A torment of intolerable tales.
A torment of intolerable tales.
A torment of intolerable tales.
Mr. Mackenzie has divagated. The task of presenting reality is left to the scientific mind, and the task of creating another reality is left to the poetic mind.
Correspondence from readers on all subjects of bibliographical interest is invited. The Editor will, to the best of his ability, answer all queries addressed to him.
MR.Septimus Rivington's recently published book,The Publishing Family of Rivington(Rivington, 1919; 10s.net), contains a certain amount of interesting information about the eighteenth-century book trade. Charles Rivington started publishing in 1711. His successor, John, succeeded Jacob Tonson (great-nephew of the original Jacob Tonson who published Dryden's works) as managing partner of the institution known as the "Conger," the association of booksellers formed to share the risks and the profits of publishing ventures. In this volume Mr. Rivington has printed a number of Conger documents in his possession. It is interesting to learn the trade value of well-known books of the period. Thus, one-eighth of Archbishop Tillotson's works is bought by Tonson in 1711 for £87 10s.In 1738 a third part of Watts'sHymnsis worth £70.
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Mr. Rivington prints several extracts from old catalogues in his possession, which show that a book sale in the eighteenth century was a convivial affair. The catalogue of Thomas Osborne's stock-in-trade, consisting of books, copyrights, and shares in publications, is issued "to a select number of booksellers at the Queen's Head Tavern, in Paternoster Row, on Thursday, the ninth day of February, 1743/4, at Eleven of the Clock in the Forenoon. DINNER will be served on the table exactly at One of the Clock, consisting of Turkies and Chines, Hams and Chickens, Apple-pies, etc., and a Glass of very good Wine."
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Another recent book by a member of one of our great publishing families is Mr. John Murray's brief memoir of his father, John Murray the Third, the inventor of what was in his day an entirely new literary form, theGuide Book. Murray's first guide was issued in 1836. Three years later Karl Baedeker published aHandbüchleinof the same districts. Baedeker, like Shakespeare, disdained to invent his own plots. Murray's eighteen European guides were thePlutarchandHolinshedof the German's stupendous creations.
Those who hope, by taking advantage of the present rate of exchange, to secure German books at an eighth or tenth of their value will be sorry to hear that German publishers are in league to put a stop to such delightful bargains. They are insisting on being paid at the rate of about fivepence to the mark; so that your books will cost you as much as half their real price.
We were surprised, considering the blockade and the general shortage, at the excellent "get-up" of such recent German publications as we have seen. Among them were two illustrated volumes, one on Egyptian and the other on Negro art, published during the war, and produced in the most magnificent style. Almost more surprising were some exquisite little volumes of Czech poetry published at Prague, in which print, paper, and binding were all equally admirable.
A book for which one may search long in vain, but for which it is worth while to take some trouble, is theMemorie di Lorenzo da Ponte da Ceneda, three volumes, New York, 1829. Da Ponte is well known as the librettist of a number of Mozart's operas, and should be better known as the author of some of the most charming of eighteenth-century memoirs. His memoirs and poetical works were republished at Florence in 1871, and a French translation of the memoirs only was executed by M. C. D. de la Chavanne (Paris, Pagnerre, 1860). So far as we are aware, no English translation of this work exists. If this is indeed the case, it is high time that the defect was remedied. TheMemorie Inutiliof Da Ponte's earlier contemporary, Carlo Gozzi (three volumes, Venice, 1797), were translated by John Addington Symonds, and published in a very sumptuous illustrated edition by Nimmo in 1890.
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Another important book on the Italian eighteenth century, and one which it is not easy to find a copy of in any edition, is theLettres Historiques et Critiques sur l'Italieof the Président Charles de Brosses (Paris, Ponthieu, An VII., and under the titleLe Président de Brosses en Italie, Paris, 1858). De Brosses' letters make the best possible book to take on a voyage to Italy.
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Londoners cannot have failed to notice in the past weeks the presence of numerous posters—we have seen them in every part of the city—bearing the legend: "The Bishops must open Joanna Southcott's Box and save the country from ruin." We hope that this faint echo of a vanished notoriety may arouse among book-lovers an interest in Joanna's numerous literary works. The first of them,The Strange Effects of Faith, was published at Exeter in 1792, and from that time onwards she poured forth a stream of prophecies in prose and verse. In one of the latest of them (the last part ofThe Book of Wonder, if we remember rightly; but it is some years since we saw the book) is a superb engraving of a cradle subscribed for by Joanna's disciples against the birth of Shiloh. Shiloh, unhappily, was never born, and Joanna Southcott died three months after the presentation of the two-hundred-guinea cot. Enthusiastic bibliographers will find plenty of interest in the study of Southcottian literature; first editions are satisfactorily scarce. As for the box—well, why don't the Bishops open it? Who knows? it might save us from ruin, more effectually perhaps than all the politicians together.
