Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/266

This page needs to be proofread.

218


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. m. MARCH is, 1905.


He published a penny picture paper, in which he gave an account of the escape of a lion. He was at ! once told to " stop or stamp." He stamped, raised his paper to twopence, and lost its circulation. Among reminiscences of Chartist days Mr. Holy- oake alludes to George Julian Harney. This aged Chartist frequently sent us contributions from his home in Boston, U.S. Mr. Cecil Clarke, in

  • N. & Q.,' 18 December, 1897, described him as

" a ripe critic and scholar, an able journalist, and a doughty champion of a remarkable genius." He was a noted authority upon and student of Lord Byron. He was until the last a diligent reader of The Athenaeum and ' N. & Q..' and when, under 'Cable Flashes,' he saw the announcement of the death of John Francis in The Boston Herald, 12 April, 1882. he the same day wrote us a letter expressing sympathy and regret "at the disappear- ance of a name so long familiar to the readers of

the leading literary journal I had come to look

upon him as an old friend, in part, no doubt, because I associated him with the time, if not directly with the men of 1830-5 Carpenter, Hetherington, Cleave, Cousins, and others engaged in the 'unstamped' struggle, in which as a boy, or lad, I also took some humble part, with a share of the 'prison bonds' then in fashion." Mr. Holyoake, although not a frequent contributor to 'N. & Q.,' sends us occasional notes on subjects in which he takes special interest. Looking at the last General Index, we find he has written on Philip James Bailey, Disappearing Chartists, Bernard Quaritch, the origin of the word "Jingo,"&c. And we close our notice of ' Bygones' with the hope that the veteran agitator may yet make addition to the interesting books which already bear his name. The volumes contain two excellent portraits of Mr. Holyoake, one of them taken in his eighty- eighth year.

Calendar of Letter- Books preserved at the Guildhall. Letter- Book F, circa A.D. 1337-1352. Edited by Reginald R. Sharpe, D.C.L. (Printed by Order of the Corporation.)

THE sixth volume of the Letter-Books, printed by order of the Library Committee of the Corporation of London, is edited with no less care than the preceding volumes by Dr. Sharpe, the Records Clerk. Before the generic name now bestowed upon the series had been employed this had been known as the Red Book. It deals with matters connected with the claim of Edward III. to the French crown, and leads up to the battle of Crecy, to which indirect reference is made, and to the conquest of Calais, which was destined to remain for a couple of centuries under English government. In the assessment of wards for seventy armed men and one hundred archers, to be sent in two London ships to Sandwich, we find names such as Henry Chaucer among the armed men sent from Cordwanerstrete, and from Farndon Within Richard Ellesmere, John de Bedeford, and John atte Lynde. A letter from Edward III. to his son, the Duke of Cornwall, gives an account of the battle of Sluys, fought on Midsummer Day, 1340. Another immediately follows to Philip de Valois, claiming the crown of France, and offering to sup- port it by a duel between themselves or with a hundred men on each side or with their whole armies, so that the war might be finished in ten days. The answer to this, dated 30 July, 1340, three days later, notifies Philip's intention to expel


Edward from France. Chaucers are of pretty con- stant occurrence. The name of John de Gaunt appears thrice, and that of Richard de Gaunt, a Warden of the Conduit, once. In its importance, from the historical or any other point of view, the volume yields to none of its predecessors. An admirable index adds greatly to its value.

The Golden Treasury. By Francis Turner Palgrave.

(Routledge & Sons.)

Poems of Sir Leicis Morris. (Same publishers.) PALGRAVE'S 'Golden Treasury ' and an authorized selection from the poems of Sir Lewis Morris con- stitute the latest additions to "The New Universal Library " of Messrs. Routledge & Sons. On its first appearance Palgrave's work supplied an acknow- ledged want, and obtained an amount of popularity no previous compilation of the sort has ever en- joyed. Though not free from shortcoming, it is an eminently judicious selection, and remains in favouff with the public. Palgrave's critical comments do not always carry conviction, nor can he be said to have been touched to all finest issues. An edition so pretty and so cheap as this will have a wide circulation, and the wider the spread of the work in general circles the better. The companion volume appeals to a different public.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote oflaMancha. By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. (Bell & Sons.) Of translations of ' Don Quixote' we are disposed to regard that of Motteux, which constitutes the latest addition to " The York Library," as virtually the best. It is, in the shape it now assumes, at once spirited and accurate, and has precisely the right amount of archaeological flavour. Lockhart enriched it with excellent notes, now modified in some respects. We are not careful to have pre- served all that was crude or erroneous in the previous rendering. A modern reader can peruse this edition with pleasure and gain, and it has the advantage of being cheap, convenient, read- able, and attractive. All we have to counsel is the removal from the preliminary matter of references to a portrait which in our copy at least, and we suspect in others is not given.

Diary and Letters of Madame VArl>lay. With Preface and Notes by Austin Dobsou. Vol. III. (Macmillan & Co.)

THE third volume of the new edition of these memoirs covers the period between August, 1786, and June, 1788, during all which time Fanny was occupied with her cares as Second Mistress of the Wardrobe. It gives a series of interesting pictures of Court life, and presents the autobio- grapher, on the whole, in a very agreeable light. Perhaps the most striking figure in the book is Mr. Turbulent, as she or some one else christened the Rev. Charles de Guiffardiere, the queen's French reader. Married man and prebendary as he was, th individual so named seems to have had distinctly amorous designs upon the fair Fanny; and though she feels bound to snub and repress him, she ia obviously gratified by his advances, and has some- thing more like pity than reproach for his pre- sumption. There is much weeping over the death of Mrs. Delany. Fanny boasts that she does not interfere with politic?. It is, however, strange to pass through these troublous times and find no reference to what is happening in France. On the trial of Warren Hastings,, with whom she thoroughly