Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/649

. iv. DEC. so, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 539 addition to an index of names covering 335 pages. and a second of subjects, we are presented with a aeries of genealogical tables and an alphabetical list of Horace VValpole's correspondents, with a chrono- logical table of the letters addressed to them. A list of addenda and corregenda is supplied, and the work is rendered worthy in all respects of the proud and popular position it is destined to occupy. Child Altaic: a Study of Tunes made up by Irish Young Children. By William Platt. (Obtainable from the Author, 77, St. Martin's Lane.) MB. PLATT has given the musical notation of tunes crooned by children from the age of seventeen months, concluding with elaborated pieces founded entirely upon young children's tunes. For those capable of forming a judgment on such matters (among whom we do not count ourselves) the whole has doubtless much interest. The observations were all made in Mr. Plait's own family. Sow to Collect Books. By J. Herbert Slater. (Bell & Sous.) FEW people have a better practical knowledge of books than Mr. Slater, the editor of ' Book-Prices Current,' who iti the present attractive work supplies the book-lover with many valuable hints. Like poets and some others, collectors are born, not made, and it is very likely that the kind of books a collector will purchase will be a matter as much of destiny as of choice. Whatever the nature of his collection, however, Mr. Slater's volume may do for him what that of M. Rouveyre did for his French rival, and supply him with some of the " connaiesances necessaires ;i un bibliophile." It will do more, indeed, and will give him invaluable information as to editions, to bindings, to condi- tions, and other matters, the importance of which can scarcely be exaggerated. Specially useful is what is said about preserving books from damp, perhaps the commonest cause of decay and ravage. To this we will add, Let not ynur books be too dry, since heat, and especially the fumes of gag, are destructive to bindings, causing them to crack at the edges, and making the labels drop off, and indeed crack, like the edges. Curious information is supplied as to how to eradicate grease-stains, ink-marks, and the like; how to preserve leather bindings and to freshen faded or spotted cloth covers. A summary of the Latin names of great printing centres—a kind of information not easily found elsewhere than in the valuable, though rather out-of-date ' Typographical Gazetteer' of Cotton and in Savage's ' Dictionary of Printing'—is also furnished. A new edition of Cotton's list brought up to date by Mr. Slater would be a great boon. Among the illustrations are reproductions of the Aldineand Elzevirdevices, specimens of tine types and bindings, and other things of the kind. Mr. Slater's volume, indeed, popularizes much precious knowledge at present confined to the few, and may be consulted with pleasure as well as advantage. The Complete Poetical Work* of William Cowper. Edited by H. S. Milford, M.A.—Poemi of Robert Browning. (Frowde.) To the cheap, excellent, and attractive Oxford edi tions of the poets have been made two noteworthy additions. The first consists of the entire poetical works of Cowper, with the exception of the transla- tions from Homer, which, BO far as we recall, have rarely, if ever, been included with the poems. With the appendix (which contains a few poems, one or two of them recently discovered), notes, table of first lilies, <te., the volume runs to near seven hundred pages. For one with limited shelf-room the editioD is all that can be desired. For purposes of perusal and reference it is equally convenient. The one-volume Browning contains the entire contents of the three - volume edition of 1863> 'Pauline' from the first edition (1833), and one or two poems not reprinted by Browning in any col- lected edition of his poems. For 'The Ring and the Book' and some other works the reader will have to wait till time permits of a second volume. Virtually no alterations have been made in the- text. Besides ' Paracelsus,' 'Sordello,' 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,' and the dramas generally, ' Men and Women,' and others, the edition contains all the- Dramatic Lyrics in which the world is now most interested. Quite at the beginning stand ' Kentish SirByng,' ' The Lost Leader, How They brought the Good News,' ' Evelyn Hope,' the divine ' Home Thoughts, from Abroad'—all the poems of which one never wearies. Both volumes are charming acquisitions, and both keep up the reputation of a unique series. Vivian Grey. By the Earl of Beaconsfield. 2 vols. (De La .More Press.) WE were in error in treating (see ante, p. 498) 'The- Young Duke' as the first volume of tiie Centenary Edition of the early novels of Lord Beaconsfield. Not having at that time seen the present work, v, • supposed ' The Young Duke' to be the first. \ >• now find that the series begins appropriately with • Vivian Grey,' which was the author's earliest, and in some respects his brightest and most character- istic, production. The book is ushered in by a repro- duction of Kenneth Macleay'n likeness of the writer in the National Portrait Gallery, taken in 1829, and by a long, instructive, helpful, and judicious intro- duction by Mr. Lucien Wolf. Other illustrations of the first volume present the birthplace of Lord Beaconsfield, No. 22, Theobalds Road, and the house in which 'Vivian Grey' was written. No. 61 Bloomsbury Square, both from drawings by Mr. Herbert Railton. Vol. ii. has, moreover, a portrait from a bust of Sara Austen. The edition is both handsome and welcome. A Primer of Clansical and English Philoloffi/. By the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, Litt.D. (Oxford,. Clarendon Press.) IN the present little volume Prof. Skeat adds one- more to the excellent series of handbooks with which he has revolutionized the study of English in this country. It deals with the comparative philology of Greek, Latin, and English, and lays emphasis, as its cardinal axiom, on the vowel in its gradations and modifications as the all-important factor in determining the etymological affinity of words. If the consonants are the body of a word,, we may say that the vowel is its soul. In one instance we would, with becoming diffidence, suggest a somewhat different provenance of a word from that which he gives. Heanalyzes "propitius" »apro-pit-iiM, i.e., " Hying forward," and affording to the augurs a good omen, the central element being pet, to fly, seen in Lat. pet-o. We should propose- to analyze it rather as prop(e)-it-inn, from the analogy of words like in-il-ium, ex-it-itim, amb-it-io, trans-it-us, &<•., when the middle element is it-