140
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[9 S. X. AUG. 16, 1902.
and Bartlett. The advantage of this is obvious.
The Globe may not be an ideal text, but it is one of
the best. Successive editors have arranged the
line-numbering according to their caprice, and it
is next to impossible, in the case of various editions,
to render the best and most established aids avail-
able without much labour. All readers know, in
the case of the glossary of Mrs. Cowden Clarke, a
work of exemplary labour, how, when one had found
the references desired, the task was but half accom-
plished, and one had to read through a long scene
at a time when probably one was working under
pressure. It is, as the professor points out, neces-
sary that some agreement as to the division of prose
lines should be reached. The treatment observed
in bringing Dyce's work up to date has been reve-
rent. Compression has been occasionally employed.
Where additions have been made by the reviser
they are generally enclosed in brackets. Shake-
spearian students will not fail to obtain and em-
ploy this work, even though they possess that of
Schmidt. It will greatly facilitate their labours, is
simple and easy of reference, and convenient to
handle. Much of the information given is ampler
and more satisfactory than that supplied in
Schmidt. Consult both, for instance, under ' Circe.'
As a work of scholarly reference the book, which
contains near six hundred pages, and appears in a
handsome shape, with a Roxburghe binding, is
indispensable.
IT was to be anticipated that the experience of war which we have had of late should cause collec- tions of battle-verses to become popular. War, however that is recent war does not, it would seem, stimulate the poetic faculty. Knightly stories were composed in the Middle Ages of which war, next to love, was the most prominent feature, but they related almost solely to fights fought long ago, not to feats of arms that had occurred in days with which the authors were personally familiar. This, too, may be assumed regarding the ' Iliad.' and the ballads also if there were any which formed its foundation. The ballads of the North Country may be quoted as an exception: but in nearly every case we are ignorant alike of date and authorship. As the writer of ' War and Poetry,' in the Edinburgh Review for July, points out, some of the Border ballads contain the true Greek battle spirit, and we may add that the word-selection is often as true as Homer's own. Nothing has had deeper issues or moved the spirit of the age more keenly than the war between king and Parliament, but it has left us no scrap of contemporary verse which touches the heart as the ballads do. Milton himself preferred to build his greatest poem in regions far away from the stress and struggle in which he spent his life. Until the days of Sir Walter Scott the romance elements of that great contest were unappreciated, and when Scott tried to celebrate Waterloo "a crowning mercy," as a Puritan would have said, for which he felt deeply thankful he failed in a way little short of miserable, though now and then there occur flashes of light which redeem it from the utter obscurity which by far the greater part of it merits. The review of Lord Avebury's book on ' The Scenery of England ' is well worth attention, though we hardly think the writer appreciates it as it deserves. It should be borne in mind, also, that Lord Avebury was not writing a book on the controversies which range themselves around certain scientific subjects. He
was drawing a picture, not a map, of what have been
the causes of much that we see around us. If he
assumes some few things as certain which have not
as yet been demonstrated by proofs so rigid as to
mark a man as an imbecile who should call them in
question, we can no more blame him than we should
the writer of a popular work who assumed the
Belgfe to have been of this or that prehistoric race,
although their origin has not yet been decided to
the satisfaction of some continental and, we believe,
also a few English scholars. The paper on ' The
Royal Palaces of London ' is accurate, but not so
picturesque as such a subject might have been made.
This is perhaps owing to the width and varying
character of the things which have to be men-
tioned and the confined limits of a review. Victor
Hugo is seldom fairly dealt with by Englishmen.
He is at the same time too near and too far off to
be estimated as he deserves. Blame and praise in
unstinted measure he has had in plenty, but very
rarely strict justice. The writer in the Edinburgh,
who is evidently on familiar terms with all h has
produced, has striven to be fair, and has been in
a great degree successful. Neither the praise nor
the blame he metes out is undeserved. On the
psychological contradictions which force themselves
upon our attention when we try to harmonize Victor
Hugo's perplexing character the reviewer does not
touch, though it is evident that this maze has been
occupying his thoughts. There are several political
articles, on which we have no remarks to make. We
may say, however, that ' The Albanian Question '
throws no little light on subjects of which people
are usually ignorant, and, we fear, for the most part
are well content to remain so.
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CORRIGKNDA. P. 85, col. 1, 1. 24 from bottom, for "Ulster" read Usher ; col. 2, 1. 4 from bottom, for " July" read June.
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