& s. vn. APKIL 20, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
319
the original statement was slanderous is probable
enough ; that it is disposed of by Halliwell-Phillipps
is inaccurate. That the slander existed so early as
16do there is some slight evidence with which
Halliwell-Phillipps was unacquainted. How far
genealogy, apart from the direct service it renders,
is valuable as illustrating the origin and trans-
mission of genius is a matter on which different
opinions will always be held. To us it seems that
the existence of " mute, inglorious Miltons " of the
tenth or twentieth descent, supposing such still to
be, is of no special interest. With progenitors the
thing is different ; and if we can trace back Shake-
speare by the spindle side to Guy of Warwick or
Alfred the Great, something is done. A main pur-
pose of Mrs. Stopes is, as has been said, to sub-
stantiate the right of Shakespeare to be regarded
as a Warwickshire gentleman, a task in which she
meets with much success. The point is advanced,
as implying good descent, that Shakespeare was
frequently called "gentle." In some cases, but
surely not in all, that signification might be attached
to thie word. It bears that sense in the lines of
Da vies addressed in 1603 to Shakespeare and
Burbage
And though the stage doth stain pure gentle blood, Yet generous ye are in mind and mood ;
and it would be certain if, in the following lines of Freeman, published in 1614, we could alter the word "age" into stage and apply the whole to Shakespeare :
Why hath our age such new-found "gentles " found To give the " master" to the farmer's son ?
That the word is to be accepted generally in this sense we hesitate to believe.
In common with Halliwell-Phillipps and most recent biographers, Mrs. Stopes is sanguine and optimistic concerning the Shakespeare of social and domestic life. She does not entirely reject, as do most biographers, the story that attributes the death of Shakespeare to the reputed drinking bout which followed the arrival in Stratford of Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, but she is quite at ease concerning the relations of Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. She speaks of Anne as " the first real fancy*' of Shakespeare's life, whom his "masterful spirit" went forth to woo ; holds that, though she was seven years his senior, " if she was slight and fair and delicate, as there is every reason to believe she was," it is quite likely that she looked no older than he ; and describes thus the circumstances of the marriage: "A break had come into her home life ; doubtless she went off to visit some friends, and the young lover felt he could not live without his betrothed, and deter- mined to clinch the matter." Against this we have nothing more to urge than that we could excogitate another theory, less agreeable and quite as plausible. There is indeed almost as much virtue in a " might have been " as in an " if."
In the case of a poet concerning whom so little is known as Shakespeare we are driven to conjecture. Mrs. Stopes's conjecture is frequently plausible and brightly put, and the perusal of this portion of her book is always a pleasure. In the domain of genea- logy, though there is always a temptation to suggest possible relationships with the poet, Mrs. Stopes is on firm ground. She establishes without difficulty her facts, and gives us an account of Shakespeares, Shakespeyes, Schakespeirs, and Chacspers extend-
ing from 1260 to modern days, and from Cumber-
land to the South. With this department of the
book we have not specially concerned ourselves
From the genealogical standpoint the account of
the Arderis is the most interesting. To two classes
of readers, the Shakespearian scholar and the genea-
logist, Mrs Stopes's book directly appeals. It is a
very readable volume as well as a thorough piece of
work, which many well-chosen and well-executed
illustrations will commend to the general public
A good index adds to its utility.
Annul* of Politic* and Culture. By G. P. Gooch
M.A. (Cambridge, University Press.) AT the suggestion of Lord Acton, Mr. Gooch has compiled a series of chronological tables dealing with the most noteworthy events in European and American politics and progress, literary and scientific, since the discovery of the New World down to the close of the last century. He has evidently bestowed no small amount of honest work in co-ordinating and collecting his items. All that have to do with politics he exhibits on the left-hand pages, those that come under the wide heading of 'Culture' being arranged on the right. Ihe result is a magnified "dictionary of dates" on a scale hitherto unattempted. At the same time, however industrious and painstaking the compiler of such tables maybe, one cannot help being reminded of the old joke about Dr. Dodd and his ' Beauties of Shakespeare,' and feeling disposed to inquire for the other twenty volumes, it being quite impossible to give an adequate survey, even in outline, of four of the most crowded centuries of European history and literature within the com- pass of 470 pages. The selection of items must be more or less arbitrary or matter of opinion, and it is quite conceivable that another compiler, equally well equipped, might bring together an assortment of entries largely different from Mr. Gooch's. Pro- bably no two scholars would agree as to what should be omitted from such a work, or in their estimate of the relative proportion and importance of what they admitted. To illustrate what we mean : under the heading of ' Deaths ' (which for some reason are always given on the ' Culture ' side of the account) that of Lamb is entered under the year 1834, while that of Coleridge, which we should have thought equally important, is omitted. Then we note with considerable surprise that the only person of any reputation in the civilized world who died in 1709 was Bull, and in 1815 Rumford ; and, stranger still, for three consecutive years, 1670- 1672, not a single person was found worthy to be entered on the European death-roll. But here, on a reperusal, we notice that " Comenius dies" is very unsymmetrically placed not under ' Deaths,' but under ' Bohemian Ch.' Then the selection of distinguished writers is, perhaps necessarily, un- satisfactory. The student of culture might know this volume by heart, and, so far as we can see,, never be aware there were such scholars as Hincks,. MacCullagh, De Roug6, Trench, Creighton, Salmon, and scores of others. Again, some of the articles are obscure and ambiguous. Under 1872 we read, " Stanley and Tait recommend the omission of the Athanasian Creed, but are defeated by Pusey, Liddon, and Wilberforce." We are not told how and where this " defeat " 1 ook place. " Wellhausen's History of Israel" (in 1878) "blends the currents starting from Vatke, Ewald, and Reuss," only speaks to those who know. We do not, of course,
