480
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. VIL JUNE is, MOI.
elapsed since we last heard them, and memory is no
longer trustworthy. O'Keefe supplies the famous
" Amo, amas, I love a lass," and " I am a Friar of
Orders Grey." His lyrical gifts have been under-
rated. Many of the patter songs he wrote for John
Edwin or others are better than anything of the
kind that has been written since. Mrs. Grant of
Laggan supplies a single poem. Tom Warton's
contributions are insignificant ; but he was better
as a scholar and a critic than as a poet.
We congratulate Prof. Arber on his accomplish ment. It adds one more to the priceless services he has rendered the lover of literature. His task has, it is needless to say, been well executed. He is, however, in one or two instances a little pedantic, as when he prints a line from Cowper
Tis for a Thousand Pound[s] !
and one from a ballad
More than seven year[s].
Surely the brackets are in each case superfluous. " Pound" has to rime with " around," and the use of "a thousand pound" is no longer dialectal. Thackeray, moreover, has has he not ?
Wait till you come to forty year. With this mildest of grunts we dismiss two delight- ful books and a no less delightful series.
Scribner's Magazi?ie has some travel articles of great merit. The new part of Mr. Henry Norman's
Russia of To-day' deals with Finland, and is pro- foundly interesting. The designs, too, are excellent, and a picture which heads it of ' Finnish Types' is quite enchanting. The reproduction of the laugh- ing faces of mother and daughter seems worth republication on an enlarged scale. Not less good as regards either letterpress or illustrations is ' A First Day in the South Seas,' which we read with great pleasure and contentment. 'The Scottish University' is no less valuable. There is also much admirable fiction, the entire number being most readable.
To Man Mr. W. T. Newton sends an account of the discoveries of flint implements a couple of years ago at Greenhithe, illustrations being given of both the rudest and the most finished specimens, many of them from Mr. Newton's own collection. No find in the West Kent palaeolithic districts has had equal interest. Mr. N. W. Thomas gives an account of the plans of the Australian ethnological expedition undertaken by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, whose admirable work on ' The Native Tribes of Central Australia' we reviewed a year or two ago. The expenses of the important task under- taken are borne by private individuals and the Australian Government. Mr. Andrew Lang returns to ' The Martyrdom of St. Dasius,' and disputes afresh the idea that a king was ever sacrificed to release the god whom he incarnates, and holds that no one would have accepted such a "billet." M. Capart also sends a long and important paper on ' Algerian Ethnography.'
THE latest issue of the Journal of the Ex-Libris Society announces the annual meeting for the 28th inst., and the editor, Mr. W. H. K. Wright, asks for exhibits. No. 19 of ' Modern Book - Plates,' by the editor, deals with the work of Mr. Allan Wyon, F.S.A., who is said to have perhaps designed more book-plates and medals than any
man living. Many admirable specimens of his
works are reproduced.
So far as can be traced, Sir Walter Besant was not a contributor to ' N. & Q. 3 As author of many excel- lent books he calls for a record. A special service to archaeology was rendered in his writings on West- minster, East London, and South London, in which he popularized or, as the French would say, "vul- garized " antiquarian information. We are curious to know if he has left any MSS. concerning North London, in which he had long been a resident, and in the antiquities of which he took a zealous and enlightened interest. That much matter of interest exists among his papers may safely be assumed. It is not easy to conjecture who is capable of wearing his mantle. It is to be hoped that he has appointed a competent literary executor.
A NEW volume by Prof. Skeat, entitled ' Notes on English Etymology,' will be issued shortly from the Oxford University Press. It contains an introduction of an autobiographical kind, and a reproduction of the portrait presented by subscrip- tion to Christ's College, Cambridge, of which the author is Fellow. Most of the pages are made up of reprints of stray articles, and the whole may be described as a companion volume to ' A Student's Pastime.'
THE index to the first ten volumes of 'Book- Prices Current,' which has been in course of com- pilation for some time, is now completed, and will be published by Mr. Elliot Stock very shortly. The index is so arranged that under any one author's name all the copies of his works sold during the decade are brought together, and their varying prices and states are seen at one view. The work contains in all 33,000 distinct titles and over 500,000 references, Shakespeare alone having over 1,100.
txr
We must call special attention to the following notices :
ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.
WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.
To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication " Duplicate."
P. REDMOND. You should add a heading, as the rules suggest.
MOTICE.
Editorial communications should be addressed to The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Advertise- ments and Business Letters to " The Publisher" at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G. We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print ; and to this rule we can make no exception.