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An important collection of autograph letters and historical documents, the property of the late Charles Fairfax Murray, is to be sold at Messrs. Sotheby's on Thursday and Friday, February 5th and 6th. The first 163 lots are autographs of famous artists, and include four letters of Blake, Michelangelo's specification for the tomb of Julius II., a letter of Benvenuto Cellini, a letter of Albrecht Dürer, illustrated by charming little sketches, letters of Gainsborough, Hogarth, Reynolds, and Constable, a letter of Titian written at the age of eighty-five, and a series of notes by Leonardo on the flight of birds.
Lots 164 to 280 are of historical, literary, and musical interest. One of the most interesting items is the MS. of Baudelaire'sLa Charogne, with a drawing of a woman by the poet. A beautifully written letter from Lucretia Borgia to Cardinal D'Este is another remarkable piece.
Lots 281-286 are documents which will appeal to collectors of relics of Mary Queen of Scots. The first is a document signed by Bothwell; four are letters of John Lesley, Bishop of Ross; and the last a document signed by William Davison, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Scotland.
Messrs. Maggs's catalogue (No. 386) of autograph letters and MSS. contains a number of items which will be of interest to musicians. In a letter to Birchall, the English music publisher, dated October, 1831, Beethoven writes the following sentence: "I have duly received the 5 £s, and thought previously you would not encrease the number of englishmen neglecting their word and honor, as I had the misfortune of meeting with two of this sort." He goes on to offer Birchall a Grand Sonata for the Pianoforte for £40, and a Trio for piano, violin, and cello for £50. The letter is priced at £21. There are also four letters of Wagner, a note in the handwriting of Sir Arthur Sullivan (12s.6d.), a signed autograph piece by Gounod (£3 10s.), letters of Berger, Spontini, Balfe, Hiller and Heller, Verdi, Thalberg, Paganini, Brahms, and Liszt; there is an autograph musical MS. of Mendelssohn dated 1844 (£10 10s.), and another of a Scena composed by Haydn for Signora Banti (£85).
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Other pieces of the greatest interest are advertised in the same catalogue. A beautifully written letter in the hand of Benvenuto Cellini is priced £105. Another letter of slightly earlier date than Cellini's is the almost illegible scrawl of Götz von Berlichingen, the Knight of the Iron Hand (£32). The collection also includes several very important letters of Byron: one to John Murray (October 29th, 1819), in which he speaks of his Memoirs, entrusted to Moore, and afterwards solemnly burnt at Murray's house in Albemarle Street (£105): one to Kinnaird (1822) on the morality of Don Juan.
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Mr. Francis Edwards has also issued a catalogue of autograph letters which contains many items of remarkable interest.Hrothgar, a seventy-eight verse ballad (unpublished), by George Borrow, is a curious by-product of Beowulf scholarship, which ought to be worth the thirty pounds at which it is priced. Among the five autograph letters of Thomas Carlyle we find one addressed to the Bishop of Chester (August 23rd, 1840), in which Carlyle writes: "May I apply to you for a charitable service on behalf of a certain Mr. Mazzini, an Italian neighbour and friend of mine?" Two holograph manuscripts of John Evelyn are offered for £15 and £25 respectively. Ten pounds is the price of a letter from Sir William Hamilton (Naples, 1792) to Horace Walpole, in which Hamilton remarks of his famous wife: "She is ... most grateful to me for having saved her from the precipice into which she had good sense enough to see she must, without me, have inevitably fallen, and she sees that nothing but a constant good conduct can maintain the respect that is now shown her by everybody. It has often been remarked that a reformed rake makes a good husband, why notvice versa?" Why not? The answer is to be found in a letter from Nelson to Lady Hamilton (Yarmouth, 1801; £21). Other Nelson and Hamilton autographs, the Morrison collection, are on sale at Messrs. Suckling's, of Garrick Street.
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Other interesting letters and manuscripts offered by Messrs. Edwards are by Dr. Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Swinburne, Meredith, Landor, Pepys, Lamb, Southey, Thackeray.
