Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/366

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9*s.i.ApRiL3o,'98.


being "completed and printed previously to " the foregoing, including 354 lots. I am unable to supply the dates of these "last three days," but Prof. Newton thinks it is likely they were the llth, 12th, and 14th July respectively. For some interesting par- ticulars of this museum, and of many others, the reader may be referred to a paper read at Cambridge before the members of the Museums Association, and printed in their Annual Report for 1891, pp. 28-46.

W. RUSKIN BUTTEEFIELD. St. Leonards.

The following brief history of the collection bearing the above name will be found in All the Year Hound, Second Series, vii. 232 :

" Leicester House, subsequent to its being pulled down, became a show place for a Museum of Natural History, collected by Sir Ash ton Lever. Eventually the Museum was put up in a lottery, only eight hundred out of thirty-six thousand tickets being sold. For all this it was won by Mr. Parkinson, the proprietor of only two tickets, who afterwards exhibited the collection in Blackfriars. It was eventually offered to the British Museum, but was, after all, sold by auction in 1806. The sale lasted four days, and there were four thousand one hundred and ninety-four lots."

The Library of the Corporation of the City of London, Guildhall, contains a marked sale catalogue of the late Leverian Museum, in Great Surrey Street, in 1806, 4to., London, 1806. EVEEAED HOME COLEMAN.

PHILIP, DUKE OF WHAETON (8 th S. xii. 488 ; 9 th S. i. 90, 170). I suggest that the conclud- ing part of the inscription quoted by ME. ROBINSON at the last reference should read : 1 Tu autem viator cineribus parcas et abeas.' "Aurem" seems to be a palpable blunder. The ear, it is true, might be invoked to listen to the exhortation, but it is beyond my ingenuity to adapt the word to the context I change it, therefore, to " autem."

F. ADAMS.

" DAEGASON " (9 th S. i. 307). There is much information about this tune in Chappell's

  • Popular Music ' (pp. 64, 65) ; and the tune

itself will be found, as ' The Summer Festival, in Macfarren's ' Old English Ditties ' (vol. ii p. 144). It appears in Wales as 'The Melody of Cynwyd,' and is so printed in the * Relicks of the Welsh Bards,' by Edward Jones. From a note in that folio we learn that " Cynwyc was a man's name, and Cynwydion was the name of the clan and land from whicl the village of Cynwyd in Merionethshire derives its name." Chappell does not rate the * Relicks ' very highly ; and some of th "adaptations" are certainly astonishing 1 General Monk's March ' (circa 1650) appear


s ' The Monks' March,' with a note stating hat the monks of Bangor " probably " used t as a march-chant about the year 603 1 English ' Green Sleeves ' does not improve as The Delight of the Men of Dovey.' There are slight alterations, of course, but the tunes are unmistakable. Chappell quotes Gifford ,o show that Dargason was a dwarf of hivalric fame. Can Tennyson's "little Dagonet," who was " mock knight of Arthur's ["able Round," be identified with the ancient ' Donkin Dargason " 1

GEOEGE MAESHALL. Sefton Park, Liverpool.


NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Poems of Shakespeare. Edited, with an In- troduction and Notes, by George Wyndham. (Methuen.)

THOUGH new facts concerning Shakspeare are few, and the hope that we shall learn much about him that we have not long known has been all but ibandoned, the task of analyzing his works and lunting for hidden meanings or revelations has been assiduously prosecuted. During recent years we may almost say months the poems, notably the Sonnets, have been the subject of close investigation t>y some of our brightest wits, and if few definite conclusions have been reached, our literature has

n enriched by much admirable criticism, and a

large addition has been made to our knowledge of a literature that we persist in regarding as our country's chief glory. Few recent contributions to our knowledge of Shakspeare and of Tudor times have been more remarkable and more satisfying than the edition of Shakspeare's poems just issued by Mr. George Wyndham. That its conclusions will as a whole win universal acceptance is not to be hoped. The cherished theories of preceding writers are disputed, and in some cases disproved, while new theories have been advanced, the accept- ance or rejection of which involves a retracing of ground often traversed, but inexhaustible in novelty and interest. The new work has at least to be reckoned with by all, professors and students alike, and is commanding in influence and prodigal of sug- gestion. Its claims are, indeed, the strongest. J is firstly the best edition of the poems that has seen the light. From the point of view of the bibliophile it is a handsome volume and a welcome boon. Regarded in other aspects, it is a masterpiece of close study and sane and intelligent conjecture. Not at all disposed is Mr. Wyndham to dwell over- much on the revelations, autobiographical or other, of the Sonnets. He has studied these and the other poems by the literature and history of their day, , which he has mastered, and he has gleaned informa- tion in many fields, the full harvest of which was supposed to have been reaped. Mr. Wyndham writes, moreover, with a picturesqueness of style wholly in keeping with his subject and with capti- vating grace and oeauty of diction.

Mr. Wyndham bears a handsome tribute to the work accomplished by Prof. Dowden and ^Mr. Tyler, and, we may add, Mr. Baynes. Absoioed,