478
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io<>- B. in. JUNE 17, 1905.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
Minor Poets of the Caroline Period, containing Chamberlay ne's ' Pharonnida ' and ' England'. Jubilee,' Benlow&fs ' TheopliilaJ and the Poems o, Katherine Philips and Patrick Hannay. Vol. I, Edited by George Saintsbury, M.A. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) WITH the completion of the series of poets, the first volume of which now appears, another obliga- tion will be incurred to that great and spirited institution, the Clarendon Press. Works of this class offer a special attraction to the scholar. For ourselves they have wonderful fascination, and we were once but that is long ago sanguine enough to hope for the publication of a complete series of Tudor dramatists in a form corresponding to the present. Most of the works now reprinted have been familiar to us for half a century an assertion, we fancy, few can now make and we have watched some of them grow into rarity. Except in the case of Katherine Philips ("The Matchless Orinda"), this is scarcely true of the original editions. Patrick Hannay was always exceedingly rare, and Benlowes and Chamberlayne were not easily encountered. Singer's reprint of ' Pharonnida ' was long attainable for a few shillings, but has lately mounted in price. 'JEngland's Jubilee' was not included in Singer's reprint, and was, indeed, unknown to us, as it probably was to Singer, until its present reappear- ance. This work must be, in the original, of extreme rarity, since the British Museum copy, from which, presumably, this is drawn, is without a title-page. It is a mere tractate, consisting of about 300 lines, on the Restoration, and is, says Prof. Saintsbury, next in merit of such poems toBryden's. Chamberlayne's works occupy well on to half the volume 303 pages out of 7-6. Benlowes's ' Theo- phila ' is now little known and scarcely accessible. It contains some vigorous thought and language, mixed with indescribable instances of bathos. Prof. Saintsbury has an erudite note upon these marvel- lous lines : Betimes, when keen-breath'd winds, with frosty
cream,
Periwig bald trees, glaze talking stream : For May-games past, white-sheet peccari is Winter's
theme.
A few other poems of Benlowes are also given. A reduction of the illustration to ' Theophila,' canto v., serves as frontispiece to the present volume. We have always had a difficulty in looking upon Katherine Philips as specially rare, having never been without one or more copies of the early editions upon our shelves. She occupies, however, a niche in literary history, and has been of late the subject of much study. In addition to the reprinted poems, an appendix gives the songs from ' Pompey,' a trans- lation by her from Corneille, executed at the sug- gestion of the Earl of Orrery. Patrick Hannay's poems we have hitherto known only in the admirable reprints issued by the Hunteriari Club, a society the publications of which have never received their full recognition. The present reprint should go far to popularize the work of a writer whose narrative poems are gracefully written. Hannay, it is sup- posed, died in 1629, and so just comes within the true Caroline period. For succeeding volumes of the series we shall look with extreme interest.
\V ither though Mr. Bullen has issued an edition
virtually of his juvenilia remains the least
accessible, as he is the most inspired, poet of the
period always, of course, excepting Milton. He is,
however, far too voluminous for a complete reprint
to be attempted, since he alone would occupy two
or three volumes such as the present. Something
like a complete edition has been given on very un-
comfortable paper by the Spenser Society an
ambitious and happily conceived, but mismanaged
institution. The poems of the Duchess of New-
castle have a distinct claim on attention. Some of
them are admirable in fancy. We must wait, how-
ever, to see what works are in contemplation
DAvenant's (not Davenant's) 'Gondibert' is
naturally mentioned. Prof. Saintsbury's intro-
duction and his comments generally are worthy of
that brilliant scholar.
Greek Thinkers. By Prof. Theodor Gomperz.
Vols. II. and III. (Murray.)
THE second and third volumes of this remarkable work have now been issued simultaneously by Mr Murray, and carry the history of ancient philosophy from Socrates to the death of Plato. We have read them with increased admiration for the gifts of the great scholar, which eminently qualify him to be the exponent of Greek wisdom to the modern mind. In sympathetic touch with each, he possesses the liappy faculty of interpretation which can impart a living interest to early phases of culture, and makes the Hellenic thinker deliver his message in Lerms intelligible to the twentieth century. When to a profound knowledge of his subject are found added great charm of style, perfect lucidity, and a marvellously wide extent of reading, which fur- nishes him with apt illustrations and parallels from contemporary literature, we have all the requisites of an ideal teacher. Prof. Gomperz, in a measure does for us what his favourite Socrates, in Cicero's words, did for his generation : he brings philosophy down from heaven to earth, so that the busy man of affairs as he runs may read and thank him.
It would be hopeless to give any idea in a short lotice of the full and analytical account of Greek philosophy which fills these volumes to repletion We can only cast a hasty glance at some of the xuthors conclusions. The kernel of the Socratic ieaching may be summed up in the Shakespearian. Uctum "Ignorance is the curse of God. Error or want of insight is the one source of wrongdoin^ L t is necessary, therefore, to bring home to every nan that the most important questions affectin"- inman conduct are obscured by the ambiguity of men's words and ideas. As the great cham- pion of enlightenment was thus, perforce, the great insettler of conventionalism, Socrates could not ail, sooner or later, to make his position intoler- ible, and the wonder is that he escaped his fate so ong. The chapter dealing with his death is a nasterpiece of narration and judicial wisdom What was the nature of his daimonion, or spiritual nonitor, the author does not take on him to decide nit he is inclined to think that it was some sub- onscious action of the psychic life rather than the 'oice of conscience. He draws an original and uggestive parallel between Socrates and the- Jhinese sage Confucius.
Passing on to his pupil Plato to whom half of he second and the whole of the third volume are evoted he causes the immortal dialogues of that reat thinker to pass before us in splendid pro-
