Slike strani
PDF
ePub

1

not understand it; and he also shows his German patriotism by the badness of the French at p. 100 of his book. Dr. Geffcken gives us a very great deal of good advice, which is both well given and much needed, as to our military and naval position; but it is not quite fair of him to assert that we have put up recently with many slights from France, and to give give as specimens two only, namely, the occupation of the New Hebrides and the treatment of Mr. Shaw, with out explaining that in the case of the New Hebrides the French have evacuated those islands and promised not again to occupy them, and that in the case of Mr. Shaw they both apologized and paid.

LORD ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL'S Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition (Nutt) is a thin little book, and his function of editing has been performed but badly. Yet he deserves credit, as every one does, especially persons in responsible positions, for trying to preserve records of a past apparently so nearly irrecoverable as that of the Western Highlanders. Naturally and laudably, his view of that past is strictly clannish. The patriotism and self-interest of the Campbells always coincided; but we should like to hear the Macdonald view of the assertion that had it not been for " some master minds"" the Highlanders would have ave long since been exterminated through internecine warfare and battle." "I'll birse yont" is a maxim attributed to the editor's illustrious clan with as much justice as the nobler axioms for which we would not deny them credit. The stories, collected from various

quarters, will probably be new to the reader. The Craignish tales read much like the bloody

annals Four Masters, and show

nature to be much the same on each side of the Channel. The description of "For" in the dogfight recalls another description cited by "Nether

Lochaber" in one of his admirable books. The ac

count of Michael Scot's journey to Rome is very remarkable, as clothing in a thoroughly Celtic

form an incident in the life of one whom we could hardly have believed known to Highlanders. It rather confirms the view that the Gael were

better informed than Macaulay and his fol

lowers have assumed. The illustrations of Celtic dress from old tombstones are curious, though not novel. Sir Allan Maclean's monument (we do not gather from the book where it comes from, but as a matter of fact it is at Inchkenneth) is oddly described: The image with the flowing hair tombstone [sic] is remarkable for the long-flowing ringlets of the knight, which are represented escaping from under the helmet. The chiefs and inhabitants of the Isles during the seventeenth century wore the hair long, as did the Irish Celts." So did the London English, and Sir Allan is only in the garb of a Cavalier. He also has a hand-grenade in his right hand. Not bad for a savage!

In the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Ruba'iyát of 'Umar Khaiyam?), translated by Justin Huntly McCarthy, M.P. (Nutt), we have incontestable proof of the continued popularity of a writer whose merits lay comparatively hidden for centuries, and until quite recent years, from civilized Europe. Whatever claim to the discovery of this literary treasure may be set up by continental savants, it is certain that on our side the Channel the full revelation is due to an exceptionally gifted Englishman, one who was not only a distinguished classic and Orientalist, but also a true and appreciative poet. The first edition of Mr. FitzGerald's translation of the 'Rubaiyát,' printed by Quaritch in 1858, was, we are told,

"a small quarto pamphlet, with the publisher's name and without the author's, and was a most uncompromising, hopeless, dismal failure. It found no buyers at its published price of five shillings, it found no buyers at four shillings, at three shillings; it ran a rapidly descending scale without appealing to the public, which would even have none of it at sixpence. At last it dropped into that pitiful purgatory of luckless books, the box marked all these one penny each.'...... At a penny each the two

hundred copies of Omar Khayyam which had been | - either by authority or general consent-that

printed were at last forced into the hands of a reluctant public. Alas, alas," it is here added, "the man who could buy those two hundred copies back now at a guinea a copy would be making a magnificent and unhappily impossible bargain."

The lesson is an old one, and the moral it conveys is trite; but the story, if sad, is not wanting in consolation for those who, among disappointed aspirants of the day, are conscious of power to succeed. A second edition was published ten years after the first; four years later a third appeared; and a fourth in the year immediately following. All these issues commanded a ready sale; yet none bore the name of the translator, to whose skill and taste in interpreting an exceptional idiosyncrasy was mainly due the interest with which the Persian thinker was regarded in an English dress. FitzGerald's treatment of his favourite mystic was that of a

a

Seeing the difficulty with which he would have man determined to do justice to his favourite. to contend in attempting to render literally the marvellously melodious language before him, he found in the purport of each separate stanza a theme for the exercise of his own imaginative faculty, and, with poetic inspiration and keen sense of Oriental mysticism, gave expression to the Persian idea rather than a verbal rendering of the Persian text in exquisitely appropriate Anglo-Saxon. In fact, let the reader compare the four editions one with the other, and he will soon see that the variations are, more or less, of a fourfold character. Like those of Henri Herz and other masters

of the brilliant school of instrumentalists inspired, if not originated, by Rossini's melodies,

set has its own

to bring out some peculiar beauty of the original. As regards 'Umar Khaiyám, home

readers to whom Persian literature is attractive,

though the language itself is unknown, at their disposal - independently of German or Hungarian interpretations-a careful and more than respectable French rendering by M. Nicolas, once on the consular establishment in Tehran and Resht; the admirable English versions of Mr. Edward FitzGerald; and a scholarly and ingenious translation by Mr. E. H. Whinfield, late of the Bengal Civil Service. To these may

now be added the prose version of Mr. Justin

Huntly McCarthy, a volume which, whether in respect of outer guise or inner value, is both pleasant and praiseworthy, and may be welcomed as a new and interesting exponent of the quatrains bequeathed to his admirers by the wineextolling and mockingly contemplative "tentmaker." The author's transliteration of names might, perhaps, have been more consistently carried out. Kh, accurately given to Khorassan (Khurasan?), has an incongruous appearance in Khassem (Kasim?); ou in Moulk is out of keeping with the more modern single letter u in 'Abdu; and Mullá would be fitter than Mollah. Moreover, as regards the second of these, the designation of Híchmakání, used in the introduction, shows how almost invariably the letter e falls before i according to prevalent custom throughout Persia proper.

