s. ix. MAY 10, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
379
columns which bear one way or another on Church
matters and practices, but he makes no attempt to
co-ordinate them into any connected system, or
make them illuminate one another. For the most
part he does not try to discover the origin or mean-
ing of the curious customs and quaint rites which
he registers, but is content to purvey the material
on which others may generalize or base deductions.
But it is only just to say that the author does not
pretend to be more than a diligent compiler. A
little research into mediaeval sources would often
have shown him the rise and rationale of many of
the usages which, as it is, remain unexplained ; but
by not extending his investigations, of set purpose,
beyond the Reformation period he leaves those
upper reaches of the stream outside his ken. This
is a pity, as wider knowledge would have cleared
up some of the present anomalies and obviated not
a few mistakes. It is all very well to repeat for
the hundredth time the hoary guess that the pro-
verbial "nine tailors" which make a man are only
a corrupt rendering of the "nine tellers" of the
passing pell ; but what about the same phrase turn-
ing up in Brittany, where there is no such con-
venient assonance? The derivation of the North-
Country word "arval" Mr. Vaux thinks "some-
what doubtful." Why not have resolved his doubts
by an easy reference to Dr. Murray's or Dr. Wright's
monumental dictionaries? "Derivations," as so
often in these popular works, have proved a snare
to the author. Funus and "funeral" are not so
obviously related as he assumes to the Latin /urm,
a rope (p. 170). The "coom" of a bell is not "a
sort of secretion of moss " (p. 398), but the black
grease that accumulates round its bearings. " Gree-
lith," meaning weepeth (p. 400), whether due to
Mr. Vaux or the authority which he quotes, is a
misprint for " greeteth."
Wrekin Sketches. By Emma Boore. (Stock.) THIS work, to which on its first appearance we drew attention (see 8 th 8. xii. 160), has received the honours, to which it is entitled, of a cheap edition. We are sorry to find that inaccuracy and defects in the earlier edition to which we drew attention remain uncorrected in the later.
PROF. BRADLEY sends to the Fortnightly a paper on ' The Rejection of Falstaff,' delivered in March last in Oxford. His views concerning the fat knight and his relations to Prince Hal are original and ingenious, if not always convincing. Falstaff, he holds, is not, in the full sense, either a liar or a coward. His lies are those of a humourist, and are not intended to be believed. By solemn statements he will make truth appear absurd, and he shares the amusement which his preposterous assertions beget. As regards the charge of cowardice, it is shown that he remains a person of consideraton, and that when he is in request " twelve captains hurry about London searching for him." Henry V. sinks in consideration in consequence of his treat- ment of Falstaff. In the Falstaff scenes Shake- speare overshot the mark. When, in order to elevate Henry, he sought to dethrone Falstaff', he failed. We cannot, even at the bidding of Shake- speare, change our attitude or our sympathies, and at the close "our hearts go with Falstaff to the Fleet, or, if necessary, to Arthur's bosom, or where- soever he is." Mr. Charles Bastide supplies an admirable estimate of M. Waldeck-Rouaseau. A comparison is suggested between the French states-
man and our own Halifax, and the former is declared
to be the ablest trimmer that France has known
since Gambetta." M. Waldeck-Rousseau is also
dealt with in the remarkable article of Calcha* on
'The Revival of France.' Mr. W. S. Lilly has
joined the ranks of those who see grave menace to
the future of England. Under 'New Forms of
Locomotion and their Results' the Hon. John Scott
Montagu, a well-known authority, deals with the
opposition experienced in England by those who
drive motor-cars, and is of opinion that one hundred
or one hundred and fifty miles an hour may easily
in time be possible with the use of rails. His ideas
take away the breath, but so doubtless did, eighty
years ago, those of the advocates of railways. Two
opening articles deal with the late Cecil Rhodes,
and a third, on * A Cosmopolitan Oxford,' is also
concerned with him. In the Nineteenth Century
Mr. Havelock Ellis writes on ' The Genius of Spain.'
He has much that is of extreme interest to say
upon a great subject, and his observations and con-
clusions repay study. Due importance is naturally
attached to the fact that the persecutions of the
Inquisition under Ferdinand and Isabella were
responsible for the shaping of subsequent Spain ;
but we fail to recognize the force of the asser-
tion that the "new light" took its rise in Spain,
and that to the suppression of this, thoroughly
accomplished, it is due that when the trumpet-
blast of Reformation sounded Spain was the
only country in which it awoke no echoes. Jews
were as much an object of suppression as Moors,
and the extirpation of the two races was largely
responsible for the decline of the country. There
is originality in the plea for the cruelty of the
Spaniard that the Spaniard can be as cruel to
himself as he is to others, and is only indifferent
to the pain of others because he is indifferent
to his own. There are many conclusions of the
writer on which we should like to dwell did
space permit. Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt analyzes
the new rendering of Lady Gregory's translation
of * The Life and Death of Cuchulairr just issued by
Mr. Murray. He finds the translation excellent in
almost every respect, but holds that when the
great Irish epic has taken its place, as it is bound
to do, with the sagas and romances of Norway,
France, and Germany, it may be necessary to have
a hardier translation in respect of sexual matters.
Lady Gregory's work will in due course come
under our own observation. Writing on
'Dante and the Fine Arts,' Mr. Alfred Higgins
disputes Mr. Berenson's theory that the form of
Dante's imagination was largely conditioned by his
knowledge of contemporary works of painting.
Two writers appear to oppose the views concerning
hospital nurses lately put forth in the Nineteenth
Century. Mr. Frederic Harrison deals with Newton
Hall, until recently a home of English Positivists.
Sir Wemyss Reid continues his survey of 'The
Month.' The Pall Mall opens with a further
section of "The Rebuilding of London,' by Mr.
Hugh B. Phillpott, and furnishes many views of
the new Piccadilly for the Coronation, including
a sketch of Hyde Park Corner, which serves as a
frontispiece. One can only hope that the improve-
ments will be adequate, but recent experiences
make us hesitate to accept such a conclusion.
Miss Katherine Brereton, of Guy's Hospital,
gives a very pleasing and encouraging account of
' Life in the Concentration Camps' of South Africa.
Great progress in soothing racial hostilities and
