1

99 66

ligion—“ folk-faith," as it might perhaps be I have lately heard that the couvade is nearest word yet suggested for the unexplained termed a subject handled by Jacob Grimm still practised in part of Yorkshire (on what Eddic tai, which (always in this oblique case) in his most sympathetic and masterly way. authority I know not); but certainly the appears only in the portent verses of the It is getting to be seen plainly nowadays that peasant classes, both in England and Ireland, old Wolsung Play and in the Tregrof Gudruthe higher and subtler developments of re-universally believe that a man will suffer nar with the apparent sense of "forecourt," ligious thought can never in any age or form from such ills as are wont to accompany preg- "parvis," or the like, the connexion being touch or effect more than the few elect; while nancy, nausea, neuralgia, and the like if his along the line of ideas connected with underneath the most highly specialised creeds wife be lucky enough to escape them. Curt-"starting-place;" cf. threshold and its uses. -Buddhist, Christian, or Muslim-there per- sying or bowing to the moon is as common as On p. 1215 reynir is clearly "rowan," mounsists a common mass of popular belief and it was in Job's days, though the pious poet tain-ash," a tree about which there seems observance of a singularly unchanging char- earnestly repudiates the practice. At noon- to have been a flourishing crop of legend in acter. In fact, this folk-faith found to-day day in Ireland the old folk still kneel and Ireland and Scotland. in practical unity over all Europe and half pray precisely as their Ivernian ancestors may Asia and America still accounts for the bulk be supposed to have done. of religious experience and observance of the masses in the most civilised countries of the world. The peasant-woman of Galway or Somerset has far more beliefs and usages in common with the slave-girls of Haroon er Rasheed, or the mistresses of Catullus, than she has with the ordinary educated lawyer or doctor of her own market-town. Grimm was aware of this, and therefore did not despise the day of small things; and his catholicity of view and comprehensiveness of treatment make this book the best extant introduction to the studies of mythology and folk-lore-a handbook for travellers abroad and observers at home.

It is noteworthy that, in the enormous and careful collection of ideas and observances touching sickness, magic, spectres, spirits, and omens which the volume under review comprises, there are astonishingly few to which parallels or analogues might not be found from the British Islands. The Folk-Lore Society is doing good work in collecting materials for that future but most desirable history and dictionary of British mythologies which, for interest, variety, and importance, should be in no way inferior to the museum of Grimm himself. Where so much is to be quarried, it is surprising how little the mine has been worked in England, though it is impossible to take up a daily paper without coming upon the strangest "survivals" (the much-abused word may be allowed here). One reads in the chronicles of Bow Street and the Cour d'Assise how "overlooking," "palmistry," "card-reading," are flourishing vigorously, if obscurely, in our midst, French peers and statesmen and English maid-servants alike persisting in the belief that wise women can discover treasures and foretell fortune. One notes in a memoir how the good-natured Iona Taurina, "the people's queen, the injur'd Caroline," used to amuse herself and her more intimate friends by moulding little waxen images of her "peccant and plethoric spouse," which she further duly adorned with horns and pierced with pins-a memorable fancy, which recalls the incidents of many a mediaeval trial and romantic modern poem, and chiefly, perhaps, Ingoldsby's admirably told legend of the Wizard of Folkestone, probably founded on a story here given by Grimm, p. 1091. A year ago, the "fifteen signs of doom" which St. Jerome adopted from far older sources were being substantially repeated from mouth to mouth, in connexion with the revered name of Mother Shipton, in East Anglian villages, as prognostics of the swiftly approaching end of the world, precisely as they must have been in the days of Richard Rolle and Robert Manning, and so, no doubt, in the still older times of Wulfstan and Birinus.