Subjects of Social Welfare (Cassell & Co.) is a collection of articles and speeches on various topics which have already been given to the public at different dates during the last thirty or forty years by Sir Lyon Playfair. The essays are grouped under the headings "Public Health," "Industrial Wealth," and "National Education." They are well written, and nearly all of them are of great interest. Several of them, being old friends returned among us, have no longer the charm of novelty; but the arguments in all of them are vigorous and convincing, and in some, even of the oldest, Sir Lyon Playfair puts his case so cogently that there is little more to be said. Time has least impaired the interest of parts i. and iii.; and the questions of public health and national education which are

the author's views, which are usually based on solid facts, will be studied with advantage by readers interested in national sanitation and national instruction. On these subjects Sir Lyon Playfair speaks not merely as an enthusiast, but as an expert whose experience and erudition lend weight to his words. The article on "Vaccination," ," which should be carefully read by all who have not made up their minds about State interference in checking the ravages of small-pox, appears to be in the main a reprint of a speech delivered in the House of Commons in 1883. Vivisection, disposal of the dead, and kindred subjects affecting public health, are discussed and examined with common sense and considerable intelligence, while ocсаsional gleams of quaint humour go far to render even statistical paragraphs readable. There is much of interest in the articles devoted to in

dustrial wealth; but the nearer the writer gets to political economy the more we are conscious of dulness and heaviness in his writing. On the other hand, when Sir Lyon leaves industrial wealth for national education he handles matters of which, as University professor and sometime Vice-President of the Council, he is master, and in which happily he is also an enthusiast. The address on primary education, which stands first in the third group of articles, was delivered in the year of the passing of Mr. Forster's Act. It is almost as valuable a contribution to the cause of national education in 1889 as it was in 1870. To the members of the Social Science Association who heard it then it must have

sounded buoyant with hope; to those who read it nearly twenty years later it must impart a

feeling of disappointment. So much hopefulness has been quenched in empty wranglings, and technical education, that the two addreary and we have yet advanced so little in primary

these questions given by Sir Lyon Playfair in 1870 seem not a whit out of date to-day.

Behind the Bungalow, by Eha (Calcutta, Thacker, Spink & Co.; London, Thacker & Co.), a set of brightly written sketches of native high life below stairs, may well amuse the public at home as well as the readers of the Times of India, in which they first appeared. The portraits of the various functionaries who have adapted themselves, with true Oriental suppleness, to meet the needs of the Western conquering race, are drawn with delightful humour and keen observation. Moreover, the fault will lie with the

reader if they do not combine some valuable instruction with amusement. Too many AngloIndians are content to remain in a state of almost brutal ignorance about the alien race whose soil they have made their own and whose

deft services minister to their daily needs. "The Boy" is an especially admirable study, while for sheer funniness perhaps Domingo the cook and his menus take the first place. The illustrations are slight, but spirited.

Le Livre du Centenaire du Journal des Débats.

(Paris, Plon.) - In a very special kind of literature comparison is not very easy and is very useless; nor shall we undertake to compare this stately volume with other histories of the life of newspapers. French craftsmanship in book-production, and the literary faculty of a staff of writers which not many periodicals in other countries, and none in its own country, can rival, working on a singularly eventful history of a full century, have produced a book that in fact stands by itself, and is less a work of reference than a sumptuous collection of biographical and miscellaneous essays. The method which is sometimes supposed to be so characteristic of French work is, indeed, hardly to be discovered, and may very probably have been deliberately eschewed as doubtfully attainable, and beyond doubt likely to produce dulness. There are, indeed, at intervals, notices of the general history of the paper during its successive periods; and there is an exhaustive index of

here considered are still so far from settlement | contributors by that indefatigable bibliographer

M. Drujon. But the main interest centres on a succession of what we have called biographical and miscellaneous essays, generally on interesting people, and very frequently by people also interesting. The remarkable family with which the Débats is identified, that of Bertin, is dealt with by three of the greatest guns even of this heavy armament, MM. Léon Say, John Lemoinne, and Taine; while in the second part there is a not less attractive article on the connexion of Victor Hugo (with whose verses to Mlle. Louise Bertin all Hugonians, even those who perhaps know little about the family otherwise, are acquainted) by M. Weiss. The sections allotted to the periods of the journal also employ heavy metal, M. Jules Simon and M. Renan among others. But the papers on individual writers are perhaps the most attractive. That on Constant by M. Paul Bourget is one of the best things, both on its subject and by its writer, that we know. M. de Vogüé deals capably with Chateaubriand, and M. Alexandre Dumas agreeably with Soulié, while CuvillierFleury (who seems to be one of the household gods, majorum gentium of the Débats) is honoured by no less an essayist than the Duc d'Aumale. A particularly interesting paper is M. Boutmy's on Laboulaye; while M. Legouvé is characteristic on Hetzel, and M. Cherbuliez thoroughly in sympathy with Marc Monnier. The only article which seems to us a little unfortunate is that on Prévost-Paradol by M. Gréard. This is enormously long, excessively laudatory, and much too oblivious of the fact that, clever journalist as its ill-fated subject was, he was after all one of those lucky frondeurs whose shots are chiefly applauded because the public has made up its mind to applaud any shot at the particular target. M. Halévy on the "Maison des Débats" in the Rue des Prêtres St. Germain l'Auxerrois, M. Lemaître on Geoffroy and Janin as dramatic critics, M. Bourdeau on the underrated and unjustly forgotten Philarète Chasles - these are but a few of the most notable of a collection of essays very few of which are not notable, but to notice which one by one would be altogether beyond our power. But we have not yet mentioned the side of the book which will probably make it most popular, at least for the momentits excellent illustrations. These, executed in heliogravure or etching, consist of portraits of the four Bertins, Chateaubriand, Silvestre de Sacy, Delécluze, Cuvillier-Fleury, Berlioz, Geoffroy, SaintMarc Girardin, Jules Janin, and Prévost-Paradol; of a group of the present editorial staff, which is only to be matched (certainly it is exceeded as well as matched in one way) by Maclise's famous "Fraserians"; and of two admirable etchings of the Maison des Débats. There are also not a few facsimiles-the original "No. I.," the number seized under the Commune, after which the paper was suppressed for nearly two months, some letters of Hugo, and so forth. Such a notice has, perhaps, too much the air of a catalogue, but to enter into detailed criticism of separate points and articles would be futile and impossible, while generalities about the importance of newspapers in general, and the Débats in particular, though very possible indeed, would be still more futile. Let us only say, in the first place, that the claim which not a few of the contributors put forward in different ways-that few newspapers have been more uniform and more independent in supporting a generally consistent form of thought, which may be described as moderate and cautious Liberalism both in politics and in other subjects-will be admitted by those who know best, and whose judgment

