9* s. xii. AUG. i, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
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antiquaries. Edelestand Du Meril and Charles
Magnin, the earliest and the best writers on the
mediaeval development of the Latin drama, have
had many German and French successors in more
recent days. The fourth section, which is divided
into 'The Interlude' and 'Humanism and Medi-
sevalism,' is, as regards the second portion, prin-
cipally in the hands of German authorities, though
in France L. Petit de Julleville has done excellent
work. Very many writers have been diligently
studied, and a series of appendices has been added
which is of singular interest and value. Elaborate
as is th work now concluded, some interesting
features in the early drama are dismissed with
briefest notice. The six comedies of Hrotswitha,
the Nun of Gandersheim, written in the tenth cen-
tury in avowed imitation of Terence, though value-
less from the dramatic standpoint, deserve more
than the passing mention they receive. To the
ludi at Easter and Christmas Mr. Chambers traces
the spontaneous growth of drama out of liturgy.
The three plays of Hilarius, a pupil of Abelard,
which constitute one of the most curious surviving
products of the twelfth century, he assumes to be
not written for any special church, but to con-
stitute the repertory of a band of wandering
clerks.
Though the work is to be studied and used rather than perused for pleasure, one could extract from its learned pages much matter for mirth and solace as well as for instruction. The task of quoting such matter may not, however, be undertaken. After describing the actors by whom the early drama was established, and alluding to them as "vagabonds, and liable to whipping," Mr. Cham- bers concludes: "The time was at hand when one player was to claim coat armour and entertain preachers to sack and supper at New Place, while another was to marry the daughter of a dean and to endow an irony for all time in the splendid College of God's Gift at Dulwich." It was not, however, as an actor that Shakespeare obtained coat armour or that Alleyn sought that "other dignitie" which was not granted him. Not until some three centuries had elapsed was the actor held worthy of the knighthood on which a civic sheriff who is content with an honour of the sort can ordinarily count.
The Coronation of Edward the. Seventh. By John Edward Courtenay Bodley, Corresponding Mem- ber of the Institute of France. (Methuen & Co.) MR. BODLEY'S latest work is aptly described in its second title as 'A Chapter of European and Im- perial History.' To some extent it is a condensed account of the nineteenth century, a period still too near us to be easily summed up and described in the fashion in which we sum up and describe the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Four sepa- -rate solemnities, each of highest importance, are dealt with, the period they collectively coyer all but constituting a century. The coronation at Notre Dame of Napoleon Bonaparte took place 2 December, 1804, his elevation to supreme power having anticipated his coronation by a couple of years; that of Edward VII., deferred through illness, on 9 August, 1902, a date which furnishes Mr. Bodley with opportunities for a pregnant com- parison between the London of that date and the Paris of a hundred and ten years previously, when the King and Queen of France, " besieged in their palace of the Tuileries by their own subjects, were
awaiting the tocsin which at midnight they knew
was to toll the knell of the monarchy after eight
hundred years of hereditary sway, under which
France had grown into a great nation."
In addition to the two coronations which form the magnificent portals of entry and exit of the nineteenth century there stand out from Mr. Bod- ley's survey the crowning of Queen Victoria on 28 June, 1838, and the proclamation of the German Empire on 18 January, J871. In some respects the last-named event which has no direct connexion with Mr. Bodley's subject, and might almost be said to be dragged in by the head and shoulders is the most picturesque and significant of all. It does not, like the coronation of our present monarch and other recent functions, display
The wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. It has, however, a picturesque, heroic, and appro- priate, if lamentable environment. In the back- ground is besieged and starving Paris in its death agony ; the scene of the ceremony is the famous Hall of Mirrors in the palace built by the Roi Soleil to commemorate, as Mr. Bodley says, "the ascendancy of France over Germany, of which the proudest trophy was the annexed province of Alsace"; the chief participants in the solemnity are no " carpet knights so trim," but grim and trained warriors in the uniforms in which they have drained the life blood of France more success- fully than the Guisards during the massacres of fet. Bartholomew or the Democrats during the days of the Terror. Had neither of our monarchs been crowned the security of the throne and the homage of the people would not have been perceptibly less. We should only have missed two splendid pageants. The proclamation at Versailles marked the growth of a world power and the transference of the leadership in Europe from a bruised and bleeding France to a united and triumphant Germany.
Next in interest and importance comes the spectacle of united empire presented at the Coro- nation of our present monarch, a pageant sur- passing anything seen during or since the days of imperial Rome, while the Coronation of the youthful Victoria is treated by Mr. Bodley as "the inauguration of a new era." It is in its philosophic and political aspect that the volume will appeal to most readers, there being few even among statesmen who are capable of dealing with these aspects of life in Western Europe. As regards the mere description of the successive ceremonials, there are many who could have given us an equally animated picture. In this part the sketches of the characters by whom the various monarchs are surrounded have great interest and value. It is, however, in breadth of survey and acute perception of the relations and connexion of things that the book is most important. It is at once a companion and a supplement to the same author's ' France,' and as such will occupy a per- manent place in literature. Mr. Bodley's style is concise and luminous. A main purport of his book, which is avowedly controversial, is to contrast the great and spontaneous outburst of loyalty witnessed during the closing years of the last century with the revolution with which the previous century closed, and to which, until sickened of its excesses enlightened spirits turned with hope and faith! Long extracts, such as we are prohibited from