1

We know that folk-law is astonishingly conservative; that those intelligent foreigners who accuse us of wife-selling are not wholly in the wrong; not a year passes without some instance of the practice getting into the courts. And folk-medicine is every whit as persistent; swallowing frogs alive as a cure for disordered stomach; taking woodlice alive as pills, are by no means altogether obsolete prescriptions. The idea, too, of certain illnesses being caused by "the worm is common enough. The phrase "tuer le ver" being a remnant of these early medical theories which go aeons behind the mediaeval hypothesis of temperament and humour, and are probably older than the astrological system from which our current phrases, jovial, saturnine, lunatic, and the like, are drawn. Those who are fortunate enough to have access to Mr. Payne's faithful version of the "Arabian Nights" will find an excellent example of what we might call the earlier "parasitic theory" on the disease and cure of an Eastern lady. When the late George Smith was at Obeid on the Daily Telegraph mission he was highly astonished to hear from a friendly Pasha of a wonder-working root which was to be gathered by means of a dog and a string, nor did even a sight of the marvellous vegetable itself (so far as can be gleaned from the somewhat vague account in his Assyrian Researches) remove his wonder at the extraordinary credulity of persons "living in the nineteenth century." George Smith had never apparently heard of the mandrake, yet what seemed to him but a puerile and absurd superstition is very possibly an older and more respectable belief, as it is one certainly far more widely spread, than the myth of Nimrod and the goddess which he came so far and worked so hard to elucidate.

This is no place for full annotation of a book so rich in suggestion and incident, but, before leaving it, one may note that the word itr-lauk of the Helgi Lay cited p. 1215, which has puzzled Grimm and apparently misled his translator, is certainly a mistake of the MS.; what Sigmund gave his son was a sword, imon-lauk, a very fitting tooth-fee, or name-gift, to one who was to live and die in arms. Dr. Vigfússon notices that it is probably from this very line that the plagiarist Eywind drew the word which, by a strange irony of fate, he alone has preserved, so that it can be restored to the passage whence the tired or lazy copyist had suffered it to perish. The word rysi, of which it is difficult to get the exact source and meaning, is clearly wrongly translated by Grimm, p. 1228. One might guess that the "tee" which the lovers o' the Links know so well is really the

When Mr. Stally brass has completed his self-appointed task and given us Grimm's Supplement, together with full subject indices, lists of works cited, &c. (without which, as Mr. Mayhew rightly observes, a book of this kind can hardly be properly used), it is to be hoped that he will not desert the field of folk-lore, but will make a further claim on our gratitude by putting into shape and form some part of the material which has been slowly accumulating since the Teutonic Mythology left Grimm's hands. It must not be forgotten, however, that ere one can satisfactorily cope with the mass ef! facts now in hand there is a deal of pioneer. H ing to be done. The direction such work must take is clear in some cases, at all events First, someone must do for the geography and chronology of the subject what Grimm has done for the history, so that we may at least be able to trace the main lines of genesis which these old beliefs and theories have followed; and for this work we English students look for great help from Mr. A. Lang. Secondly, someone must do for Celtic mythology and folk-lore what Zeuss and Ebel first did for Celtic grammar. It is humiliating that the silly made-up stories of banshees and puckawns appearing to whisky-warmed cardrivers, which appear year after year in the Christmas magazines, should be almost the only token of interest felt here for the myths, legends, and beliefs of the most imaginative, the most humorous, and the most primitive in life and mind of all Western peoples. Prof. Rhys' careful work on the Welsh fairy-tales yields a good model for Irish collectors to follow. Surely the Old Grey Woman has many a tale of wonder yet to tell could she but find those who would sit quietly at her feet to hear them. F. YORK POWELL.

Quarter Sessions Records. Edited by the Rev.
J. C. Atkinson. The North Riding Record
Society, Vol. I., Part I.

They

THIS volume is the first publication of the
North Riding Record Society, which was
formed last year for the purpose of printing
and calendaring original documents relating
to the North Riding of Yorkshire.
could scarcely have made a better selection
than they have done by beginning with the
records of the court of quarter sessions
(which have been preserved in the office of
the clerk of the peace at Northallerton), for
they belong to a class which have hitherto
been strangely neglected by antiquaries.
although the presentments of offenders at
the local sessions and the orders made by
the magistrates abound with fresh materials
to illustrate the social and domestic history of
the district and the period.

