a s. vii. MAR. s, ma] NOTES AND QUERIES.
199-
not find something to attract him. Friedlander
had the assistance of several fine scholars : thus
we find Prof. Cohn of Breslau dilating on the
classical violet and narcissus, and on the lotus
tree ; and Dr. O. Tischler on ' Roman Finds in
the North.' On the word " romantic " applied
to scenery Friedlander used information sent by
that great English Latinist H. A. J. Munro.
On names and methods of address, and on the
various amusements of later Borne, there is a
positive mine of information.
We hope the success of these volumes may encourage the publishers to give us further masterpieces in English, such as Hondo's ' Psyche.'
Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice. Vol. XVIII. 1623-5. Edited by Allen B. Hinds. (Stationery Office.)
LIKE the preceding volume, this deals necessarily with matter of but secondary interest. The Venetian ambassador in England is, first, Alvise Valaresso, and, from June, 1624, onwards, Zuane Pesaro, who came from the Court of the Most Christian. Valaresso was relieved by the Senate of Venice as " from an important and very costly charge " ; Pesaro suffered from the climate, and is here seen complaining somewhat querulously. Both seem to have found the country uncongenial, and James and his ways irritating and contemptible, Valaresso in par- ticular heaping up ridicule and scorn. No less important than the dispatches from London in the first half of the book are those from Alvise Corner, watching at Madrid the tedious progress and regress of the futile marriage negotiations with Spain. There is at the stage of the proceed- ings here discovered little of any vital interest. Intriguer is matched with intriguer, and the reader, knowing the issue beforehand, cannot but find this multitude of words wearisome to wade through. Mr. Hinds in his Preface disentangles the different strands of the affair, shows where some modification may be made in current views of the story after acquaintance with these papers, and sets the divers actors in their right relative positions in a satisfactory manner, all the more welcome in a dreary subject ; and does the same service no less satisfactorily for the equally dreary business of the Palatinate.
Comparatively few incidents of domestic or non-political interest occur. Wotton we find taking a rather peevish farewell of Venice, more intent on getting what he wants for a protege of his than on evincing or preserving friendship. On 21 July, 1623, Valaresso writes to the Venetian Senate that " the King of Spain has sent his Majesty the present of an elephant. I do not know whether it comes as an earnest of the Infanta or instead of her." In November he relates the history of the accident at the French ambassador's house in Blackfriars, where a Catholic congregation had assembled in a room in the top story to hear the Jesuit preacher Robert Drury, and the floor gave way, killing " about 80 persons (the preacher among them), while many others were badly hurt." He notes the fanaticism of the Londoners : there was a " general and bloody riot " ; the bodies had to be buried in the ambassador's garden, either as being unworthy of other burial, or from fear of further disturbance ; and a poor girl who was
being carried half-dead away from the ruins was
with difficulty saved from the hands of alcuni'
infuriati Protestanti. But perhaps the most
interesting pages in this volume are those con-
cerned with the Parliament of 1624, where the
Venetian, if he adds nothing to our information r .
depicts the spectacle for us with a half -disgusted,,
half-admiring astonishment which is amusingr
and also illuminating.
THE March Fortnightly offers a considerable^ variety of subjects. The first place is given to Sir W. Lee- Warner's able and convincing defence of Wilson, the captor of Delhi. The two literary articles have a suggestive affinity with one another : the Count de Soissons in 'Frederi Mistral' gives an account of Felibrism and the poet whose- inspiration started the movement for the revival of Provencal literature, while Mr. Ezra Pound' in * Rabindranath Tagore' seeks to create a wider- interest in the Bengali poet whose work may be best illustrated for Western readers by com- parison with the Troubadours. Mr. Sydney Brooks's ' Washington and the White House ' is an effective description of one of the most curious 1 phenomena of Western society. The sociological' importance of Mr. H. A. Barker's paper on ' The- Truth about Bone-setting' almost exceeds the- scientific, illustrating as it dos the attitude, in these days of tolerance and "science for its own* sake," of a Faculty towards outsiders. Mr. J. M.. Kennedy has some weighty pages on the question' of ' National Insurance and Labour Unrest ' ; and 1 Mr. Saint Nihal Singh sets forth the ' Imperialistic- Inclination and Ideals ' now permeating India, and the conditions which obstruct or favour them. We- noticed an unusual deftness of touch in Mr. Francis Gribble's study of the intrigues in the girlhood of Isabella II., and, despite some lack of spontaneity and one or two lapses into bathos, found ourselves- enjoying much of Mr. Alfred Noyes's ^Enceladus.'
The Nineteenth Centurii for this month is a satis- factory number. Mr. William Maxwell and Mr. George Pilcher are the contributors who deal with' the Balkan War and the conditions of a war cor- respondent's work ; both papers are able and highly interesting. In the way of literature the most important article is the Abbe Ernest Dimnet's ' The Morals of French Plays,' a piece of sane, incisive, yet by no means unsympathetic or ran- corous criticism. Mrs. Archibald Colquhoun in ' Quo- vadis, Femina?' states the case for the opposers of the feminist movement with a shrewdness and' temperance which are not common in such writings. What she advances may be challenged ; but it is, at any rate, worth challenging. Mrs. March Phillipps on ' The Art of Conversation ' is rather lengthy and' often obvious ; but 'she has several good remarks, and now and again touches of wit. Mr. John Collier on Alma Tadema is, perhaps, rather interesting than' convincing. Mr. Rarrison's 'Antarctic Exploration' deals with methods chiefly with the question of traction and affords a reasoned statement of what now seems the general opinion, that the safety of an* expedition is insufficiently secured without the use of dogs. Other papers deserving attention are Miss Mason's ' Dearth in the Transkei ' ; Mr. Whishaw's dialogue on the trend of politics in- Spain ; Prof. Pigou's ' Principle of the Minimum Wage ' ; and the two articles by Sir Harry Johnston' and Mr. Ellis Barker dealing with the settlement of the East,