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We are glad to notice that a manuscript by a young contemporary can command as big a price as ten guineas. This is the sum asked by Messrs. Davis and Orioli for the autograph MS. of Mr. Robert Nichols'sThe Faun's Holiday, published in his volume ofArdours and Endurances. To buy it would certainly be a speculation; but we believe there is a good chance of the speculation turning out profitably.
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Early Editions of Fielding: Messrs. Bowes and Bowes, of Cambridge, are asking £25 for the first edition (two volumes in contemporary calf) ofThe History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of his Friend, Mr. Abraham Adams. A copy of the second edition, published in the same year as the first, is offered for 31s.6d.by the Ex-Officers' Book Union, 16 Rathgar Avenue, West Ealing.
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Messrs. Pickering and Chatto are offering a copy ofEndymion(Taylor and Hessey, 1818), in the original boards, for £78. Another interesting Keats relic is the original autograph MS. of a portion ofOtho the Great, which is offered by Messrs. Maggs Bros. for £60. The MS., entirely in Keats's own writing, is a fragment of the first scene of the play.
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We note that a fine copy of Fulke Greville'sPoems(1633), of which we recently had occasion to speak, is for sale at Messrs. Dobell's, the price being six guineas.
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Messrs. Maggs Bros.' new catalogue,Bibliotheca Aeronautica, price 5s., is a fascinating book. It contains the account of some fifteen hundred volumes dealing with the problem of flight from the earliest times to the present day. The first section contains books published prior to the invention of the Montgolfier Balloon in 1783. A fine copy of Francesco de Lana'sProdromo Overo Saggio di Alcune Inventioniappears in this section (£16 16s.). Paltock's famous flying novel,The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, London, 1751, is offered at £15 15s., and the work which Restif de la Bretonne founded on it,La Découverte Australe par un Homme Volant, ou le Dédale Français, at £18 18s.Fine engravings are reproduced from these books.
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In the second section we find a number of Blanchard's narratives, including the account of the first aerial crossing of the Channel; we find Lunardi'sAccount of the First Aerial Voyage in England, London, 1784 (£7 10s.); several books on the Montgolfier brothers, as well as the works of the great Baron Munchausen, so famed for his aeronautical exploits.
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The third section of the catalogue deals with the evolution of aircraft from 1851 to 1899. An interesting item is the first edition of Rémy de Gourmont'sEn Ballon, Paris, 1883. A large number of works by Tissandier, author of theBibliographie Aéronautique, Paris, 1887, naturally appear. We may here note the remarkable fact that by far the greater number of the volumes on flight are in French. British interest in the problem was not aroused till a good deal later, after the first practical difficulties had been solved. A first edition of Jules Verne'sRobur le Conquérant, Paris, 1886, is included (15s.). HisSix Weeks in a Balloonalso deserves a place.
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In the fourth section we come to "Aeroplanes and Dirigibles in the Twentieth Century." The period opens with the intrepid Santos-Dumont and his flights and falls over Paris. HisMy Airships, London, 1904, is priced at 10s.The handsomest aeronautical work published during this period is perhapsLa Conquête de l'Air, by Grand-Carteret and Delteil, a finely illustrated folio, offered at £3 3s.
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A fifth section contains pictures of famous balloon ascents, portraits of aeronauts, caricatures, and the like.
A. L. H.
(To the Editor ofThe London Mercury)
Sir,—Your dramatic critic writes of my playSacred and Profane Love, "A writer of Mr. Arnold Bennett's eminence and great sagacity would be the last person to expect us to take this play seriously as a contribution to dramatic literature." Only a certain ingenuousness prevents this remark from being outrageous. Of course I expect the play to be taken seriously. Your writer is perfectly entitled to condemn my play; but he is not entitled on the strength of his opinion to attribute to me an attitude which is not mine, and which, if it were mine, would render me odious in the sight of artists. Why in the name of my alleged great sagacity should I publish a play which I did not expect to be taken seriously? Did your critic perhaps imagine that he was being charitable? One does not expect from the critics ofThe London Mercurythe ineptitudes which characterise the dramatic criticism of the stunt daily Press. I mention the matter because I think that an important point of principle is involved, and because this is not the first time that one of your critics has exceeded his province. In your first number there were references to the work of Mr. Frank Swinnerton which amounted to a quite gratuitous imputation against the artistic integrity of the author.—Yours, etc.,
Arnold Bennett.
12B George Street, Hanover Square, W.1, December 19th, 1919.
