s. ix. MAECH i, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
179
father's vaulting ambition, no execution upon an
Anne Boleyn or a Jane Grey, the later is wanting
in no tragic or heroic respect. Pathetic cases there
are witness the service of
That sweet saint who sate by Russell's side
and not all end unhappily, as is seen by the escape of Lord Nithsdale on the eve of his execution, through the heroism and resourcefulness of his wife. Full particulars of an incident that angered greatly George I. are supplied by Lord Ronald. The most illustrious victim of royal malignity, cowardice, and spite with whom the second volume deals is, of course, Sir Walter Raleigh, though the fate in the following reign of Lord Strafford caused greater consternation. Raleigh had been so long in prison, and experienced so many unkind visitations of fortune, that his death when brought about created less sensation than might have been anticipated. Says Lord Ronald, "Sir Walter Raleigh died a martyr to the cause of a Greater Britain ; his life thrown as a sop to the Spanish Cerberus by the most debased and ignoble of our kings." This is true, though hardly well said. Who is the " Spanish Cerberus"? He adds: "The onus of the guilt of his death a judicial murder, if ever there was one must be borne by the base councillors who
James belong the death of Lady Arabella Sey-
mour, which took place in the Tower, and, without
being sanguinary, was due to her long and hopeless
confinement, and that of Sir Thomas Overbury,
which James might have been powerless to prevent,
but which, at least, he basely condoned. Among
those subject to detention in the Tower were Bacon
and Coke.
The victims in the days of Charles I. and the Commonwealth were numerous and renowned. The deaths of Strafford and Laud are perhaps the most picturesque and touching. Concerning Laud's addi- tions to St. John's College, Lord Ronald says that in the library of that college his spectre is said to be seen " occasionally gliding on moonlight nights between the old bookshelves." Is not the tradition rather that he and his royal master indulge with their heads in a nocturnal game of bowls ? Many noble heads were lopped during the following reigns before we come to the death of Monmouth, perhaps the handsomest victim of all. In the reigns of the Georges the executions were fewer, being chiefly confined to participants in the revolts of 1715 and 1745. During the late reigns we hear only of the fire of 1841 and the attempt to blow up the White Tower in 1885, the executant of which crime issued from imprisonment a year or two ago. Most of the stories which Lord Ronald tells are necessarily familiar. Some are, however, less known than others. The tale of Blood's attempt to carry off the regalia is told afresh, and the supposition that Charles II. connived at it is not very strongly reproved. An idea that Charles II. and his brother had a private cognizance of, or participation in, the death of Arthur Cecil, Earl of Essex, is not favoured. It may safely be consigned to the same limbo in which now rests the once famous story in the following reign of the child and the warming- pan. The illustrations are, as in the previous volume, numerous and excellent. In addition to portraits of the principal victims they include views of the Tower from all aspects and in various
times. The work is indeed one of the best illus-
trated of modern days, and will be warmly prized
by all students of history and antiquity and col-
lectors of what are now called Londoniana.
Selected Essays and Papers of Richard Copley Christie. Edited, with a Memoir, by William A. Shaw, Litt.D. (Longmans & Co.) FEW works of the same class deserve a warmer welcome than this. Richard Copley Christie, a firm friend and supporter of 'N. & Q.,' was primarily a man of action, discharging many im- portant and responsible functions. What these were, and how they were discharged, was told in various periodicals on his lamented demise little more than a year ago (see, inter alia t 9 th S. vii. 60). In the intervals of his various avocations he became a scholar all but, if not quite, unequalled in his line. A man of fine tastes and wide sympathies, he wrote one work, his life of Etienne Dolet, which is accepted as a masterpiece, and remains the prin- cipal and, in a sense, unique tribute to one of the most interesting and tragic figures of the French Renaissance. To that life in its English dress, and in the subsequent French translation, we have more than once drawn attention, and other writings of his have been noticed in our columns. Of few men can it be said that their work was equally varied, trustworthy, erudite, and scholarly, or animated by so fine a taste ; of still fewer that they were so complete masters of their subject. Possessor of a fine library, ever at the disposition of his friends, and of what most scholars would regard as affluence, he pursued his studies in a fashion that recalls Gibbon. The articles, accordingly, he contributed to the quarterlies and other periodicals are so careful and elaborate as to DC of permanent value, and a collection of them is a boon alike to the student and the bibliophile. So fresh is his memory with us, and so many were the services he rendered, we can scarcely even now persuade ourselves to think of him as dead. His brief memoir is adequate and sympathetic ; the portraits present faithfully his refined, clear-cut face ; and the illustrations of his haunts, and espe- cially his library, add greatly to the value of the volume. The chief attraction of this will, how- ever, be found in the collected essays and sketches, which will always be the delight of the scholar, and abound in information on out-of-the-way sub- jects. Had Christie been less occupied he might well have given us a history of the literary renaissance, and what he leaves behind constitutes no unim- portant contribution to the subject. Knowing well both the man and his work, we have nothing but praise for this tribute to his memory and his fame.
The King and Queen of Hearts. Written by Charles Lamb, illustrated by William Mulreadv. Re- issued in facsimile by E. V. Lucas. (Methuen &Co.)
IN the course of his Lamb studies Mr. E. V. Lucas came upon a letter from Lamb to Wordsworth, dated 1 February, 1806, claiming the authorship of ' The King and Queen of Hearts,' issued in 1805. He was also fortunate enough to find a copy of a little work of extreme rarity, and to obtain per- mission from the proprietor to issue it in facsimile. The task has been executed with so much skill that any owner of the book without its modern environ- ment, which is separated, would believe himself