Deet

the

the

The series begins in April 1605, and part i. contains the proceedings of the next four years. 1605 was the year of the Gunpowder Plot, which was attributed to the increased severity with which the penal laws were enforced against Catholic recusants. They were liable by statute to a fine of £20 a-month for absent ing themselves from the parish church, but since the accession of James these fines had not been rigorously levied. The King was in consequence suspected of secretly favouring his mother's religion; and, in order to clear himself from the imputation that he was a Papist at heart, he issued a proclamation that henceforward the full penalty was to be exacted from the Catholics, together with arrears of fines previously incurred. The discovery of the plot was followed by stringent the legislation "for the better discovery and reoutpression of Popish recusants; " and the result was that in counties like the North Riding, where a large proportion of the gentry and yeomanry were attached to the old faith, the prosecution of Catholics under the penal statutes became the chief business of quarter ETER then sessions. There was not a single session alt during the four years over which this volume extends at which Catholics were not convicted of recusancy, which made them, and all who harboured them, liable to heavy fines or imprisonment. Recusants were declared incapable of acting as executors or guardians, and of practising any of the liberal professions. Their arms and horses were taken from them, and they were left at the mercy of the High Commission Court as persons excommunicate. Men so persecuted were naturally suspected of disaffection, and by a refinement of cruelty they were bound under heavy recognisances to clear themselves from the suspicion of disloyalty. How, in spite of the penal Laws, the Catholics clung with singular tenacity to the religion of their forefathers is recorded in the sessional archives; and it may be said without exaggeration that the history of Catholic recusancy in Yorkshire might be ritten from these records.

The sessional orders throw new light on the language, manners, and customs of the North Riding in the Elizabethan period; and the editor deserves credit for the scholarlike curacy and brevity of the notes with which he has illustrated the text. The measured yard invariably a virgate in these records, which where means a rod. "Unum torquem ferreum, anglice an yron teame," was the expreson used when oxen were yoked to a chain in eu of a pole. The "miller" was still the "milner," from molindarius, and the village pound was the "common pindfold." The village well, with the sides puddled to retain the water, was the "puddell-well" (puteus). "To grease 99 was the slang for "to bribe," and bribes were known as "honie pots." A "nook" was a field nearly enclosed by the winding of a stream; and a stallion horse is described as L4 equus testiculatus, anglice a #toned stagg,' ," for stag was the generic term for a male anim al. In like manner, a female ep between the periods of the first clipping and the bearing of a lamb was known as a gimmer," and a male sheep of corresponding age was known as a 66 tup-hogg." The price of each sheep in 1605 was five shillings a

The most frequent, however, and most

important subject of the notes is the reference and their existence traced to the Temporal
to the different statutes then in force. For Power.
For Power. Not that the kingship of the Pope
example, the inn-keeper at Stokesley was in Rome was always an evil. On the con-
fined for selling a gallon of the best beer for trary, it was once as great a help to the
more than a penny, contrary to the form of civil and spiritual progress of Italy and
the statute; and two persons were condemned Christendom as it has since come to be a
to stand in the pillory at Northallerton on hindrance. At this hour it has become a
two successive market-days for taking upon very "canker-worm" in the Church in Italy
themselves the office of an informer without because, although it is dead and buried, the
licence from his Majesty's Attorney in the will to work for its resurrection is made the
North. The reputed father of a bastard touchstone of orthodoxy. Let the Pope re-
child was ordered to pay 4d. a-week for two nounce all hope and wish to be again King
years to the mother; and a warrant was issued of Rome and all will yet be well. The argu-
against an inhabitant of Faceby "for setting ment ends here. No solution is offered of the
horns on the door of a neighbour and calling problem how the transition is to be effected;
his neighbour's wife a whore." Three farmers nor is there a word about Leo XIII.'s policy,
and their sons at Katterick were fined for not which manifestly has for its aim a modifica-
having for each of them in the house a bow tion of the Law of Guarantees by getting it
and two arrows "to exercise shooting in the placed under international sanction.
It may
long-bow" as required by the statute of be that the author is unaware of this perhaps
Henry VIII.; and a husbandman was fined half-unconscious tendency of the present
for hiring servants without recording their Vatican policy; but it is more likely that he
names and wages. Convictions for "decaying ignores it of set purpose. Italians are apt to
of husbandries" were frequent. To build look on the Papacy as a national institution,
or continue in a cottage which had not and make wry faces whenever the "foreigner
four acres of land attached was a criminal appears on the scene. They were right
offence, and the occupier of a cottage in- enough in that when the Pope was king; now
curred a fine of ten shillings if he admitted that they have relieved him of the care of
a lodger, who is called in these records the Roman States, they must not expect to
an undersettle." These provisions may have keep him much longer as a domestic deity.
been wise and useful enough, but to buy pro-
visions in the market for the purpose of
re-selling them at a profit was forbidden by
the Acts against forestalling and regrating;
and a labourer was fined two shillings at
Thirsk, on July 12, 1609, for buying for
eighteen shillings twelve moorpowtes (moor
fowl), eleven doves, twenty fowls, and 600
eggs with the intent of selling them again.