[We gladly publish Mr. Bennett's disclaimer, but we think he exaggerates the gravity of the supposition he repels. We need scarcely say that our critic had no intention of imputing to Mr. Bennett anything which we supposed would render Mr. Bennett odious. Taking the view that he did of Mr. Bennett's play, our critic thought he was paying a compliment to Mr. Bennett's intelligence. If it is odious to write, occasionally, things which we do not regard as serious contributions to literature, we can only say that a great many artists have made themselves odious. As for Mr. Swinnerton, our reviewer, detecting a falling off, suggested that it might be due to the novelist having got into the habit of turning novels out regularly instead of waiting for the impulse. If a serious reviewer is to be precluded, when he thinks himself justified, from making suggestions like that, he might just as well be muzzled.—Editor.]
(To the Editor ofThe London Mercury)
Sir,—Mr. Turner says he can hardly believe that the section of the audience which behaved so abominably at the "Phœnix" performance consisted largely of the theatrical profession. I think he is right. I happen to know that an effort was made by two actors in the audience to get a request for order made from the stage during the first interval.
Nor were these people entirely of the "uneducated" sort—in the conventional sense. One of the worst offenders was a terrible woman sitting next to me, who occasionally interrupted her nervous giggle to remark, "A wonderfully characteristic touch!" or something of the kind. I believe she must have been a don.
May I suggest that at the next performance by the "Phœnix," if similar trouble occurs, the matter should be brought to the notice of the management during the first interval, and that a request should be made from the stage by the latter? Personal requests to individual offenders were made by more than one member of the audience at the performance in question, but without result. It is worth while making a concerted effort to prevent the authentic joy of the theatre, when at last it is offered to us, from being marred by the behaviour of vulgar sentimentalists and neurotics.—Yours, etc.,
Victor Gollancz.
Authors' Club, 2 Whitehall Court, S.W.1, January 9th.
(To the Editor ofThe London Mercury)
Sir,—In vain Mr. L. Pearsall Smith held out a juicy carrot. Lest Mr. J. J. Biggs also be disappointed in his hope of a solemn ass, I beg to offer myself in that capacity, and with well-feigned eagerness point out that this page, if held to a mirror, will show that TAM HTAB is no more the reverse of BATH MAT than MOOR EEFFOC of COFFEE ROOM.
As you say, these public inscriptions are responsible for much distress.—Yours, etc.,
A. P.
January 6th.
(To the Editor ofThe London Mercury)
Sir,—Your valued bibliographer classifies theRemainsof the Rev. J. A. Lambkin among the verse attributable to their editor. I feel very strongly the impiety of this error. For, although the influence of that eminent divine is traceable in the Dedicatory Ode prefixed by Mr. Belloc to theRemainsof his great mentor, it is nevertheless in the realm of prose that we must look for Lambkin's main contributions to knowledge and literature. True it is that the late Fellow of Burford's justly famed Newdigate Poem is included in the definitive edition—indeed, Mr. Belloc must have felt the impossibility of rejecting its claims to such inclusion—yet, if I may quote a delightful "Lambkinism" which deserves a wider fame, "One swallow does not make a summer"; and, as one who owes a goodly part of the culture discernible (as I trust) in this letter to the author of theArticle on the North-West Corner of the Mosaic Pavement at Bignor, I feel I should be untrue to the memory of my late dear tutor if I allowed such glories to be catalogued as if they formed part of the verses of a mere poet. No, sir, Lambkin is "this England's" Seneca, and all who treasure a great cultural inheritance should rally to do justice to itsRemains. The late Dr. Pusey, whose character held so much in common with that of his younger disciple, never tired of narrating that wonderful instance of Lambkin's profound yet finely epigrammatic Latinity which is connected with the death of the late Pastor of Bremen, I think. I was present on that occasion, and can testify that, far from any library, Mr. Lambkin, after a short silence lasting perhaps for two minutes, whispered the wordsRequiescat in Pace—surely the most terse and crisp of potential epitaphs and one almost certain to secure the immediate popularity which it obtained, falling as it did upon the receptive soil afforded by the Oxford Movement from which event in our history the expression dates. As the fact is not generally known, perhaps, sir, you will allow me to state here that the present Sir Ezra Crumpton-Padge of Whortlebury Towers, near Brixton, is now the sole surviving link between the authorofPhysiology of the Elephantand our own times, the claims to this honour made by M. Lamkinski, President-elect of the Kacheefucan Soviet, having been expressly refuted by that gentleman's father-in-law, M. Georgeovitch Bernardenko Shavkin, the well-known big-game hunter and editor ofAgapé.