is best worth having, to be, on the whole, well justified. And in the second place we may add that no single bock illustrates so well the French system of acknowledged and personal, though not exactly individualist, journalism as contrasted with the English system of suppressed personality and anonymous combination.

We have received from Messrs. Macmillan & Co. Dickens's Dictionary of Paris, an excellent

alphabetical guide, with maps, which we have
tested at many points, and in which we have
found no errors. The account of Versailles is a
little bald as compared with that of the Louvre.
While a full list of the chief pictures in the
Louvre is given, there is no reference to the
pictures of Versailles, although these include
what is considered the masterpiece of the French
school, David's 'Sacre,' which French critics
of high rank are now beginning to place, since
it has been well hung in the International Ex-
hibition, above even the great Veronese of the
Louvre. We have also received from Messrs.
Macmillan new editions of the useful Dictionary
of London, by Mr. Dickens, and his admirable
Dictionary of the Thames.

MESSRS. BELL & SONS have commenced their
"All England Series" with an excellent hand-
book of Lawn Tennis, by Mr. H. W. Wilber-
force, the well-known secretary of the All
England Lawn Tennis Club. Mr. Wilberforce's
remarks are sensible and his directions clear,
and they would have been clearer still had they
been more liberally illustrated with diagrams.
The book is intended for beginners, but many
people who rather plume themselves on their
play will be all the better for reading and trying

to follow Mr. Wilberforce's advice. He writes
with the authority of experience, and adduces
reasons for his precepts. We trust the remain-
ing volumes of the series may be as good.

We have before us once again that huge
volume The Reference Catalogue of Current
Literature, which not merely proves the binder's
power of constructing a broad back, but Mr.
Whitaker's faculty of organization and making
other people do as he bids them. One hundred
and thirty publishers contribute their lists to
this edition, and the entries in the index are
little short of seventy thousand. To country
booksellers this work is quite invaluable.

LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
ENGLISH,
Theology.

Alexander's (Bishop) The Epistles of St. John, cr. 8vo. 7/6 cl.
(Expositor's Bible.)
Beard's (Rev. A.) Faith, Active and Passive, cr. 8vo. 2/6 cl.
Kempis's Imitation of Christ, a Metrical Version, by H.

Carrington, cr. 8vo. 5/ cl.

Latin Heptateuch (The) Critically Reviewed, by J. E. B.
Lightfoot's (J. B.) Essays on the Work entitled 'Super-
Mayor, 8vo. 10/6 cl.
natural Religion,' reprinted from the Contemporary
Review, 8vo. 10/6 cl.

Glasgow, 1888, cr. 8vo. 10/6 cl.

Müller's (F. Max) Natural Religion, the Clifford Lectures,
Pulpit Commentary: Peter, John, and Jude, by Rev. B. C.
Caffin, roy. 8vo. 15/cl.
Wenley's (R. M.) Socrates and Christ, cr. 8vo. 6/ cl.
Scott's (G. F. E.) Sursum Corda, or Song and Service, 3/6 cl.

Law.

Nelson's (H.) Selected Cases, Statutes, and Orders, Inter-
national Law, roy. 8vo. 21/cl.
Poetry.

Dickinson's (C. M.) The Children, and other Verses, 5/ cl.
McCarthy's (J. H.) Harlequinade, a Book of Verses, 8/ pcht.
Warner's (H. H.) Songs of the Spindle and Legends of the
Loom, illustrated, 16mo. 3/6 limp.
History and Biography.

Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen,

19, roy. 8vo. 15/ cl.

Fitzgerald (E.), Letters and Literary Remains of, edited by
Glover's (W.) Reminiscences of Half a Century, 8vo. 10/6 cl.
Hatherly's (S. J.) New Genealogical Scale of the Sovereigns
Newman's (F. W.) Anglo-Saxon Abolition of Negro Slavery,

Wright, 3 vols. cr. 31/6 cl.

of England, cr. 8vo. 2/ cl.

Nicol's (D.) The Political Life of our Time, 2 vols. 8vo. 24/
Rose's (J. H.) Century of Continental History, 1780-1880, 6/
Zimmern's (H.) The Hansa Towns, 5/ (Story of the Nations.)
Geography and Travel.

Clampitt's (J. W.) Echoes from the Rocky Mountains, 21/ cl.
Ingram's (J. F.) The Land of Gold, Diamonds, and Ivory,

2/6 bds.

Miller's (H.) My First Impressions of England and its

People, cheap edition, cr. 8vo. 3/6 cl.
Sheldon's (L. V.) An I.D.B. in South Africa, cr. 8vo. 7/6 cl.
Philology.
Euripides' Ion, with an Introduction and Notes by M. A.
Bayfield, 12mo. 3/6 cl.

Science.

Ashby (H.) and Wright's (G. A.) Diseases of Children, 21/cl.
Barlow's (C.) The New Tay Bridge, a Course of Lectures,
Bell's (R.) Woman in Health and Sickness, cr. 8vo. 2/6 swd.
4to. 21/cl.
Colyer's (F.) Public Institutions, their Engineering, Sani-
tary, and other Appliances, 8vo. 10/6 cl.