This volume promises to be the first of a long series, for the Ninth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission bears witness to the abundance of materials remaining in the court-house at Northallerton. The society has made a good start with this well-edited volume, and it is to be hoped that it will receive the support and encouragement which it deserves. EDMOND CHESTER WATERS.

Il Vaticano Regio Tarlo Superstite della Chiesa
Cattolica: Studii dedicati al Giovane Clero
ed al Laicato Credente. Uscente il 1883.
C. M. Curci. Sac. (Rome: Bencini.)
FATHER CURCI's latest work, though it runs
into the bulk of a good-sized volume, is really
a pamphlet. It would, therefore, be unfair
to expect from it an exhaustive treatment of
the subject-matter, or to blame the author
severely for its shortcomings on the score of
completeness and finish. If the volume shows
evident signs of haste, and has too large an
infusion of autobiography to be taken as an
adequate presentment of the thesis it main-
tains, Father Curci may fairly answer that
his aim in writing was purely practical, and
that his sole desire is to produce a practical
result as soon as possible.

The book is one more despairing cry for
Catholic reform, and is chiefly interesting as
a sign of the pathetic travail going on every-
where, for the most part in "angelic silence,
in some of the most earnest souls left within
the Papal Communion. The skeletons in
the household of the Church, especially in
Italy, are remorselessly exposed to view,

As may be supposed, the "Regal Vatican " is far from appreciating the ex-Jesuit's zeal at his own estimation. It has promptly set the book in the pillory of the Index, a result of his labours that can hardly have surprised the author. To be "Indexed" has long been the sure fate of every writer who has dared to tell the Pope that the spiritual chief of Christendom has work to do even more important than keeping a firm grip on power and a sharp eye on the main chance.

For the rest, let Father Curci have patience. Reform may not be so hopeless as he thinks. Already there are several Cardinals who live on the voluntary offerings of the faithful to whom they minister. The near future is more likely to increase than diminish the number and importance of this novel element in the Sacred College. The denationalising and democratising of the Papacy-the necessary preliminary to real reform in the Catholic Church-has already begun. Pari passu with that process of growth will go on the decay of autocratic and bureaucratic Vaticanism, until the end is reached by a painless extinction. EDWARD REDMOND.

and its publishers must be congratulated on this addition to their "Collection of German Authors." The scene is laid in the Palatinate of the Rhine some three centuries ago, when the Calvinists were fighting with the Lutherans, and the Society of Jesus was working by its emissaries in all heretic lands to destroy the work of the Reformers. As a study of sixteenth-century morals, manners, and philosophy, Klytia is a brilliant piece of work, and it also contains a love-story of genuine human interest. Like many German books of its class, its canvas is too crowded with figures; hence an unpleasing lack of unity in the composition. The love-story is simple. Paolo Laurenzano, educated in the Jesuit seminary at Venice, is sent to Heidelberg in the disguise of a Calvinist pastor to work for the Church. At Heidelberg the Jesuit forgets his vows and falls in love with a German maiden who has also won the heart of Paolo's elder brother, Felix, an artist engaged in the restoration of the palace of the Kurfürst. An elder and more malignant Jesuit acts the part of Marplot, and finally entangles Paolo and his sweetheart in an accusation of sorcery. But villany is once more foiled, and the lovers are set free after Paolo has passed through the torture chamber. Felix now retires in favour of his brother, who ends his days as a Protestant minister. The tale has great charm despite some faulty character-drawing. For instance, the change of Paolo's character from the timid, time-serving priest to the hero is almost beyond the possibilities of nature. The great merit, however, of Klytia lies in its admirable presentment of the state of German civilisation in the latter part of the sixteenth century. The Protestant theologians, with their puerile disputes, live again, and the picture of the Society of Jesus is a masterpiece.

man, with his wise saws and honest hearty
nature, may stand comparison with the im-
mortal Captain Cuttle.