Curiously enough Mr. Belloc's fine monograph on the "Padge"System of Rhetoricmakes no allusion to this interesting example of what we may surely describe, in the truest sense of Lambkin's happiest aphorism, as a "survival of the fittest." Your bibliographer will doubtless wish to note theseerrata. Meanwhile I trust the importance of the subject may condone in some measure for the length of this letter.—Yours, etc.,
R. N.Green-Armytage[Curator L.L.].
Lambkin Library, Whortleboro', near Weston-S.-Mare, January 10th.
(To the Editor ofThe London Mercury)
Sir,—Your reviewer, in his notice of Mr. Dormer Creston'sClown of Paradise, claims to record a neologism which he commends to the notice of the editors of theOxford Dictionary. Unfortunately they have anticipated him. If he will turn to theOxford Dictionary, vol. vii, page 123, the top of the second column, he will find eleven examples, the last from a book published as recently as 1839, of this astounding grammatical invention.—Yours, etc.,
Gerard Hopkins.
Oxford University Press, Amen Corner, E.C.4, December 17th, 1919.
(To the Editor ofThe London Mercury)
Sir,—It is interesting to learn from Mr. Lewis H. Grundy's letter in your issue of December that an English translation ofCandide, with the name of M. de Voltaire as the author of the original, was published in London as early as 1759.
According to the preface of the edition of the Académie des Bibliophiles of 1869Candidefirst appeared at the beginning of March, 1759, theJournal Encyclopédiqueof the 15th of that month containing an article on the book, which is headed by the following:
"We do not believe that this tale has a German original. It is attributed to M. de V."
This note produced a reply from Voltaire signed "Démad."
Though the reply is dated April 15th, 1759, it did not appear in theJournal Encyclopédiquetill July 15th, 1762, with the following note:
"This letter has been mislaid for a long time, and when it reached us we made fruitless efforts to discover the existence of M. Démad, Captain in the Brunswick Regiment."
A facsimile of the title-page of the first edition of 1759 is also given in the edition of 1869, and is the same as that quoted in the Bibliographical Notes of your issue of November.
L'Ingénuwas also published anonymously in 1767. The title-page runs as follows:
"L Ingénu, Histoire véritable, tirée des manuscrits du Père Quesnel, à Utrecht, 1767."—Yours, etc.,
Ernest F. Gye.
61 Tregunter Road, S.W.10, December 19th, 1919.
INthe recent Housing Supplement issued by theTimesthe Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has expressed its views on the housing problem in connection with old cottages. There are in this article two main points worth noting. The first is that until a subsidy is made, proportionate to the value of the work of repair, old cottages will not be readapted, but allowed to fall into ruins. The failure to award this subsidy tends to shift the responsibility, in regard to the upkeep of such property, from the owner to the State, for whilst the State encourages and partially finances new building, old cottages, though in theory valued by the Ministry of Health, in practice will hardly receive the attention they deserve. The second point is this: that the Society shows clearly it is no lover of mere decay, or old and mouldering walls, features we are apt to associate with the sketches of an early nineteenth century schoolgirl.
It lends no countenance to the habitual carping at all things new. It is as eager that the architecture of to-day should be as clean and decent—the natural expression of the life of to-day—as it is anxious to preserve, and where possible render habitable, those buildings of the past embodying the spirit oftheirtime.
But since "words will build no walls," if our fine old cottages are to be preserved, it will need something more than mere discussions or eulogiums on their value as relics of the nation's past. By all who are interested more practical help must be given, and it is for this that the Society now makes a special appeal.
The monthly meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society was held on December 18th, Sir Henry Howorth, Vice-President, presiding. Mr. G. F. Hill read a paper entitled "The Mint of Crosraguel Abbey," written by Dr. George Macdonald, who was unable to be present. Recent excavations at Crosraguel ("Crossregal") Abbey, a Cluniac foundation in Ayrshire, founded in 1244, and endowed by the Scottish kings with extraordinary privileges, resulted in the discovery in a latrine-drain of a large number of small objects, some of a miscellaneous nature, others evidently the remains of a local mint: large quantities of small tags of brass, needles, portions of thin sheets, etc., as well as objects and pieces of copper and lead, together with 197 coins of billon, bronze, or copper and brass. The coins are (a) contemporary imitations of pennies of James III. and IV., and farthings of James IV., including twenty which are a combination of the obverse of one type with the reverse of another; (b) fifty-one pennies bearing acrosson one side and aregalorb on the other, and the inscriptionsJacobus Dei Gra. RexandCrux pellit omne crimenvariously abbreviated; (c) eighty-eight copper or brass farthings, of types not hitherto known, inscribedMoneta Pauperum. The imitations of class (a) are the "black money" known from records. The pennies of class (b) are almost exclusively found in Scotland, though they have hitherto been attributed to one or other James of Aragon. They were clearly minted at Crosraguel, the types having a punning significance. They and the farthings are the only known instance in Great Britain of an Abbey coinage, such as is very frequent on the Continent,e.g., at Cluny. The inscriptionMoneta pauperumshows that the coins were intended to provide small change for the especial benefit of the poor like the seventeenth century tokens. The mint was probably suppressed by James IV.