Cousins's (R. H.) Theoretical and Practical Treatise on t
Strength of Beams and Columns, er. 8vo. 21/ el.
Foxwell (E.) and Farrer's (T. C.) Express Trains, Ende

and Foreign, with Maps, 8vo. 6/ cl.
Merriman's (M.) Treatise on Hydraulics, 8vo. 15/el.
Reisig's (F. W.) Guide for Piece-Dyeing, 8vo. 105/cl
Remsen's (I.) Inorganic Chemistry, 8vo. 16/ el.
Waring's (G. E.) Sewerage and Land Drainage, 4to.
Whall's (Capt. W. B.) Handy Book of the Stars

Navigation, ob. 4to. 7/6 cl.

General Literature.

Baumbach's (R.) Summer Legends, trans. by H. B. De
De Quincey, a Selection of his best Works: Vol. 1, Ca
sions of an Opium-Eater, edited by Barnett, 32m.
Dostoieffsky's (F.) The Friend of the Family and
Gambler, cr. 8vo. 2/ cl.

Drage's (G.) Cyril, cr. 8vo. 3/6 cl.
Grey's (R.) Jacob's Letter, and other Stories, er. 8vo. l
Forde's (G.) Driven before the Storm, cr. 8vo. 2/bds.
Haggard's (H.R) Cleopatra, being an Account of the F

and Vengeance of Harmachis, cr. 8vo. 6/ cl.

Hardy's (T.) Wessex Tales, Strange, Lively, and Comm

place, cr. 8vo. 3/6 cl
Hawthorne's (J.) David Poindexter's Disappearance, 2. bdi
Ideala, a Study from Life, cr. 8vo. 6/ cl.
Jeffery's (J. C.) The Rambler Papers, cr. 8vo. 5/ cl
Kennard's (Mrs. E.) Our Friends in the Hunting Field, 26
Light of Egypt (The), or the Science of the Soul and t

Stars, roy. 16mo. 7/6 cl.

Miss Kate, or the Confessions of a Caretaker, a Novel

Rita, cr. 8vo. 6/cl.

Murray's (D. C) The Weaker Vessel, cr. 8vo. 3,6 cl.
Oliphant's (Mrs.) A Poor Gentleman, 3 vols. er. 8vo. 14
O'Reilly's (H.) Fifty Years on the Trail, roy. 16mo.
Runcimar's (J.) A Dream of the North Sea, cr. Svo.
Russell's (W. C.) The Wreck of the Grosvenor, cheap ec

tion, cr. 8vo. 3/6 hf. bd.

Sharpe's (J.) The Tree of Life, 8vo. 9/ cl.
Street's (J. C.) The Hidden Way across the Threshold. Wa
Toilers in London, Inquiries concerning Female Latoza
the Metropolis, by British Weekly' Commissioners.it
Under-Currents, by Author of Phyllis,' 12mo. 2/ tds.
Winnington-Ingram's (Rear-Admiral H. F.) Hearts of Oui.
4to. 15/cl.

Wood's (Mrs. H.) Johnny Ludlow, 2nd Series, cheap ed
Worboise's (E. J.) Husbands and Wives, cheap ed. 36 th
Yonge's (C. M.) Love and Life, cheap edition, cr. 8vo, 350

[blocks in formation]

CADGING FOR FREE COPIES.

MAY I protest against the increasing preta lence of this habit, from which, as a publisher of books appealing to specialists alone and as writer of specialist works and articles, I, common, doubtless, with many others, am sufferer? When one gives time, labour, and money to advance knowledge, at least one looks to be supported by one's fellow students. B numbers are apparently of the opinion the to be interested in a subject entitles them to receive, and if it be not forwarded off-hand to claim, gratis copies of anything bearing upon that subject. It is not even usually the case that the claim is in any way justified by the pecuniary this were the case it is hard to see why this form circumstances of the claimant, though even i of begging is more permissible than any other.

SALE.

A PUBLISHER

MESSRS. SOTHEBY, WILKINSON & HOD sold on the 12th inst. and following days s valuable collection of books and manuscrip being a portion of the library of the late Mr J. Fremlyn Streatfeild, and other properties Many of the works realized high prices; amongs others may be mentioned: An assemblage d Views in Kent, 30l. Mrs. Browning's Prom theus Bound, a presentation copy from t author's father to Wordsworth the poet, 10 A copy of the rare little volume, Mrs. Seymour

Origin of the Pickwick Club, 641. Mr. Thacthekeray, Mr. Yates, and the Garrick Club, a pamphlet written by E. Yates in 1859, sold for 191. 10s., and a series of 24 vols. of J. H. Jesse's Works, 31l. Laborde, Choix de Chansons, a fine specimen of binding in doublé, 99l. "Fermiers Généraux" edition of La Fontaine, 30l. 10s. Molière, Le Misantrope, original edition, 26l. Montaigne, the edition of 1580, 391. A French manuscript (with miniatures) of Boccaccio,

r

[ocr errors]

Livres des Cas des nobles Hommes et Femmes infortunez, 45l. The 1874 edition of Racine, *printed on vellum, 22l. 10s. An interesting volume of Dickensiana, consisting of the original drawings by R. Seymour to illustrate the 'Pickwick Papers,' a few impressions of the engraved plates, an autograph letter of Dickens to Seymour, and miscellaneous scraps, brought 500l. An illustrated copy of Hawkins's Life of E. Kean, 108l. The rare 1533 edition of the Salisbury Primer, 60l. Ruskin's Modern Painters, 23l. 10s. Amongst some im*portant original autographs of Lord Tennyson, the MS. of the poem Maud sold for 111l.; The Brook, 511.; the original autograph dedication of his Poems to the Queen, 30l.; the poem entitled The Daisy, 241. 10s. A collection of 116 autograph letters of D. G. Rossetti, written to Mr. Hall Caine, 70l. The first edition of Wordsworth's An Evening Walk, 12l. 15l.; his Descriptive Sketches in Verse, 12l. 5s. A copy, with proofs, of the Musée Français et Musée Royal, 791. Kilmarnock edition of Burns's Poems, slightly defective, 46l. Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 88 vols., 90l. A collection of book plates, 28l. A fine copy of Calef's More Wonders of the Invisible World, 53l. 監 Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, 20l. 10s. Increase Mather's Further Account of the Trials of the New England Witches, 18l. A manuscript Horæ on vellum, 25l. Heures a lusaige de Rome, printed on vellum, 21l. 10s. Chauncy's Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire, 15l. The total of the five days' sale was 4,5711. 78.

