOOA to the city of Bristol for the development of the free libraries of the city. He was the youngest son of Mr. James Lean, of Clifton, Bristol, one of the founders and directors of Stuckey's Banking Com- pany, the leading establishment of the kind through- out Somerset. Mr. V. S. Lean is said to have been connected in early life with the bank. Even then he was animated by the love of travel, and, until last winter, several of the colder months of the year were spent by him on the Riviera. In the summer of 1895 he was at Meran. He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple on 3 November, 1843, and had for many years been a familiar figure during the term dinners in its noble hall at the ancients' table a table which is invested with especial privileges for a few senior barristers. It is pleasant to record that he furnished to the number of ' N. & Q.' for 22 November, 1890, the graces said before and after dinner at the Middle Temple. Since 1861 he had been a member of the Windham Club. Mr. Lean, during his travels on the Continent and in England, particularly around the Malvern Hills, had picked^ up many curious bits of knowledge, and he added to his stores of
information by assiduous reading at the British
Museum. But neither there nor elsewhere would
his appearance have suggested to the chance comer
that he was endowed with great wealth. His
favourite hobby was that of "national proverbs,"
and the Museum authorities are requested to de-
vote some attention to the illustration of that
branch of knowledge. For many years Mr. Lean
had been a contributor to our columns. We note a
communication from him so far back as 30 July,
sequent communications threw light on obscure
passages in our Elizabethan and Jacobean litera-
ture. Long replies and replies of great value by
him on ' Personal Proverbs,' and on ' Proverbs
which have changed their Meaning,' appeared in
our second volume for 1878. His name is not
entered in the British Museum Catalogue as the
author of any separate work.
A VETERAN writer, who was an occasional con- tributor to 'N. & Q.,' died, aged seventy-nine, on 19 February, at Armadale, a suburb of Melbourne. Mr. David Blair went out to Sydney in 1850, and was associated with the late Sir Henry Parkes in the Empire newspaper. Later he moved to Mel- bourne, and was for a while in Parliament in Victoria, but his interests were chiefly in journal- ism and in literature. Some twenty-one years ago he published a ' History of Australasia,' and in 1882 a 'Cyclopaedia of Australasia.'
io
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shame to thee, land of the Gaul. Consult 'N. & Q.,' 7 th S. ii. passim, under 'Poem attributed to Byron.'
CORRIGENDUM. P. 227, col. 1, 1. 11, for "enter- ing Purgatory " read on quitting Purgatory.
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