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NOTES AND QUERIES. \\<i s. in FEB. 10, 1917.
THE question of the survival of the soul after
bodily death bulks conspicuously in the three
/great Reviews we have now under consideration.
The Quarterly Review] gives the first place in its
new number to an article on this subject by
the Rev. J. Gamble entitled ' Immortality and the
Christian Belief.' Mr. Gamble has some very
-good paragraphs about the function the neces-
sary function of imagination a.s an element in
hope. It has long been very clear that extravagances
of the imagination are disastrous : the direct effect
upon hope of mere vacancy in imagination has
not been so well discerned.
On topics connected with the War and national -administration this number of The Quarterly contributes much that is of weight and value ; and it offers also three articles of which readers of ' N. & Q.' may well choose to make a note. One is an ample and careful study by Mr. J. M. Murry of the work of Paul Claudel. Recent French literature offers little that is more arrest- ing, nothing that is at once more new and strange, more simple and yet more profoundly intellectual, than the poetry of this writer, of whom Mr. Murry illuminatingly says that, whereas with many of his contemporaries the return to the Catholic fold has been a reaction, with him it has been a forward action a progress. Next we would mention Mr. Reginald Farrer's clever, suavely coloured description of Tibetan Abbeys in China which is punctuated here and there by epi- grammatic touches of sarcasm, and contains also .a good account of the relations between China and the vast mountainous border-country with which he is concerned. Last not to be under- stood as least there is Mr. Charles Tennyson's full, sympathetic, and deftly critical sketch of Zoffany's life and work, which should certainly be acquired by any student of art who is col- lecting monographs on artists numerous and often meritorious as these are of the second or third order.
IN The Fortnightly Review for this month we have two articles concerned with death and life after death. Mr. C. E. Lawrence inveighs against undertakers' ways, crepe, and grave- stones, congratulates civilization on the abolition of mutes and " corpse-candles," approves the funeral of George Meredith, and invites us to burn the dead and " establish a funeral order of positive beauty.." With much of his criticism every one is likely to agree ; but we do not think his positive suggestions will be widely considered satisfactory. He calls his paper rather auda- ciously ' The Abolitioi . of Death ' : it should rather be ' The Abolition of Burial.' Then there is Mr. H. Granville Barker, who contributes the first instalment of a parable entitled ' Souls on Fifth.' Somewhat too long drawn out, it is considered as a grotesque piece of imagination in several places impressive, now and then witty, here and there repulsive. The moral is not perhaps fundamentally new ; it belongs to that order of which the word " limbo " stands as representative ; but its enforcement by the aid of the latest scenes and phases of contemporary life makes it appear novel. Mr. Charles Dawbarn has a subject of great attractiveness in the character and work of Metchnikoff ; and he does it justice, though he gives us a start in the first paragraph where he describes Daphnia the water-flea that highly organized and amusing
little crustacean, as "unicellular." A unicellular,
moreover, would hardly have served Metchnikoff '.s
purpose. ' In the Heart of Roumania ' is yet
another of those studies of the Near East by Mr.
W. F. Bailey and Miss JeanV. Bates to which we
have repeatedly and admiringly called attention ;
and it is inferior to none. Mr. T. H. S. Escott's
amusing and erudite account of ' The Rise and
Progress of the English Dinner ' affords a pleasant
relief from the somewhat serious interest of
most of these papers, of which the rest are con-
cerned with aspects of the present international
situation.
THE articles on Death and a Future Life in the Nineteenth Century are contributed by Sir Oliver Lodge and Mr. A. P. Sinnett, the first a brief reply to the criticism of Sir Oliver's recent book by Sir Herbert Stephen in the last number of this review, the second a theosophical disquisition full of assertions which are familiar indeed, but nevertheless continue to amaze the evidence for them, vast as they are, being impalpable. Mr. D. S. MacColl contributes an important state- ment of the situation of the National Gallery in regard to the Bill now under consideration, and also in regard to Sir Hugh Lane's bequest of modern foreign pictures. " Rowland Grey " writes very pleasantly upon ^ The War Poetry of Women,' gathering her material from all ages and climes ; and another paper which may be- reckoned of more than temporary interest is Sir Frank Benson's ' " Bons Camarades " in a War Zone Cantine.' The substance is the same as that of thousands of similar articles, but few have brought out better its inner treasures of heroism, pathos, anguish, and gaiety.
The AthencKum now appearing monthly, arrange- ments have been made whereby advertisements of posts vacant and wanted, which it is desired to publish weekly, may appear in the intervening weeks in 'N. & Q.'
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