[ocr errors]

hat

cal

=

THE CENTURY DICTIONARY.'

The new encyclopædic 'Century Dictionary,' which has been in active preparation on both sides of the Atlantic since 1882, is now approaching completion, and the first instalment of it will probably be issued early in the autumn of this year by Mr. Fisher Unwin, who will be its English publisher. The editor-in-chief is the distinguished philologist Dr. William D. Whitney, Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Yale; the managing editor is Mr. Benjamin E. Smith ; while the editorial contributors in charge of the various departments are in almost every instance leading specialists in their own particular branches. The 'Century Dictionary' will be published in twenty-four parts or sections, which will ultimately form six quarto volumes of a thousand pages each. These sections will be issued at monthly intervals, so that the dictionary will soon be a usable part of the library of any subscriber. It will be illustrated with about 6,000 cuts in the text itself, these cuts being drawn, whenever that was possible, from the object itself, and engraved under the care of the art department of the Century Company.

The 'Century Dictionary' does not compete with works of pure linguistic science, nor does Prof. Whitney wish to be meted by the same rule which grammarians employ to measure Littré, Grimm, or Murray. It is rather an encyclopædia than a word-book. A critic to whom early sheets of it have been submitted has described it as "an apotheosis of Webster." Its aim is to offer, not only a meaning, but the full meaning, of every word which the English reader is likely to come across in studying the most modern books or even newspapers. The previous English dictionary which has the fullest vocabulary boasts that it gives 180,000 words, but the 'Century Dictionary will

define more than 200,000. The etymologies of of the facts or objects of which they are the all words are treated with special care, and one names; in short, to produce an encyclopædic feature of the work which will attract notice is dictionary which shall meet the wants of all the definition of each successive letter of the classes. alphabet, in all cases written by Prof. Whitney himself. The etymologies have throughout been written anew, on an independent plan devised for the purpose, and from original sources, in the hope of presenting in clear language, but in a succinct manner, the re

sults of modern scholarship in this branch of science. The etymological forms given are cited

in a regular series, which will be found to be the same in all similar cases. Great care has been taken to verify all the forms and facts given.

Several popular dictionaries abound, for example,

in so-called Anglo-Saxon, Gothic, or Sanskrit forms which could not have existed in those languages; they abound still more in forms

which, found in the records of the language to which they are ascribed, and are, for the most part, mere inventions; or in forms which, though resting on genuine words, are grossly misspelt, referred to a wrong period or language, or otherwise distorted.

though externally correct, are not to be

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF MOUNT ATHOS.

In his interesting letter from Mount Athos (Athen. No. 3212), Prof. Mahaffy has called attention to two important manuscripts of classical authors. One of them belongs to the library

of the Monastery of Vatopedi-one of the two libraries which, in my mission in 1880, I was forced to leave unvisited, partly owing to the advanced season of the year, which left me no time, partly to the exhausted state in which I and my companions found ourselves after four months of excessive toil, and the cataloguing of six hundred manuscripts divided among twenty libraries. I mentioned these two omissions, and defended them, in my report to the Greek Chambers, which has been translated into German by MM. Rickenbach and Boltz, and in an abridged shape by Prof. Destunis, of St. Petersburg.

The other manuscript, however, belongs to the library of the Monastery Iviron, which I catalogued; but the catalogue is not yet printed, Anatomy since I have only published as yet a small por

A conspicuous position is given to the natural sciences in the 'Century Dictionary.' has been placed, with zoology, in the hands of Dr. Coues, who has enjoyed the assistance of Prof. Theodore Gill, of Washington, and Prof. James K. Thacker, of Yale University. The botanical definitions have been prepared by Dr. Sereno Watson, of Harvard University; those in physics and mineralogy by Prof. Dana; those in electrical engineering by Prof. Mendenhall; and those in mathematics, mechanics, and metrology by Prof. Charles S. Peirce, late of the U.S. Coast Survey. While an extreme fulness in the terms employed in natural science has been introduced another class of somewhat cognate words has not been neglected, such as "act," "case," "treaty," "disease," &c., which, though not strictly admitting of encyclopædic treatment themselves, enter into many special phrases or names, such as "Civil Service Act," "Tweed case," the "Treaty of Washington," "Bright's disease," &c., which relate to encyclopædic matters. Such phrases the 'Century Dictionary' admits and defines, thus adding a large amount of material, mainly historical. Lastly, it often happens that proper names which are excluded from the dictionary have derivative adjectives which are included in it, for example, "Chinese," "Cartesian," "Byzantine," "Darwinian." The definitions of such words have been utilized for

the introduction of geographical, biographical, and historical matter. It is also proposed to treat the subject of proper names, biographical and geographical, extensively, by itself, in a supplementary volume.

tion of my general catalogue. This contains the list of the Greek manuscripts in the libraries of Protaton, Hagia Anna, Hagios Paulos, Chiliandari, Zographa, Constamonitu, Gregoria, and Xenaphia. As the manuscript in question is one of the most interesting existing on Mount Athos of classical authors, I may be permitted to give some further details regarding it, and correct one or two points in Prof. Mahaffy's letter.

