278
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. n. OCT. i, 1904.
of Lennox, Darnley's mother, in the Queen's
House, few can be assigned with certainty to
the most famous prisoners. There is in the
wonderful Wallace Collection a charming
picture by Fragonard entitled 'Le Chiffre
d'Amour,' representing a lady carving her
name on a tree (Lord Hertford gave 1,400Z.
for the picture in 1865) ; but the rude
cuttings on the Coronation Chair in West-
minster Abbey only induce a feeling of
chagrin. The Earl of Durham, when pre-
siding recently at the opening of the Durham
Agricultural Show, held in Lambton Park,
referred to the practice of cutting names on
trees. For this very old custom they had
the authority of Shakespeare in the case of
Orlando, who carved names on trees in the
Forest of Arden, but he asked lovesick swains
to remember that that was not the Forest of
Arden, but Lambton Park, and advised them
to adopt some more manly form of courting.
HENRY GERALD HOPE. 119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes.
Edited by Alfred W. Pollard, M.A. (Oxford,
Clarendon Press.)
To the fourth edition of Mr. Pollard's ' English Miracle Plays ' several notable additions have been made, including some illustrations from fifteenth and sixteenth century sources. These are mostly drawn from France or the Netherlands. One from 'The pleasant and stately morall of the Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London,' printed by R. Ihones in 1590, is of English origin, and is sup- posed to show a performance in a private house of a morality. Many of the designs are taken from Books of Hours for the Use of Sarum or Rome ; from ' Le Compost et Kalendrier des Bergers ' ; from Antoine Verard's ' Therence en Francoys,' and other works printed in Paris. The designs to Wynkyn de Worde's ' Hyckscorner ' and to ' Every- man ' are slightly altered from French sources. In the additions to the notes use has been made of the eminently full and scholarly ' Mediaeval Stage ; of Mr. E. K. Chambers, to which we drew attention upon its appearance from Messrs. Duckworth & Co. Besides matter from the York, Chester, Towneley, and Coventry Plays, the work gives long extracts from 'The Mystery of Mary Magdalene,'
- The Castle of Perseverance,' ' Everyman,' ' The
Interlude of the Four Elements,' Skelton's 'Magny- fycence,' Heywood's ' The Pardoner and the Frere,'
- Thersytes,' and Bale's ' King John,' a useful and
representative collection. The introduction and notes are valuable, and the entire work is one that the student of our early drama will do well to keep near at hand. To the theatre of Hroswitha, the tenth-century nun of Gandersheim, Mr. Pollard does scanty justice ; but the work is trustworthy and excellent in all respects. It has a useful glossary.
The Prophetic Books of William Slake. Jerusalem*
Edited by E. R. D. Maclagan and A. G. RusselL
(Sullen.)
THIS handsomely printed volume is the first of what, it may be assumed, is intended to be a series of the ' Prophetic Books ' of Blake. That all of these are to be issued is not expressly stated, but a second volume is announced as nearly ready, and the title suggests an indefinite extension. No attempt is made to supply the illustrations which constitute in the general estimation the chief attractions of the 'Prophetic Books.' There is a world, eager and enthusiastic, though limited, which seeks to study the words of the inspired mystic, and for such a work of this class is desirable, and almost, it may be said, indispensable. To dwell upon the features and significance of Blake's symbolism, as shown in the 'Jerusalem,' the 'Milton,' and the various other works, is a task which the editors find impossible within their self-prescribed limits of several pages, and from which, with the narrow space at our command, we naturally shrink. Arduous study is, however, requisite to obtain secure interpretation, and we prefer to regard the entire work as an emanation of inspired mysticism, informed with passages of resplendent imagination. Blake's ideas on rime and blank verse, and on the influence of a monotonous cadence such as he finds in Milton and Shakespeare and all writers of English blank verse, are given in his opening address to the public. A few lyrical pas- sages are scattered up and down the text, but constitute, as regards length, an insignificant por- tion of the volume. There are those who claim to comprehend the symbolism of 'Jerusalem,' and for whom its topographical allusions even have weight. Of such are not we, and a dozen attempts to master the problems lead us only further astray. Numerous splendid passages, however, lighten our quest. We can also tell those of our readers whom symbolism attracts that a treasure- house is open for their inspection.
Asser's Life of King Alfred, together with the Annals of St. Neots, erroneously ascribed to- Asser. Edited by William Henry Stevenson, M.A. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) OF the two aims set before himself by Mr. Steven- son, those of supplying a critical edition of the text of the ' Life of Alfred,' and vindicating the genuine- ness of the text, the latter is the more easy. The fire on 23 October, 1731, at the Cottonian Library, then recently removed to Ashburnham House, Little Dean's Yard, Westminster, involved the destruction of the only authoritative MS. (Otho A. xii.). Of the many editions of Asser subse- quently issued, all contained interpolations from later and less trustworthy works. Wise's edition,, published in 1722 by the Oxford University Press, reprinted the original without, as was supposed, the corruptions of Archbishop Parker, and has accordingly been held a fairly pure source. Unfor- tunately, as is now shown, Wise trusted the collation of the text to James Hill, who executed the task in perfunctory fashion, with the result that most of the alterations and errors of Parker's edition of 1574, which were retained by Camden in his Frankfort edition of 1602-3, and some of Camden's own, reappear. What Mr. Stevenson has done has been to go carefully through such materials as exist. From these, chief among which is Florence of Worcester, he has succeeded in