TRANSLATIONS OF CLASSICAL
AUTHORS.

that any society of conspirators would have
put a revolver into the hands of such a green-
horn as Bernadino de Rossi. Leaving out the The Acharnians of Aristophanes. Translated into
insufficiency of this motive, it must be ad- English Verse by Robert Yelverton Tyrrell.
mitted that the realisation of the characters (Longmans.) Prof. Tyrrell finds all previous
in Vestigia is much above that of the every-ham Frere down to Mr. Billson-too much in-
translators of the Acharnians-from John Hook-
Italia's father, Drea the boat-clined to loose renderings and free equivalents.
day novel.
They "sometimes appear to me to make the
Greek little more than a peg on which to hang
poems of their own" (Pref., p. iv.). His own ver-
sion "will be seen to be very much closer to the
The three-volume novel which bears the title
original." As such, we can readily believe
of Colonel Annesley's Daughters follows the that it was found more helpful to a class of
fortunes of two sisters. Constance Annesley, learners; and we quite accept his view (p. ii.)
that such a verse translation is better, even for
the daughter of an impecunious ex-Colonel in
the Guards, jilts a faithful but poor lover for that purpose, than a piece of bare prose. For
a wealthy peer. Once married, she is seized it needs practice to think the verse form of the
with remorse, and meets her Nemesis in the original into the prose translation, however
literal the latter may be. Nevertheless, we
cooled affection of her husband. In the mean-
think Prof. Tyrrell dismisses his predecessors
time, her sister, Beatrice, who is an entirely rather too summarily. Hookham Frere satu-
amiable young lady, travels with the ill-rated himself with the Aristophanic humour,
assorted pair, and meets her fate at a Conti- and felt the point of every scene and each ironical
nental spa.
The book comes to a rather nuance admirably; Mr. Billson, adopting the
abrupt conclusion after Constance has suffered "free rhyming metre of modern burlesque,
sufficiently to purge her sins, and after made his Acharnians readable and delightfully
droll, if somewhat undignified, throughout.
Beatrice's wooing has dragged through a
Prof. Tyrrell is certainly more accurate than
There is really no attempt at
a story, and the book is padded out with either, from the point of view of scholarship:
on the other hand, he has less force and swing
interminable dialogues between the most and vivacity-and these, too, are Aristophatic
ordinary mortals that this earth has ever seen. qualities. Wisely, we think, he has adopted
this novel are not golden, but leaden.
The mediocrities that figure so plentifully in many traditional punning equivalents for the
puns in Aristophanes: such as the "no-get gold"
and "nugget gold" in the encounter between
Dicaiopolis and Pseudartabas, the King's Eye
(the latter of whom he felicitously calls "The
Sham of Persia, Eye of the Shah "). Vile as
this and similar puns are, to read, modern ex-
Once or twice, too, he ventures on a fresh one,
perience proves their effectiveness on the stage.

volume or so.

Uncle George's Money is a work of a very similar stamp. It has no intrigue, and is concerned with the sorrows of a country family whose income is eaten to the core by mortgages. Some of the characters are distinct personalities, but their features are not worth the labour which has been bestowed them.

on

as in ll. 234, 235 :-
:-

MS

ἀλλὰ δεῖ ζητεῖν τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ βλέπειν βαλλήναδε καὶ διώκειν γῆν πρὸ γῆς, ἕως ἂν εὑρεθῇ ποτέ· duced-much to the delight, we should think, of where the difficult play on Baλλhvade is repro

a Dublin audience:

"Come, I feel like Stony Batter: found he shall
be; and I will

Batter him with stones, the ruffian; pelt him till
I've had my fill "