The manuscript is numbered 161 in my catalogue. The other number mentioned by Mr. Mahaffy is due to a partial attempt at cataloguing

on the part of the monastery. The manuscript consists of 204 leaves, and it belongs, as I have noted, to the thirteenth century. It is, however, a codex bombycinus, and not a paper manuscript. It is, as Prof. Mahaffy says, acephalous, but the first piece is not the 'Antigone' of Sophocles, but the Phoenisse' of Euripides. This is proved by the first lines that occur in the MS., which are 1150-1 of the 'Phoenisse': —

ἡμῶν τ' ἐς οὐδας εἶδες ἄν πρὸ τειχέων
πολλοὺς κυβιστητῆρας ἐκνενευκότας.

The MS. contains, therefore, only the last third of the play. Next follow the other pieces mentioned by Prof. Mahaffy-the 'Hippolytus' and 'Medea' of Euripides, the 'Prometheus,' 'Septem contra Thebas,' and 'Perse' of Æschylus. On these I have the following remark to make. In the acephalous 'Phoenisse' an interpretation of some words occurs occasionally running between the lines of the text, but in a later handwriting. On the margin there frequently occurs in this and the other plays the well-known contraction which signifies γνώμη. Of scholia, properly so called, there are none in the Euripidean plays. The arguments of the 'Hippolytus' and the 'Medea' are preserved; but they are the customary ones and offer nothing novel. The conclusion of the 'Medea' is wanting, the text.

breaking off at the lines

παρ' ἀνδρὶ τῷδε, καὶ τεκοῦσά μοι τέκνα εὐνῆς ἔκατι καὶ λέχους σφ ̓ ἀπώλεσας,

so that over eighty lines are missing.

The plays

To sum up, the general plan of the 'Century Dictionary' has been to furnish a complete vocabulary of English words and phrases, particularly of terms used in the various sciences and in all branches of business, not excluding, though carefully discriminating, colloquialisms, Anglicisms, Americanisms, slang, and such foreign words as are in popular or technical use; to carefully define and illustrate by abundant citations from the whole range of English literature the different meanings of each word; to furnish etymologies which shall represent the most recent results of philological research; to take advanced ground in orthography and pronunciation; to give full lists of synonyms and indicate their proper use; to give more fully than has hitherto been done the proper combination, in special phrases, of prepositions with verbs and adjectives, and of nouns with their appropriate verbs; to furnish a large number of carefully executed illustrations and diagrams which shall really assist the reader to an understanding of the text; to provide not | only a lexicon, but an encyclopædia, by adding | to the formal definitions of a large number of scientific and other terms general explanations | τῷ δευτέρω στίχῳ.

plays of of Æschylus have, besides the interlinear interpretation, which is seldom given, also scholia on the margin. The beginning of those to the 'Prometheus' is as follows:

Χθονός· λείπει τῆς οἰκουμένης, ἵν ̓ σύνταξις οὕτως. Ἦλθομεν ἐρχόμεθα εἰς πέδον ἔχον τὸ ὅριον τῆλε τῆς οἰκουμένης γῆς, τουτέστιν εἰς ἀοίκητον τόπον. καὶ ἄλλως· ἥκομεν ἀπὸ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ εἰς πέδον χθονὺς περιφραστικώς ἀντὶ τοῦ εἰς χθόνα. Τηλουρὸν ἤτοι τὸν Καύκασον τῆλε ὄντα καὶ διεστηκότα τῶν ἄλλων ὀρέων κατὰ τὸ ὕψος. Ἔστι δὲ ἡ τοιαύτη σύνταξίς τε καὶ ἔννοια οὐ καλὴ διὰ τὸ ἐναντιοῦσθαι

These scholia are often illegible from damp. At the close of the argument to the 'Prometheus' the interesting variant τέρμασι τοῦ ̓Ὠκεανοῦ replaces μέρεσι of the editions.

At the end of the 'Perse' the following Byzantine verses are added:

γῆν θαλασσῶν περσικωτάτῳ θράσει καὶ χωματῶν θάλασσαν ὡς φυσσῶν μέγα τοῖς ̓Αττικοῖς ἄθυρμα δείκνυται Ξέρξης.

The text of the 'Idylls' of Theocritus, which begins on f. 86r., is also accompanied by scanty marginal scholia, in many places illegible from damp. The interlinear interpretation is in red ink. The geographical poem of the Periegete Dionysius is also accompanied by such an interpretation, very scanty, and written in black ink. The commentary which accompanies the text of Hesiod's 'Works and Days,' which commences on f. 120r., is that of the well-known Byzantine

scholar Johannes Tzetzes.

I have now said what I wished to add by way of supplement to Prof. Mahaffy's interesting communication. The rest of my remarks I reserve for the publication of the catalogue of the manuscripts at Iviron.

SPYR. P. LAMBROS.

Literary Gossip.

MR. GOSSE contributes an article in the July number of the Fortnightly on Edward FitzGerald, the translator of Omar Khayyám.

MESSRS. BLACKWOOD will publish on the 25th inst. a novel in three volumes by the author of the tale 'Aut Diabolus, aut Nihil,' which, on its appearance in Blackwood's Magazine last year, caused considerable commotion in Paris. In the new story, 'Little Hand and Muckle Gold,' part of its plot is laid in Parisian society of the Second Empire, and many of its characters will be readily recognizable, while the scene is latterly shifted to England. The dénoûment is a terrible tragedy. The author believes he has struck out for himself a bolder course of treatment than contemporary English novelists usually affect. Versions of the novel in French and English are in course of being dramatized, and Madame Bernhardt proposes to sustain the chief part in the

former.

[blocks in formation]

of the British Shan States, by Mr. T. G. Scott ("Shway Yoe"). Mr. Seton Karr writes in the same number on 'The Indian Native Press,' and General McMahon on 'Karenin and the Red Karens.' The paper read by Sir Lepel Griffin before the Royal Colonial Institute on the native states of

India will also be published in extenso in the Review, of which he is now the sole proprietor.

