I
s. iii. MA*. *, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.
179
seriously recommended "a hair of the dog that bit
you " to be applied to the wound. An owl baked
and mixed with horse grease constitutes a remedy
for the gout. To make a man (or a woman) sleep
three days, all you have to do is to give him in his
pottage the gall of a hare, and he shall not wake
until his face is washed with vinegar. In these few
extracts we have not used the old spelling or the
signs for th, &c. The forms of orthography adopted
have, however, special interest, and the work is a
valuable gift to students of Middle English. The
spelling is more than eccentric, and among the
explanatory notes of Prof. Skeat are many which
point out errors, such as "motfelon" for matfelon,
"lomke" for lemke, i.e., brooklime, &c. Many of
the forms employed are unfamiliar, and without
the assistance rendered by the Professor a portion
of the volume would be not easily intelligible.
Prof. Skeat puts the date of the opening MS. before
1400, and holds it from internal evidence to have
been written in the south of England, most likely
in Sussex, Surrey, or Hampshire, but not in Kent.
The scribe responsible for the English portion was
of English birth, and was equally conversant with
Anglo-French and English, though he never quite
succeeded in mastering the correct pronunciation
of the latter. On p. 125, in one of the L)ouce MSS.,
appears a curious preface in rimed verse.
Quentin Durward. By Sir Walter Scott. Edited
by Andrew Lang. (Nimmo.)
' QUENTIN DURWARD,' now added to Mr. Nimmo's reissue of the "Border Edition" of the Waverley novels, is in general estimate one of the best of the series. It is at least one of the most romantic. Scott showed a little timidity in winning vicari- ously for his hero the lovely Countess of Croye. From the first to the latest perusal of the volume we felt how impossible it was to suppose Quentin hearing the voice of Gertrude Pavilion or of turning for a moment his head from his fierce and dangerous adversary. It is, however, a part of Scott's cha- racteristic moderation to substitute Le Balafre" for the youth who has already had so many oppor- tunities of distinguishing himself. Had Scott intro- duced a further scene, in which the Duke of Bur- gundy communicated to Isabelle de Croye the result of the combat for her hand, he would have gratified a good many readers whose love of poetic justice is greater than their regard for art. The book is, however, noble in all respects, and is in this edition admirably illustrated.
The, Cathedral Church of York. By A. Clutton-
Brock. (Bell & Sons.)
A HISTORY of the magnificent Minster of York is the latest addition to Bell's admirable " Cathedral Series," which, in spite of the death of one of its editors, still advances towards completion. In his account of this noble pile Mr. Glutton-Brock owns to having followed Prof. Wallis, a safe guide in all respects. A whole literature is, however, available for York Minster, and the only or, at least, the chief difficulty of the latest historian has con- sisted in the task of selection and compression. This he has successfully accomplished, and his book is worthy to stand beside its predecessors. A good deal of attention is bestowed upon the city, the most ancient, and in some respects the most inter- esting, in England. Little attention is paid to the mythical origin of York, narrated by Geoffrey of Monmouth and favoured in Francis Drake's
Eboracum, and no credit is given the origin of the
name from the Ure, a comparatively insignificant
tributary of the Ouse. The views of the city and
of its picturesque gates are well selected. Little
is, however, said of the minor ecclesiastical edifices
with which York overflows. Of the building itself
Mr. Uutton-Brock holds that it seems rather to
express the secular magnificence and temporal power
ot a church conspicuous in history than the spiritual
aspirations of a. people. Be this as it may, the
Minster wants only to be placed on an elevation
such as is seen at Lincoln or at Durham to stand
easily foremost of English cathedrals. Without
that advantage, even, we are not sure that it does
not so stand. The illustrations of the exterior
and the interior are alike excellent. They are
chiefly photographic.
(l nde ? to the Times. Oct. 1st to Dec. 31st,
.-0ct, 1st to Dec. 31st, 1824. (Shepperton-
on-Thames, Palmer.)
WITH the index to the Times for the three con- cluding months of last year Mr. Palmer sends us the index to the autumnal quarter for 1824, part of a series he is reprinting for subscribers. The appearance of the two works is similar, but the little quarto of twenty-seven pages has now swelled out into ninety-two. The editor and publisher takes justifiable pride in the fact that all attempt at competition has proved a failure, and that the i work remains authoritative as well as indispensable. He quotes the declaration of the late Mowbray I Morns, the leading spirit of the Times when the I J imes was at its best, that the work was from the I outset perfect. It has, indeed, fulfilled its promise, and is a work of transparent utility. Of some things it is the only existing register, and it is a book that should be in every library and institution in the kingdom. Attention is drawn to the fact that when a file of the Times is inaccessible it will serve for other newspapers. The index has now been in existence seventy-four years.
Landmarks in English Industrial History. Bv George Townsend Warner, M.A. (Blackie &
MODEST as are the pretensions of this book and
ts author is careful, so far as the matter is con-
cerned, to make no claim to originality it is a work
displaying much insight and acumen, and likely to
be very serviceable to those seeking to grasp the
significance and development of England's com-
mercial and industrial progress. Choosing subjects
such as the manorial system, the mercantile system
the rise of banking, the agrarian revolution, &c.,
Mr. Warner groups around each the causes from
which it sprang and the developments to which it
gave rise. The information is in every case accurate
and condensed, and there are few except close
students of economics and social progress who will
riot rise from the perusal with ideas enlarged or
amended. If the reader wishes to take one chapter
as representative of all, let him take that on the
Black Death of 1348-50, and study its influence upon
the lord and the labourer, together with the col-
lisions between the two classes to which it gave
nse ' et , - lim then com P ar> e with this the chapter
on Machinery and Power" and that on "The
Agrarian Revolution." Very well has the task of
selection of subjects been discharged by Mr. War-
ner, and the book, though necessarily a com-
pendium, is so pleasant to read that no one who