At the meeting of the Society on January 20th, Rev. E. A. Sydenham gave the results of his study of the "Coinage of Augustus."
The passage through Parliament of a new Public Libraries Bill was effected with the minimum of friction—one might almost say "of interest." But public libraries, accustomed as they have been through fifty years to Legislative stonings, can hardly yet realise that they have in their hands at length the very bread of life. For some, that statement "renews the unspeakable anguish" of dissolution—of the day when they closed their doors to the public from sheer inability to exist. Others may witness to a miracle of healing, rescue whenin extremis. Others, again, survey the newly-granted means wherewith to end bravely contracted debts. But the majority become slowly conscious that the burden has fallen from their backs, and that they may go forward with a lighter step to a far brighter future. The removal of the rate limit will effect a revolution in public library practice; but its results cannot become at once apparent. It rests with individual library authorities to make a rate each year—to afford their charges the opportunity, as they now possess the power, of proving to all sections of the public that they are necessities and not luxuries. That some of these Councils will fail is certain—the public library idea is not yet sufficiently commended to minds with the parish pump ideal; and only external pressure and the education of the general public in library values will bring certain painfully parochial legislators into line with their opportunities. In London the situation is diverting; one Metropolitan Borough has awakened rather late to its peril, and like a surprised bather is frantically making for shore; with a desperate consciousness that close behind is the shark-like shadow of the London County Council. Other two Boroughs must be in doubt as to whether their very exiguous libraries, possessed of neither service nor system—neither use nor ornament—will place them out of reach of attack. And, if so, for how long? Other legislation is foreshadowed, and the Library Association (deeply grateful that the long years in the wilderness have ended) intends to bring libraries to all the people as a necessary preliminary to bringing all the people to the libraries.
A correspondent writes of a report in our first issue: "On page 109 you state that our forty-second annual meeting marked 'a definite cleavage between librarians and the Board of Education' with respect to future library policy. Here you innocently place the Association in a false position. The third interim report, the subject of the discussion to which you refer, was that of a committee appointed by the Ministry of Reconstruction, and was addressed to that Ministry. The Minister of Education considerately invited the opinion of the Library Association on that report. The Library Association, whilst approving certain recommendations contained therein, differed from others, and submitted a reasoned statement of its views to the Board of Education, as a reply to Mr. Fisher's request. It is therefore obvious that there is no 'cleavage' between librarians and the Board of Education; and an incorrect statement to that effect would give a wrong and damaging impression of the facts. Moreover, the Library Association is by no means exclusively composed of librarians. A very considerable proportion of those present at the Southport meeting were members of library authorities, many of whom were also members of education committees."
Of the three fragments of Christian art described by Mr. Dalton, one is a spandril of morse ivory 3 inches long, carved in high relief with two soaring angels back to back. This fascinating example of the Winchester School of Art dates from about 1000A.D., and having been found in a garden at St. Cross, is now appropriately housed in the museum a mile away. The other two are products of the Near East: the first a detail from a mosaic pavement in a small church of the sixth century at Umm Jerar, south of Gaza, representing a phœnix on a fire-altar, a rare instance of this motive in early Christiantimes. The other is a marble slab in the British Museum, apparently part of a screen, from a church at Miafarkin, north-east of Diarbekr, Kurdistan. Dating probably from the twelfth century, it is carved in low relief on both faces, and a central medallion bears a double-headed eagle, which had already started on its eventful career. A gift from Sir John Ramsden has enriched the national collection with a fine example of the penannular brooch, for a long time in the Breadalbane family. It was probably found in Scotland, and falls into its place in the series of Irish or Scotic works of art, the date being towards the end of the eighth century. The material is silver-gilt, with gold filigree and glass settings; and even the back is ornamented with medallions of trumpet spirals.