Macmillan's Magazine for July will include win Smith. a paper on progress and war by Mr. Gold

THE forthcoming number of the National Review will contain an article by Mrs. Lynn Linton, entitled 'The Threatened Abdication of Man,' and also one by Col. Euan Smith, our Consul-General and Diplomatic Agent at Zanzibar, on 'The Situation in and off Zanzibar.'

THE Rev. T. E. Bridgett is putting finishing touches to 'The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth,' a work of research in which he had at first the assistance of the late Rev. T. F. Knox, of the London Oratory. Messrs. Burns & Oates will be the publishers. Besides using papers in the Record Office, Privy Council registers, and MSS. in the British Museum, the authors have had

access to a number of unpublished letters in the possession of the Marquis of Salisbury. MR. HAMILTON WOOD, son of the late Mr. Shakspere Wood, who was for many years Roman correspondent of the Times, has just been appointed Roman correspondent of the Tablet.

THE following are among the names mentioned for the Greek Chair at Glasgow: Mr. J. Adam, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Mr. Goodwin, Professor of Greek at University College, London; Prof. W. Ridgeway, of Queen's College, Cork; Dr. Sandys, of St. John's College, Cambridge; and Prof. Warr, of King's College, London. Mr. Arthur Sidgwick had not, when we were writing, decided on standing; nor had Dr. Gow, of Nottingham. Prof. Tyrrell, of Dublin, is also in the doubtful list. Mr. J. W. Mackail is, we believe, not a can

didate. THE possible candidates for the English

Chair at Glasgow are said to include Mr.

Thomas Bayne; Mr. D. Balsillie, author of The Ethic of Nature'; Prof. Dowden, of Dublin; Mr. M. W. MacCallum, Professor of English Literature at Sydney University (formerly at Aberystwith); Prof. Minto, of Aberdeen; and, it is rumoured, Mr. Saintsbury.

MR. DAVID HANNAY has undertaken to write a life of Rodney for Messrs. Macmillan

& Co.'s series of

"English Men of Action."

THE death is announced of Dr. Croma Professor of Biblical Criticism at St. drews.

For the fifth edition of his Barpt Lectures on 'Sunday,' which first came in 1860, Archdeacon Hessey has writer new preface, bringing down his accourt Sunday to 1889; and he has attached to an excursus on two important cuneif documents in the Museum which have bee held to indicate an acquaintance with t Mosaic Sabbath on the part of the Bar lonians. Messrs. Cassell are the publisher

LAST week the staff of the Journel

Débats gave a dinner in the Pavillon Lo XIV. to the editor, M. Georges Patinct, celebration of the centenary of the journa The company numbered upwards of si including several ladies. Among the pri cipal persons present were MM. Rens Say, Bapst, Weiss, Bardoux, Molinar Beaulieu, Charmes, Montebello, Lemaitrs and Reyer. MM. Renan and Bardoux A posed the toast of the evening, and M Patinot responded. As no reporters wer present the speakers gave full play to the feelings, but some brilliant speeches were lost to the public.

THE ninth volume of the "Gentleman's

Magazine Library," which Mr. Stock a graphical Notes, and will contain a clasi going to publish, will be entitled 'Biblic fication of the notes on books which appeared throughout the Gentleman's Magazine from 1731 to 1868.

THE New York Book-Lover, a monthly periodical, has decided to suspend publicabecoming an established custom with Ametion during the hot months. "It is rapidly ricans," says the Book-Lover, "to discard all kinds of hobbies during the summer

season."

In our first number for July, that of Saturday the 6th, we shall publish our usua articles on the literature of European cour tries during the preceding twelve months. Among them will be Belgium, by M. de Laveleye and Prof. Fredericq; Bohemia by M. Mourek; Denmark, by M. V. Peter sen; France, by M. J. Reinach; Germany,

by Hofrath Zimmermann; Holland, by Mis Van Campen; Italy, by Commendatore Bonghi; Norway, by M. H. Jaeger; Russi by M. Milyoukov; Spain, by Don Juan

Riaño; and Sweden, by Dr. Ahnfelt.

THE chief Parliamentary Papers of the week are Local Taxation, Scotland, Grants in Aid, Return (5d.); Tables showing Pregress of Merchant Shipping, 1888 (7 Pauperism, England and Wales, Monthly Comparative Statement (2d.); Patents, De signs, and Trade Marks Act, 1883, Sixth Report of the Comptroller-General (sd.) Trade and Navigation of the United King dom, Accounts for May, 1889 (8d.); and

MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co. will publish immediately Mr. Shuckburgh's translation of Polybius, which is the first translation into English of the complete works so far as National Education in Ireland, Fifty-fifth they are now known. For the five com- Report of the Commissioners (3d.).

plete books Mr. Shuckburgh has only sup

plied such short notes as seemed necessary the case of the fragments he has endeavoured to the understanding of the text. But in to indicate the part of the history to which they belong, and to connect them by brief references to those authors who supply the sketches of intermediate events, with full missing links.

SCIENCE

The Development of Marriage and Kinship. By

C. Staniland Wake. (Redway.) the perplexing question of the primitive THE last word has not yet been said on form and gradual development of sexua

lations in savage races. The literature the question is large, but the basis r scientific treatment of it is relatively nall. Until the method recommended and ursued by Dr. Tylor has been freely apLied, and the great and difficult work of etermining the value of the facts observed 3 units of comparison grappled with and vercome, this will continue to be so. It is misfortune for Mr. Wake that he has not ad the advantage of revising his work by Dr. Tylor's method, which has all the proLise of the future in regard to researches If the kind. The volume is, however, a losely reasoned argument complicated nd interesting subject,

on a

and will add to the

Reputation Mr. Wake has already earned by his writings on anthropology. Portions f it have, we think, already appeared in English and foreign scientific journals and ransactions, and this leads here and there to some repetition; but the work in its preLent form is consecutive and well arranged. at is easier reading than some earlier books on the same subject.

