Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/366

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vm. NOV. i, 1913.


/to remind our readers how unusually rich in picturesque interest are the words that come between " tombal " and " trahysh," and to lead them to expect unusually good things from the use of the section before us.

WE have received from Messrs. Bell their second twenty volumes of " Bonn's Popular Library," which is a selection no less good than the first. In the -way of standard novels we have ' Tom Jones,' and the first two of the Barchester series. In the way of more reflective entertainment we are offered Mrs. Jameson's ' Shakespeare's Heroines ' and two volumes of the early diary of Fanny Burney. Montaigne's ' Essays ' in Hazlitt's revision of Cotton may serve as a connecting link between that lighter, more variegated stuff and the sober web of two further volumes of Emerson and Long's

  • Marcus Aurelius,' with Matthew Arnold's essay

attached to it. No fewer than four of the volumes are devoted to the French Revolution three com- prising Carlyle's work, with an Introduction and Notes by Dr. Holland Rose, and one Mignet's

History.' The remaining three volumes contain Ranke's ' History of the Popes ' in Mrs. Foster's translation, revised by G. R. Dennis.

The Edinburgh Review for October is full of good 'reading. It begins with a paper on the Swiss

solution of the problem of democracy, claiming for

that solution that it is not merely the best yet found, but also applicable to larger states, or iederations of states, than the Swiss republic. We have recently come across most pessimistic fore- casts as to the continuance of Swiss independence : -the writer of this article believes them to be unfounded. Mr. H. C. -Shelley's ' The Evolution of the Ironsides ' seems to have been inspired by the handling of a copy of the ' Souldiers Pocket Bible 'the little tract of sixteen pages containing an anthology of a hundred and twenty-two verses of Scripture, showing " the qualifications of his inner man, that is a fit Souldier to fight the Lords Battels," which was issued during that summer when Crom- well was recruiting his "honest, godly men." It is a good essay. One of the most delightful papers here is Mr. Edmund Gosse's 'The Foundation of the French Academy ' well calculated too, in its skilful insistence on the casual and humble begin- ning of that great institution, to effect what Mr. Gosse desires, a sympathetic regard for the early struggles of the kindred institution recently founded among ourselves. Mr. Orlo Williams writes with sound discrimination upon the novels of D'Annunzio, though we should be inclined some- what to tone down the praise he bestows in view of the allowance that must be made, in estimating the effectiveness of his brilliancy, for the peculiar susceptibility to that particular form of beauty and of art in the present generation. The anonymous writer on the bicentenary of Sterne gives us a happy and illuminating piece of criticism ; and we . are indebted to Mr. Arthur Moore, in his * Some Persian Memories,' for unusually fresh and vivid impressions of Persian and Armenian character. Mr. A. E. W. Mason emphasizes, perhaps even more than need is, the "freakish" side of Labouchere, but it cannot be denied that this makes his review of Mr. Thorold's recent 'Life' -all the more amusing. Mr. Heathcote Statham's -criticism of the action of the different authorities who control, or have controlled, the planning of streets and erection of buildings in London, and


his recommendations in regard to some projected improvements, will, we hope, reach those whom they primarily concern, and that not without effect.

The Quarterly Review for October gives a large proportion of its space to social and political ques- tions. Lord Cromer contributes a paper on ' Indian Progress and Taxation,' and Mr. Archibald Hurd one on ' The Whole- World Needs of the Navy,' each certain to attract the attention it deserves. Both the celebrations which are making 1913 a memorable year in Germany are dealt with here : the "Befreiungskrieg" in Prof. Oman's scholarly analysis of the military operations of 1813 ; the

  • Jubilee ' of the Kaiser's accession in a weighty and

instructive appreciation of the present position of the German people and the character of their sovereign by Prof. Hermann Oncken 'Germany under William II.' ' Heredity, Environment, and Social Reform,' by Mr. A. F. Tredgold,is a re-state- ment, not specially skilful, of matters which, among readers of this review, we should have supposed to be already satis vulgata. One of the best and most important papers is Major Joly de Lotbiniere's 'Forestry in England and Abroad,' setting forth our deficiencies in the management of such forests as we have, and computing the shortage of timber likely, within measurable time, to make itself felt throughout the world. The two literary papers of most account are Mr. Ezra Pound's pleasantly written * Troubadours : their Sorts and Con- ditions,' and Mr. Algernon Cecil's 'Lady Shelley and her Acquaintance' a competent appreciation which whether the reader wholly agrees with the epigram or not is all the better reading because it frankly adopts the standpoint " C'est toujours le beau monde qui gouverne le monde." Mr. C. Grant Robertson sums up satisfactorily the careers and characters of Shelburne and Windham in one of those articles for which students may well be grateful to The Quarterly, for it may dispense all but the most curious, or the most strictly bound to the acquisition of detailed first-hand knowledge, from occupying themselves further with two politicians of the most depressing type. 'British India before Plassey,' by Mr. H. Dodwell, is another good piece of historical work, which lays open the too readily forgotten doings of the English "factors " in India, whose achievement created the great interests without which neither the genius of Clive nor the ambition of Dupleix would have found scope or pretext for the wars which established British power in India. We must also mention as decidedly worth notice Prof. Ashley's 'Profit-Sharing' and Prof. Nicholson's ' The Vagaries of Recent Political Economy.'


EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries ' "Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers "at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C.

REV. C. A. E. BELEY, MB. GARLAND GREEVER (Cambridge, Mass. ), MR. RONALD DIXON, and DR. KRUEGER. Forwarded.

CORRIGENDUM. P. 334, col. 1, 1. 19, for 1817 read 1837.