A prefatory note warns the reader that Vagabondia is no other than a revised edition of the story which appeared, some years ago, The author of Vestigia has produced a in a magazine as Dorothea, and in book-form delightful and yet irritating novel-delightful as Dolly. It seems that the copyright had, because the simple love idyll of which it by some mischance, passed out of the authorconsists is told with peculiar grace and charm; ess's hand, and thus publishers were able"Stony Batter being, it appears, a rowdy irritating because one of the chief motives of to work their wicked will. Now that the quarter of Dublin. On the whole, however, the story is palpably absurd. The town of authoress has come by her own, the tale the best passage in the translation is the leg Leghorn forms the background to the action, appears with the title it was originally meant speech (pp. 37-40) in which Dicaiopolis gives and the scenes from its life are bold and true. to bear. This can only be a matter of satis- War. Here, we think, Prof. Tyrrell is as supe his view of the origin of the Peloponnesian Bernadino de Rossi, a telegraph clerk of the faction, as Vagabondia is really a very read-rior to Mr. Billson as in the previous scene with not very mature age of twenty-two, is able story of manageable dimensions. Before Euripides he is inferior:dismissed by his superiors for taking part in leaving Mrs. Burnett we must remark that, a Republican demonstration. This opening although London newspaper proprietors have is gloomy enough, but worse follows. An been guilty of many enormities, to keep a old friend of the hero is anxious to give writer of repute slaving at "leaders" from the lad his daughter's hand, and then 9 a.m. till 12 p.m. of each day in the week Bernadino's cup of happiness is dashed from at a yearly salary of one huudred pounds his lips by a ruthless secret society, of is a crime happily beyond their power. which he is a member. Bernadino is told off to shoot the King of Italy, and has to elect between his oath and his love. The hero decides to fulfil his "mission," and to abandon his sweetheart, Italia. When at last he stands ready to shoot the King in the Via Nazionale, the problem is solved for him by the associate who had led him into the meshes of the society. This person in a fit of remorse fires at the King himself; and, the mission being fulfilled, the spell is broken, and Bernadino returns to live happily with Italia in Leghorn. The reader has felt, however, that the lion in the hero's path was of the veriest cardboard, as it is inconceivable

The two stories by Ivan Turgenev which Mr. Sidney Jerrold has translated direct from the Russian are too well known to require comment. The subject of First Love is not an attractive one, but then the great Russian story-teller had the rare talent of touching pitch without being defiled, and as a mere work of art this little tale will be a joy for ever. With the exception of one or two passages, Mr. Jerrold has interpreted his author with great felicity, and even diligent students of Turgéney will read with pleasure the critical notice which occupies fifty-seven pages of the book.

ARTHUR R. R. BARKER.

"Then some youths
Rising from wine and Kottabos half-mad,
A girl of Megara, Simaetha hight,
Feloniously abducted; smarting then
As 'twere with blister of their native leek,
The men of Megara in reprisal stole
Two of Aspasia's girls; thus war broke out
Over all Hellas through three bona robas.
Then the Olympian Pericles in wrath
Fulmined o'er Greece and set her in a broil
With statutes worded like a drinking catch:
'No Megarian on land

Nor in market shall stand,
Nor sail on the sea, nor set foot on the strand."
Here the solemn mockery of Athenian jingois
is well reproduced, and Mr. Paley's happy ren
dering of the "statutes like drinking catches
has been wisely adopted, for it cannot t
bettered.

The Captives. Translated from Plautus b (Melbourne: Robertson H. A. Strong. a translation of t Prof. Strong gives us pleasantest and most presentable, if not t cleverest, of Plautus' dramas, to which he h prefixed much compact and useful informati

on the subject of the Latin comedy and its relation to the Greek (Introd., pp. v.-viii.), a valuable and much-needed excursus on the metre of Plautus (pp. xix.-xxxi.), and other prefatory matter. One very piquant piece of information occurs on p. xv., where we are told that the MS. A, or Codex Ambrosianus, in the library at Milan, "would, if preserved entire, be of paramount importance for the Plautine text; but in the eighth or ninth century it was taken to pieces, and washed and scraped, to receive a copy of the Book of Kings according to the Vulgate"! Prof. Strong, after explaining that his translation was written to facilitate the study of Plautus among the Melbourne students to whom he lectures, goes on to express a regret p. iv.) that "Plautus is so little studied in Anglo-Saxon countries. The language of Plautus was the language of common life among the Romans, and there seems no reason why this should be utterly excluded from the ordinary curriculum of school and university There is reason in this plea; but, with the natural partiality of a translator, the Professor forgets the defects of his author. Much of Plautus—the Captives is an exception is obscene; a still larger part is vulgar and dull in the study, whatever it may have been when vivified on the stage. To our certain knowledge, even able sixth form boys can with difficulty work up an interest in it as literature, in spite of its philological importance. Last, not least, it is too obviously translated or adapted for anyone to feel in it the charm of originality. "Excluded" from schools and universities it is not; it "brokenly lives on.' But it cannot, we think, be popularised, even by a bright and pleasant translation like the present. The last scene of act I., where Ergasilus, by feigning grief for Hegio's lost son, secures an invitation to dinner, is very brightly turned:

studies."

