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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. SEPT. s, MM,
J'dd liolltrniliana. Tomus XXXIII. Fasc. III.
(Brussels, Societe des Bollandistes.) TH;-- first article in the July number deals with ' The Chronology of the Bishops of Salona ' according to the chronology of the .Archbishop of Spalato, a book recently published by Moiisignor Bulie and Dr. J. Bervaldi,and, as Dom Cherubin Segvic observes, meritorious because it has ruined the previous work of Farlati, " le fruit de con- jectures faites de bonne foi."
Father Henri Bosnians gives an account of the seventeenth-century proposal for a Lituru r y in the Chinese vernacular, with the letter written concerning it by Francois de Rougemont to Jean Paul Oliva, a letter recently unearthed in La, Bibliotheque Victor Emmanuel at Rome by M. l'Abb6 Brucker. Next follows a Latin trans- lation of a MS. of the Passion of St. Razden.
The contribution of most poignancy just now is Father van Ortroy's on the Centenary of the Restitution of the Jesuit Order by Pope Pius VII., on 7 Aug., 1814, an article whose significance in these days of grave anxiety is subtly accentuated by the almost simultaneous deaths of Pius X. .and the General of the Jesuits, Father Wernz. Its intrinsic interest lies mainly in Fr. van Ortroy's handling of the question whether the recon- stituted Company of Jesus is worthy, in niatters of education, pure learning, philosophy, and belles-lettres, of St. Tgnatius's original foundation. As he enumerates the Jesuit colleges in Belgium established since 1831, and the names occur of Brussels, Namur, Liege, Charleroi, Mons ; as he pays his tribute to the Belgian Jesuits and to I'ceuvre bollandienne. . . .une creation Beige," the heart of the reader is wrung with the oppor- tune and unforeseen pathos of it all at a moment when Europe is ringing with the exploits of this gallant people, and the civilized world stands aghast and appalled before the crowning vandalism at Louvain.
Reviews of hagiographical books, among them Mr. Lowther Clarke's ' S. Basil the Great ' and Dr. Wallis Budge's ' Coptic Apocrypha,' bring this number to an end.
The Fortnightly Revieic for September devotes more than half of its space, as might be expected, to the war. These papers will, no doubt, find close and attentive readers, and will contribute to the formation of a public opinion on international questions which will be not only strongly held, but strongly acted upon. Among the articles on other subjects is the concluding instalment of Count Ilya Tolstoy's ' Reminiscences ' of his father, which relates the unlovely tragedy of the great writer's last days and the miserable details of the making of his will with a fullness which may, perhaps, be considered unnecessary. Mr. George Moore's ' Epistle to the Cymry ' falls on evil days for such endeavours ; the artificial pre- servation of a language threatened with extinc- tion is an enterprise beyond most people's range at the present moment. But the main reasons with which he would persuade the Welsh are none the less sound. Mr. Ezra Pound's ' Vorti- cism ' represents, we think, something of that intellectual perversity from which it is one function of wars and disasters to deliver us. To the rapid life of the modern world ten ye,-ir- of peace are as good as a hundred were generations ago ; and as an effect of what has been relatively a long period of peace, our younger
men have begun to pay an attention to process in
works of art, and to the inner experience of the
artist, which runs all the risks of a too hk-h
subjectivity. Mr. Allalo contributes a delightful
and instructive paper on 'Memories ol
Africa and the Nile Countries.'
TITE new Cornhill gives us to begin with a sonnet rather of the. nature of an exercise on Michael Angelo's ' Moses,' and half a score of Ijatin hexameters, by Browning. The latter were made on being defied to express in a hexa- meter " You ought to sit on the safety-valve." Our correspondent Mr. G. W. E. Russell has a pleasant and enlightening paper on the late Joseph Chamberlain. Sir Herbert Stephen in ' Novelists and Recent History ' has done, we think, a real service to letters. The case for the defence of historical inaccuracy in a work of art has often been argued, but the modern mnol is a work to which several of the usual arguments are not properly applicable, and if Sir Herbert's pap /r causes the matter to be reconsidered, it will have proved useful as well as entertaining. Mr. Stephen Paget, continuing the ' New Parents' Assistant,' says many excellent and one or two rather unconvincing things on the subject of children's religion. Mr. Hesketh - Prichard's ' Black Geese ' is, as no one will need to be told, delightful ; and so, in its widely different vein, is Mr. T. C. Fowle's ' Pilgrimage to Meshed.' ' Siste, Viator ! ' by Mr. H. Rowlands S. C'oldicott the study of a collection of epitaphs by Hayley and Miss A. M. Wilson's ' Letters in Lavender ' written, these, by Mary Cookson, the daughter of a country rector who was much at Bath and at Windsor in the early years of the last century are also worth having.
WE note with pleasure that The Burlington Magazine is to be continued during the war. Under the heading ' Notes ' some not unreason- able apprehensions are expressed by Mr. C. J. Holmes for the safety of the rich art treasures of Flanders. The suggestion that such treasures as can be removed should be shipped to some safer place is good, but the rapidity of the German occupation may have rendered it impossible to carry it out. As we go to press it is reported that Rubens's ' Miraculous Draught of Fishes ' in the church of Notre Dame at Malines has been destroyed during an apparently wanton bombard- ment of that town. \Ve note, however, that the art treasures of Paris are being protected, as far as may be, from the effects of a possible bombardment.
The September number of the magazine is rich in interesting illustrations, including a full-page reproduction of a newly discovered early Rem- brandt portrait, and some fine pictures of early Italian schools from the Anderson gift to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. We may mention particularly the 'Baptism of Christ' by Giovanni di Paolo, of which the beautiful composition and spacing may be enjoyed in the monochrome repro- duction. Mr. H. Clifford Smith contributes a description of the ' Legend of St. Elpy and St. Godeberta' of Petrus Christus, which has a full -page illustration. Sir Martin Conway criticizes severely the contention of M. Marignan concerning the French origin of Gothic art. We may mention finally two reproductions of Chinese drawings, of extraordinary force and vigour.
