Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/45

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n s. iv. JULY s, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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The Church Year and Kalendar. By John Dowden, D.D., late Bishop of Edinburgh. (Cambridge University Press.) SIXCE this is one of " The Cambridge Liturgical Handbooks " edited by two learned scholars, ordinary readers may fight shy of it as beyond them. That would be a mistake, for the little book is at once a lucid and interesting sketch of its subject. Bishop Dowden did not live, we are told, to give it final revision, but it has been well looked after by other hands.

We are particularly pleased to see that a com- petent ' Bibliography ' of good authorities has been inserted at the beginning of the volume, for its scope (it runs only to 160 pages of text, appendixes, and index) does not al'ow of more than a general outline, and even so the original manuscript has been reduced. But we think that many who take up the book will be led by it to further investigation. History and sometimes error hallowed by history have left curious marks on our present Calendar, which might well be subjected to reform in the matter of the saints it records. Thus Dr. W. H. Frere in his recent volume on liturgical reform suggests the com- memoration of Bishop Hannington. Modern Prayer-Books no longer associate " King Charles the Martyr " with January 30th, although some authorities would question the legal sufficiency of the Royal Warrant which removed it.

IN The Fortnightly Mr. A. A. Baumann besrins the political articles by discussing ' The Dead- lock and its Remedies.' Though we do not share his views, we recognize the ability with which they are put forward. Mr. Lewis Melville writes on ' The Real Barry Lyndon,' i.e. Andrew Robin- son Storey, a fortune-hunter who bullied his first wife into the grave, and then, by elaborate intrigue, succeeded in marrying Lady Strath- more, assuming shortly afterwards her name of Bowes, and making it perfectly clear that he only wanted her money. She got away from him eventually, and he spent the last twenty- two years of his life in prison for debt. Rowland Grey has a pleasant paper on ' The Boys of Thackeray,' who, indeed, show the novelist on his brightest side. Mr. Ernest Newman dwells in ' Wagner and his Autobiography ' on the selfishness and the assured insolence of genius. It is a striking indictment, but one we believe to be essentially veracious. Mr. Alfred Noyes is too elaborate and stylish in his ' Accept- ances,' the gist of which is that unconventionality, dogmatic lawlessness, and irreverence are ruining the art of to-day. The article is overstrained in its conclusions. ' The English School of Painting at the Roman Exhibition,' by Mr. Comyns Carr ia a reprint of the introduction to the catalogue of that section. It is fluently written, but of no great critical moment. ' The Jewish Renaissance in Palestine ' is, according to Mr. Norman Bent wich, to include a Jewish University at Jerusalem as "a rally ing-point for Jewish students froir all the world over." Sir Home Gordon is inter- esting, as usual, concerning ' Problems of Con- temporary Cricket,' but too pessimistic, we think concerning present English resources. Mr. E. F


Benson contributes a dialogue on ' The Gospel of the Gourmet,' which discusses cleverly taste and its connexion with the other senses ; and Consignor Benson has ' Three Stories,' concerning

he conversion of an agnostic pedlar, and two

isions granted to priests. Both brothers ex- libit their talents in characteristic style.

IN The Nineteenth Century the best political article is the last, in which Mr. Harold Cox dis- cusses ' The Despotism of the Labour Party.' Under the title of ' Elizabethan Drama in the Making ' Sir Edward Sullivan gives an informing and interesting account of Henslowe's Diary, now available in an erudite edition published by Dr.. W. W. Greg. ' A Fortnight with Thackeray in 1852 ' gives reminiscences by the late Rev. H. J. Dheales of a voyage to America with the novelist,. A. H. Clough, and J. R. Lowell. Truth to tell, bhere is not much in this record, and the view of Thackeray as " a cold, hard cynic " was, we- thought, as extinct as Trilby. ' When the Rani lifts her Veil in London,' by Saint Nihat Singh, gives us an insight into the ability and character of some women-folk whom the rulers of the Native States of India have brought to- London to see the Coronation. ' Count de- Gobineau's Ethnological Theory,' by Mr. A. S. Herbert, is meritorious, but stodgy. A just tribute to ' The Boy Scout Movement,' one of the most striking successes of recent years, is paid by Mr. W. Cecil Price. Mr. H. G. Jenkins has by careful investigation settled the position of the- grave of William Blake in Bunhill Fields. There- is nothing to mark his resting-place, shared within three days by two others ; and the erec- tion of a suitable monument is suggested.

WE congratulate The Burlington Magazine heartily on reaching its hundredth number; celebrated by the reproduction of a striking- water-colour by its former editor, Mr. C. J. Holmes. The present assured position of the magazine was only reached after a struggle by the promoters, whose success will, we hope, induce others who have serious aims to go forward regardless of popular indifference. Such efforts are really needed to preserve the press from the baneful advance of commercialism and its parasites.

The editorial points out that attention has been paid to Chinese and Mohammedan art, and primitive civilizations, as well as " the art of the Renaissance and the succeeding periods of European art." This width of range is all to the good, but we wish that more attention could be paid to the art of to-day in England, and notice with pleasure a clever article by Mr. A. Clutton- Brock on ' The " Primitive " Tendency in- Modern Art,' which ends by suggesting that the East may provide for the West not merely a new fashion, but also a new inspiration. There are several articles concerning the attributions of pictures , the most interesting personality to us being that of Baldassare d'Este, a Court painter at Ferrara, investigated by Mr. Herbert Cook.

Among the reviews is a notice of the fine work on ' The Domestic Architecture of the Tudor Period ' begun by the late Thomas Garner, and finished by Mr. Arthur Stratton. Incidentally the reviewer regards the equestrian figure of Charles I. at Charing Cross as " the only public statue in London that can claim to be a work o