The occasion of the annual meeting of the Society, which was held on January 19th, was saddened by the recent death of Sir William Osler, the President of the Society, who had held that office for seven years. During that time he seldom failed to preside at the Society's meetings, and his courtesy and geniality, no less than his keen interest in bibliography, and especially in the Society's own sphere of work, won him the warm regard of the members. For some years past he had been engaged in the preparation of a monograph on medical works printed in the fifteenth century, which, it is hoped, will be issued by the Bibliographical Society. Sir William's successor in the Presidency is Mr. Falconer Madan, formerly Bodley's Librarian. At the January meeting he read an abridgment of a paper which he had written describing the work of the Daniel Press, which since the death of its founder and owner has passed into the possession of the Bodleian Library.
Miss Bianco is twelve years old—at least she was when these drawings were made. There is a sameness about them. Almost all of them contain a rather languishing female face, with something of a primitive Madonna about it and something (if we dare suggest it) of the sophisticated 'nineties. In the coloured and in the more elaborate of the black-and-white pictures the faces are framed in setting of conventional but charming flowers, with, as Tennyson would put it, here and there a rabbit. The drawings are unreservedly amazing for a girl of Miss Bianco's age; if her future progress were to be on a par with her present precocity she would become one of the greatest artists in the world. We cannot assume that; nor, on the other hand, need we rummage in our notebooks for ancient generalisations about the fate of ancient prodigies. Miss Bianco is remarkable now; and she will be what she will be. If wewerepredicting we should say that she would become a very skilful and charming decorator, a more complicated Kate Greenaway.
She has at least performed one great feat already: she has provided little platforms from which Mr. de la Mare's Pegasus has sprung into the æther. We can imagine nothing which could more finally illustrate how small suggestions may germinate in a poet's mind than the verses which Mr. de la Mare has written to these so slight, so purely decorative pictures. His imagination has been coloured and excited by every smallest hint of a mood; and where, to the passing observant eye, Miss Bianco has left nothing more to be said to the little she has stated herself, anything, a droop of the eyelids, an indicated detail in the background, serves to send Mr. de la Mare off dreaming into remote fairylands. Behind one of Miss Bianco's damsels, slit-eyed and straight-fingered, is a path leading to a small crude building. The wind bloweth where it listeth. On this small thing, missing girl and child and leafy tree, Mr. de la Mare's eye has rested. The outlines have filled in, atmosphere has trembled in, sounds and lights; and the outcome is something of which Miss Bianco never dreamed:
Is it an abbey that I seeHard by that tapering poplar-tree,Whereat that path hath end?'Tis wondrous stillThat empty hill,Yet calls me, friend.Smooth is the turf, serene the sky,The timeworn, crumbling roof awry;Within that turret slimHangs there a bellWhose faint notes knell?Do colours dim
Is it an abbey that I seeHard by that tapering poplar-tree,Whereat that path hath end?'Tis wondrous stillThat empty hill,Yet calls me, friend.Smooth is the turf, serene the sky,The timeworn, crumbling roof awry;Within that turret slimHangs there a bellWhose faint notes knell?Do colours dim
Is it an abbey that I seeHard by that tapering poplar-tree,Whereat that path hath end?'Tis wondrous stillThat empty hill,Yet calls me, friend.
Smooth is the turf, serene the sky,The timeworn, crumbling roof awry;Within that turret slimHangs there a bellWhose faint notes knell?Do colours dim
Burn in that angled window there,Grass-green, and crimson, azure rare?Would from that narrow doorOne, looking in,See, gemlike, shineOn walls and floorCandles whose aureole flames must seem—So still they burn—to burn in dream?And do they cry, and say,"See, stranger; come!Here is thy home;No longer stray"?
Burn in that angled window there,Grass-green, and crimson, azure rare?Would from that narrow doorOne, looking in,See, gemlike, shineOn walls and floorCandles whose aureole flames must seem—So still they burn—to burn in dream?And do they cry, and say,"See, stranger; come!Here is thy home;No longer stray"?
Burn in that angled window there,Grass-green, and crimson, azure rare?Would from that narrow doorOne, looking in,See, gemlike, shineOn walls and floor
Candles whose aureole flames must seem—So still they burn—to burn in dream?And do they cry, and say,"See, stranger; come!Here is thy home;No longer stray"?