E.

When I'm at home, contentment's my sole

feast!

H. But pray come early!
Good sir, 'tis my habit.
H. And don't expect a hare; you'll get but

rabbit!

My way of feeding's rough, I fear you'll

say.

E I'll shoe my teeth and scorn the roughest way!"

This, we think, is at least as good as the riginal. The translation (in prose) of Erasilus' soliloquy (act III., sc. i.) is, we ink, a successful experiment (see Pref., p. i.), and suggests that a modernised prose adaptan of this drama might be a possible rival to Plays like "Money." On the whole, we think rrot. Strong is to be congratulated on a pathetic piece of interpretation, and some -ul notes-especially those on pp. 46, 47. Aristotelis de Arte Poetica. With Transla

feel themselves absolutely safe in Mr. Wharton's
hands. The Poetics is so difficult that a trans-
lation with the merits of great accuracy and
great conciseness is likely to be very welcome,
especially at Oxford, where the book is now
much read.

NEW EDITIONS OF HISTORICAL BOOKS.
A History of Modern Europe. By C. A.
Fyffe. Vol. I. 1792-1814. A New and
Revised Edition. (Cassells.) The new edition of
Mr. Fyffe's first volume which has been called
for is a proof of the value of the work. The
first edition was reviewed in the ACADEMY, and
it is only necessary now to notice the new in-
formation which has been added. These

additions are derived from two sources-the
papers in the English Record Office, and the
publications of Austrian historians. From
personal experience it is possible to confirm
entirely Mr. Fyffe's estimate of the great value
of the English records; they throw an entirely
new light on many diplomatic transactions, and
are easily accessible. Mr. Oscar Browning, in a
recent article in the Fortnightly, made use of
them with very great effect, and elucidated the
difficult diplomatic transactions in London
which preceded the outbreak of the great war
between France and England in 1793. Mr.
Fyffe, in his Preface, expresses his own obliga-
tions to Mr. Browning, and also his thanks to
Mr. Kingston, the courteous superintendent of
the Foreign Office records, for the ready assist-
ance which is never wanting to workers in his
room. From such authorities Mr. Fyffe has
gained much fresh information; bu tthe very
copiousness of his quotations makes the new
edition, if more historically useful, rather less
symmetrical than the first. It is only to be
wondered at that he did not avail himself of these
materials before, and this remark applies even
more strongly to his use of the labours of the
Austrian historians. One would have thought
that no serious history of the period could have
been attempted without a knowledge of the
works of Huffer, Vivenot, and Helfert. On
the whole it may be said that, however much
objection may be made to certain portions of
the book, and especially to much of his French
history, Mr. Fyffe's History is the best in
English on the period, and that the second
edition is decidedly better than the first.

STUDENTS of modern French history, particularly those whose interest is stronger in persons than in events, are under a heavy obligation to Mr. Bentley, who is unwearied in providing them with luxurious editions of the gossipy memoirs of the early part of this century. Within less than a year after the Memoirs of Mdme. Junot, in three volumes, we now have two volumes more giving The Private Life of Marie Antoinette, from the memoirs of her first lady-in-waiting, Mdme. Campan. Printed by Messrs. R. & R. Clark, of Edinburgh, and handsomely bound with abundance of fleurs de lys on the cover, the book would always attract attention. But its permanent value is greatly enhanced by the steel-engravings, which number eighteen in all. The frontispiece to each volume is a likeness of the Queen from the original By E. R. Wharton. (Parker.) Mr. plates of Dupont. All the others seem to have arton has printed opposite Vahlen's text been specially engraved for the purpose-the very faithful English version, marked by landscapes in Paris and the portraits in London. conciseness that might be expected from As it is difficult to believe there can be a very author of Etyma Graeca. The English is, large demand for such books, the more credit is - almost as concise as the Greek, and in due to a publisher who evidently takes a perrendering of Aristotle this is an achieve-sonal pleasure in their issue. In places, no doubt, a question may be whether the right reading has been d or the right meaning put upon the words of the original; but no fault found with the scholarship of the tration, and in this respect students may

