Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/318

This page needs to be proofread.

260 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 s.x. APRIL 1,1022.

the Divine Comedy are nowhere brought out; the beginner, unless fairly well acquainted with the history and the beliefs of the period, can hardly fail to impute too much to invention. The best one can say is that the gloom of Dante having been exaggerated, an exaggeration on the other side may not be amiss; and his wealth of learning, fact and external detail being so great, and so greatly esteemed, it is as well to forget them on occasion in favour of his piety and aspiration.

The Churches of the City of London. By Herbert Reynolds. (John Lane. 6s. net.)

The drawings which illustrate this book have all the usual advantage over photographs in the matter of vitality and interest. To make them was plainly a labour of love, and they are pleasant to look at on the page. Feeling, however, a little doubtful as we examined familiar St. Bride and St. Martin, Ludgate Hill, we carried the book around, as an American might say, and compared the drawings with the towers in the nearer neighbourhood of St. Paul's. Truth compels us to say that this comparison revealed a good deal of inaccuracy, some of it sufficient to deprive the drawing of much value as a representation of the tower. It is particularly in the matter of cornices and the relative projection of parts that our artist goes astray. Photographs might well have been of use as a check. The letterpress is slight—thus, no one would realize, from the account of it given here, the great interest of St. Bartholomew the Great. Still, as the companion of a ramble in the City this well-printed and attractive little book should have its uses.


Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Selected and edited with an Introduction by Carl van Doren. (Oxford University Press.)

A re-reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne might be recommended to anyone whose palate recent fiction has a little jaded. We need not at this time of day set about to praise his beautiful diction; his delicate intricacy of form and colour; his sure feeling for climax; and the curious, but in most cases aesthetically happy, use which he makes of a "moral" to a romance. Mr. Carl von Doren supplies a sketch of Hawthorne's life and a pleasant appreciation of the quality of these tales. The selection is good.


Lists of the Records of the Treasury, the Paymaster-General's Office, the Exchequer and Audit, Department and the Board of Trade, to 1837, preserved in the Public Record Office. (His Majesty's Stationery Office. 1 7s. 6d. net.) STUDENTS will be glad to have these lists to their hand. The Treasury documents exclusive of a few miscellaneous papers of early date begin with the year 1635, when the office of Lord Treasurer was placed in commission. Among them, besides the Letters, Minutes and Accounts, are the records of several important or interesting expired commissions and other bodies, papers referring to claims and compensations, the semi- official papers of Lord North relating to the administration of Warren Hastings and other Miscellanea. A concise Introduction supplies the information necessary for a satisfactory u?e of this compilation. A Shakespeare Dictionary. Part IV. : The Tem- pest. By Arthur E. Baker. (3s. Qd. net.) WE have already noticed with pleasure this enterprise of the Borough Librarian of Taunton. He deals with ' The Tempest ' after the same plan as he followed with ' Macbeth.' The question of the source or sources is illustrated by copious appendices, which include the text of Jourdan's ' Discovery of the Barmvdas, other- wise called the He of Divels,' and Cohn's Intro- duction to Ayrer's ' Die schone Sidea.' The outline of the play is deftly set out and the alphabet of names carefully drawn up, lavishly illustrated with quotations and supplied with full references. Bibliographies of Modern Authors, No. 4 .- J. C. Squire and James Stephens. Compiled by I. A. Williams. (Leslie Chaundy and Co. Is. 6d. net.) WE have more than once drawn attention to these carefully compiled and beautifully printed bibliographies, which will assuredly be found by dilettanti and collectors in future days of very great use. The present example is no less good than its predecessors. CORRIGENDUM. At ante', p. 216, col. 2, line 4, for " souni " read soum. J?otice to CorreSponbentsL EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lisher " at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4 ; corrected proofs to The Editor, ' N. & Q.,' Printing House Square, London, E.C.4. ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the name and address of the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. WHEN answering a query, or referring to an article which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses immediately after the exact heading the numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the con- tribution in question is to be found. E. C. WIENHOLT. " Argemone Lavington " is the heroine of Charles Kingsley's ' Yeast.' G. SPENCER. The Press Bureau moved into the Royal United Service Institution on Sept. 17, 1914. MR. ANEURIN WILLIAMS. The Game of Boston is the subject of a full article in the ' Encyclo- paedia Britannica." MR. A. C. WILLIS writes re ' " Gregor " of the Mosquito Coast' (12 S. x. 190, 233): "I beg to thank those gentlemen who have so kindly replied to my inquiry in your issue of March 25. I trust I have not accused ' Gregor ' of ' frauds ' unduly, but I recollect that G. A. Sala used that word in alluding to ' Gregor.' Probably the people who paid him for Land Grants and lost money felt aggrieved and gave the transactions a bad name. It is good to find that ' Gregor ' was a gallant soldier."