The poemSuppose, which appeared in our first number, starts on its fantastic flight from a face with eyes of wonderment in it; and from another head—a head crowned, a neck girdled—comesThe Comb, perfect in itself without any picture:
My mother sate me at her glass;This necklet of bright flowers she wove;Crisscross her gentle hands did pass,And wound in my hair her love.Deep in the mirror our glances met,And grieved, lest from her care I roam,She kissed me through her tears, and setOn high this spangling comb.
My mother sate me at her glass;This necklet of bright flowers she wove;Crisscross her gentle hands did pass,And wound in my hair her love.Deep in the mirror our glances met,And grieved, lest from her care I roam,She kissed me through her tears, and setOn high this spangling comb.
My mother sate me at her glass;This necklet of bright flowers she wove;Crisscross her gentle hands did pass,And wound in my hair her love.
Deep in the mirror our glances met,And grieved, lest from her care I roam,She kissed me through her tears, and setOn high this spangling comb.
Mirageis lovelier still, and far more slender in its origins; how Mr. de la Mare's imagination can fill out an outline that really is given is shown in his delicious poem ofMaster Rabbit. There is a charming sketch: a rabbit, and nothing more. But to the poet a whole scene comes up, country scents, green grasshoppers talking:
And wings like amber,Dispread in light,As from bush to bushLinnet took flight.
And wings like amber,Dispread in light,As from bush to bushLinnet took flight.
And wings like amber,Dispread in light,As from bush to bushLinnet took flight.
He sees the rabbit looking out from the shadow-rimmed mouth of his shady cavern at sunset. Rabbit sees him:
Snowy flit of a scut,He was into his hole;And—stamp, stamp, stamp,Through dim labyrinths clear—The whole world darkened,A human near.
Snowy flit of a scut,He was into his hole;And—stamp, stamp, stamp,Through dim labyrinths clear—The whole world darkened,A human near.
Snowy flit of a scut,He was into his hole;
And—stamp, stamp, stamp,Through dim labyrinths clear—The whole world darkened,A human near.
This is an extra number toPeacock Pie, and the poems as a whole make us once more impatient for a collected volume of Mr. de la Mare's work which will show the bulk and the quality of the performance of one of the most exquisite artists in words who has ever contributed to the unequalled treasury of our English lyrics. Nevertheless it must be admitted that his average level is higher when he is not writing verses to a series of pictures.
Mr. Massingham collects here four hundred poems written, with few exceptions, in the forty-four years that followed the death of Shakespeare. It may not be correct to describe this period as the most neglected period of English literature. It is true that many of the authors and most of the poems to be found in Mr. Massingham's collection have been ignored by anthologists, and are utterly unknown to the reading public; but we suspect that the periods of Anne and the Georges have been even less thoroughly searched, though they would not yield results so rich as those which have come from the claim that Mr. Massingham has staked out. There were great poets in that period; it left us many poems by Milton, Herrick, Herbert Vaughan, Cowley, Crashaw, Lovelace Suckling, and Carew which are familiar to every reader at all interested in English poetry. Had the obvious best been always selected Mr. Massingham would have found himself crowded out with stock pieces before he began. He has therefore—since he desired mainly to give publicity to the unfamiliar—left Milton and Herrick out altogether and excluded some of the best-known poems of their nearest rivals. This has given him room for everybody, or at least for a hundred and more poets, for Nabbes and Festel, as well as for the poets above mentioned, for Donne, and for such other respectable poets as Brome, Bunyan, Cartwright, Corbet, Davenant, Denham, the Fletchers, Habington, Bishop King, Massinger, Jasper Mayne, Quarles, Randolph, Shirley, T. Stanley, Traherne, Waller, Wither, and Wotton. It is an imposing array; contemplating it one realises that if that age could not vie with the Elizabethan in the number of great works produced, it actually beat it in the number of men it produced who wrote a few, or many, good short poems. And it had, as Mr. Massingham rightly says, a quality of its own. It may be difficult to deduce "tendencies" from this mass of metaphysical, amorous, graceful, jocular, scholarly, tripping verse. But at least the age was no mere afterglow. There are very few poems in this fine selection which could have been mistaken for products of any other generation, and there are few which are mere degenerate imitations of the songs of an earlier race. There was, under Charles and Cromwell, a distinct civilisation with a colour and a mind of its own; less passionate (save, in some quarters, in the matter of religion) than the last; less certain in its music; more self-conscious in all its ways: but genuine and, temperately, ardent, cheerful, chivalrous, genial, often tender. From the one pole of