WE received some time ago from Messrs. Kelly eight monthly parts of the English translation of Duruy's illustrated History of Rome, edited by Prof. Mahaffy. The work is now being published by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., who have already issued the first

volume bound up in two parts. This instalment goes down to the end of the Second Punic War, and consists of some 850 pages of text, with 300 wood-cuts, chromo-lithographs, and maps. We calculate that it will take four more volumes (not parts) to finish the work; and, if the promise of the printers is realised, this ought to be accomplished by the end of next year. It is not necessary to appraise now the qualities of M. Duruy's History, especially as we are still so far off from the imperial period, in which all allow that his labours have been most successful. The large scale of the work, and still more the wealth of the illustrations, will always make it a desirable possession. The influence of pictures, not only in helping to realise the past and the distant, but also in stimulating to further study, has perhaps not been sufficiently attended to in the common English curriculum. We should be disposed to recommend this book, together with Bishop Wordsworth's Greece, to those looking about for a prize suitable for a boy who is on the point of leaving school for the university. The illustrations by themselves, if studied carefully, would put a crown upon a classical education.

WE have also to acknowledge two more volumes (vi. and vii.) of Mr. S. R. Gardiner's History of England (Longmans), covering the eleven years from 1625 to 1635. As it appears that there are some persons (including at least one reviewer) who have not yet discovered Mr. Gardiner's unrivalled merits, we would call their attention to the brief Prefaces to these two volumes. They will perhaps learn from them that it is the infinite capacity for taking pains which characterises the true historian no less than the man of science and the man of genius.

NOTES AND NEW S. WE are glad to know that Mr. R. L. Stevenson has so far got the better of his last attack as to have removed from Nice, where illness overtook him, to his permanent address at Hyères.

The illness was a bad one. Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, the painter, was sent for to see his cousin; and for some time the affair looked grave. It is pleasant to record that the worst is past, and that, so far as we know, Mr. Stevenson's recovery is only a matter of time.

WITH reference to the announcement of a new volume of poems by Mr. Andrew Lang, it may be as well to state that it will be a selection from his poems already published, and that it will be issued exclusively for the American market by Messrs. Scribner. The selection has been made by Mr. Austin Dobson, who has prefixed a few introductory lines of his own. It will be entitled Ballades and Verses Vain. We believe, however, that Mr. Lang does contemplate issuing shortly in this country a volume containing a collection of his several articles treating of folk-lore and savage mythology, which will prepare the way for the large work on this subject that he has been engaged upon for some years past.

WE understand that the first election to the Professorship of Ecclesiastical History lately established at Cambridge will take place early next term. The professorship (the election to which is entirely open) is endowed with an annual income of about £750 a year, together with the dividend (now £250) of a fellowship at Emmanuel College, which has been assigned to the Chair. The present electors are the

Vice-Chancellor (ex-officio), Prof. Seeley, Mr. Bradshaw, the University Librarian, Prof. Bryce, the Bishop of Durham, Mr. S. R. Gardiner, Dr. Hort, Mr. Basil Hammond, Mr. Prothero, and the Master of Emmanuel (ex-officio). The professorship is connected with the Board of Historical Studies,

new Guide to Nice, Historical, Descriptive, and THE Cambridge University Press has nearly Hygienic, written by Mr. James Nash, Principal ready for issue two important liturgical publiof the Anglo-American College at Nice, with a cations. The first is an edition of The Greek plan of the town and neighbourhood. Liturgies, chiefly from Original Authorities, by Master of Christ's historical portion traces the rise of Nice from Dr. C. A. Swainson, the hygienic aspect is contributed by Dr. J. through which it has passed. The chapter on

English Letters" to Le Livre; and that it is the earliest times, showing the vicissitudes College and Lady Margaret's Reader in

Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co. will be the pub-is

There is, no doubt, authority for "Bailey," as indeed there is for other spellings. But it is WE understand that Messrs. Cassell & Co. indisputable that the correct form is "Baillie, will shortly publish a popular edition of Arch-after Major Baillie, Resident at Lucknow in deacon Farrar's Early Days of Christianity, to 1914. See H. G. Keene's Guide to Lucknow and be completed in ten monthly parts. Mill's History of India (viii. 111). It is, perhaps, hypercritical to add that in historical strictness it ought to be "Baillie Guard," and not "Ballie-gate," though there is a gate in the Baillie Guard. "Water Gate" is right.