NOTES. AND QUERIES. [9- s. vm. JULV is, 1901.
and what is of far more importance in ]u
man and his time, we have little or nothing beyond
peculation to help us in determining how it was
tmtt if occurred to him to form a mixed order of
stitutions of this
ESffiRfez"^ ^Uer, #
rSetL E W abnepos," whose appearance so far
s^KSSSSs
men and women. In the East institutions or this
kind had been well known, and similar houses had
flourished in this country in earlier days, but they
had all been swept away by the Danes. Ihe his-
tory of th? order of Sempringham has an especial
ffirest on account of this recurrence to a custom
BO venerable; one, too, concerning which we may
assume, the founder had but slight knowledge even
if he were aware that such double houses had ever
existed before his own time. It is also noteworthy
as being the only religious order founded in this
country. It never spread elsewhere, not even into
Scotland, and as a consequence, when the order fell
here, it, unlike the others, having no branches m
foreign countries to carry on the tradition, became
Miss Rose Graham has done well the work she has undertaken. She has, it is plain, an accurate as well as a full knowledge of her subject, bne understands, too, many of those conditions of mediaeval life without a due knowledge of which any rational appreciation of the monastic orders is impossible. The details of the life of^ St. Gilbert are unhappily very scanty. Miss Graham has avoided the error, into which many well-intentioned writers have fallen, of eking out by pietistic verbiage the deficiencies of her authorities.
The accounts of the various Gilbertine houses are good. That they are scanty is no fault of the writer. She seems to have consulted every source of information that was open to her, and we fear that there is not much reason to hope that new facts will come to light, though we still cling fondly to the hope that a MS. of Capgrave's English ' Life of St. Gilbert' may be found. There was one in the Cotton Library, but it perished in the disastrous fire of 1731.
The Poll of Alumni in Arts of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, 1596-1860. Edited by Peter J. Anderson. (Aberdeen, printed for the University.)
THE subject of Scotch graduates is familiar to 4 N. & Q,,' and of great interest. Aberdeen has justly a very high reputation as a nursing-mother of men, and the work of the University Librarian which in many points corrects less careful sources, is invaluable. Mr. Anderson's lists are admirably produced in every way, the index in particular being most excellent. It shows the persistency o certain families: Andersons, Barclays, Camerons Campbells, Clarks, Cummings, and Gordons, to men tion no other names, are very plentiful, while Forbe and Fraser are each good for a whole page of th' index. On the other hand, there is only a solitar instance of Con, Don, Duke, Hart, and Fisher, th last two being very common names in England The lists are so beautifully printed that they are pleasure to the eye. Looking over them, one come
t TuaUfications ot'herways? Aberdeen may
ay Quee regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? and many students will thank the University Librarian for his painstaking work.
ht to have noticed before the Biblio-
OUfif
form is uue L*J DUG \vi.v> *.*** ~ -- - . ,
Prideaux. We say " taste because it is just the
literary quality, the judgment of the scholar and
the writing of the man who reads as well as collects
or chronicles which are often wanting m biblio-
graphers; but yet it needs such qualities to .make
their work of interest to a wider circle than that of
the mere seekers after " first states " and ' rarities.
Col. Prideaux shows his capabilities m the notes
e has added, for instance, to such a masterpiece
s ' Christabel,' and the thoroughness of his research
s evident everywhere. Briefly, we may say that
is bibliography is what a good performance of the
.ind should be, something like a literary history
f its subject in skeleton form.
THE Oxford University Press will issue ' An
^nglish Commentary on Dante's "Divina Uom-
nedia,'" by the Rev. H. F. To/er. Mr. Tozer has
ollowed the new Oxford text of the 'Divine
Comedy.'
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- ication, 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."
IGNORAMUS. Unsuitable.
NOTICE.
Editorial communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries'" Ad vertise-
F _. e , , ments and Business Letters to "The Publisher
across many notable persons, though the frequency I at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G. of the same names may be a trap to the unwary We beg leave to state that we decline to return may make one think for a moment, for instance, ' communications which, for any reason, we do not that the economist Adam Smith was an Aberdeen print ; and to this rule we can make no exception.