The evolution of social observances is not so simple a problem as that of the evolution of physical characters. It is complicated by the fact that the mind of man operates by way of repugnance to old customs leading to sudden and radical changes as well as

by gradual development of the new out of the old. This process has been freely used

by standard writers, who have conjectured a previous system of which the present system is the opposite, the supposed old system having been abandoned in disgust Cin favour of the new. Mr. Wake rejects mit altogether, and claims that the doctrine of evolution in its ordinary sense should be applied to the sexual relations of savage races, so as to ascertain the primitive form out of which that now existing in peoples of a low type was developed. If his method leads to a consistent working theory he is obviously in the right; for where everything must from the necessity of the case be based upon conjecture, that conjecture is to be preferred which follows the ordinary course of events and does not call in the aid of any disturbing cause to establish it. The conjecture which requires the fewest assumptions is the safest.

Mr. Wake deduces from the evidence of social conditions among the rudest tribes a "primitive law of marriage" which imposes on the sexual instinct, first, a social restraint, arising from the claim of parents or others to have an interest in, or a right to control, the conduct of the females belonging to their family group; and, second, a natural restraint, arising from the feeling that persons closely related by blood ought not to intermarry. Any sexual relation not opposed to these restraints was primitively regarded as right and proper. Such savage races as the Bosjesmans of South Africa, the Andaman Islanders, and the aborigines of Australia alike view with repugnance unions between persons closely related by blood. No recorded observation to the contrary relating to any savage people whatever is considered by Mr. Wake to be trustworthy. If this be so, he asks, why should a previous condition of absolute promiscuity be conjectured to have existed? Darwin long ago showed that it does not exist even among quadrupeds, and judged from ana

logy that it would not have prevailed among | monogamy and on Christian ideas relating man in primeval times, when he had only to marriage and celibacy. Several misprints doubtfully attained the rank of manhood. indicate that the author has not revised the Nothing in the present experience of mankind authorizes the view that it has passed through a stage of sexual promiscuity. To some branches of the argument for the

opposite conclusion we are disposed to attach more weight than our author gives them. The outbursts of unbridled and general licentiousness which mark certain periods and occasions among the savage

tribes of Australia might well be considered

to be survivals of some earlier practice; and there is evidence that what Mr. Wake calls

the natural restraint ceases to operate at

some of those times. The subject is one which cannot be discussed at length in these columns, nor is it capable of absolute proof;

but we are not writing without warrant.

A variation of the system of class marriages to which Mr. Wake devotes much attention is the "punaluan" marriage of the Sandwich Islanders. A punaluan family consists either of several brothers having their wives in common, or of several sisters having their husbands in common, with their offspring. When the terms "brother" and "sister" are extended to mean "tribal brother" and "tribal sister," and thus to include collaterals, the punaluan system becomes equivalent to the classificatory system. The transition from these to poly

andry on the one side and polygyny on the other is easy. The choice between the two

supply and demand. Mr.

is a question of Wake holds that the moving cause of polyandry is poverty; and he fails to see any connexion between it and the custom of the levirate, as directed in the Institutes of Manu and anciently practised among the Hebrews. Polygyny, on the other hand, is a consequence of wealth. From the community where polyandry or polygyny is practised to that where the group marriage entirely disappears and monandry takes its place is a short step, but a very important one. The group in the one case or the other has only to to be replaced by a single individual, as sooner or later it is sure to be, and monogamy becomes the rule.

The interesting fact that kinship among primitive races is very commonly traced through females has been often accounted for upon the cynical ground that maternal relationship at least is certain. Mr. Wake prefers the theory that where children are a valuable property the kindred of the woman will not willingly part with their right in her and her offspring. If her husband wishes her society, he must join her family or visit her in its habitation. The tracing of kinship through females does not necessarily preclude the acknowledgment of relationship with the father. It is some consideration of this kind which is probably the origin of the curious custom of the

couvade. Where, however, kinship is formally traced through him he must have acquired the right to transfer his wife and her future offspring to his own family either by purchase or by capture. Hence arises the connexion between the various forms of ceremonial and collusive capture, and the tracing of kinship through the male.

Mr. Wake concludes his study of these difficult, but interesting questions by a chapter on modern civilized systems of

proofs with his usual care.

DR. J. PERCY, F. R.S.

SCIENTIFIC metallurgy in this country has lost its most distinguished representative by the death of Dr. Percy, which occurred at his house in Bayswater last Wednesday morning. Born in 1817, the son of a Nottingham solicitor, John Percy was placed at an early age in the

medical school of the University of Edinburgh,

where he took his degree of M.D. at the age of twenty-one. At Edinburgh he was the pupil of Sir Charles Bell, and a fellow student with

While there he

Edward Forbes. Dr. Percy also studied in the medical schools of Paris, and while in France undertook a botanical tour in the Pyrenees. He established himself in practice in Birmingham, where he became physician to the Queen's Hospital. carried on some remarkable researches on the effect of alcohol in the animal economy, and conducted some curious In 1844 he comexperiments on monkeys. municated to the Zoological Society a paper 'On the Management of Monkeys in Confinement,' and the following year read before the British Association some 'Contributions to the Chemistry of Diabetes.' His residence in Birmingham led him to take much interest in the chemical principles involved in metallurgical operations; and when the Government School selected Percy for the post of Lecturerecha of Mines was established in 1851, De la Metallurgy, a position which he held for eight

and-twenty years.
medicine, he settled in
himself to scientific research, taking special
interest in the early development of photo-
graphy. His great object, however, seems to
have been the production of an exhaustive trea-

Abandoning the practice of
London, and devoted

tise on metallurgy; and after years spent in the accumulation of material, his first volume was given to the world in 1861. This dealt mainly with the subjects of fuel, copper, and zinc. It was followed in 1864 by a voluminous treatise on iron and steel, and in due course other volumes appeared, dealing more or less completely with lead, silver, and gold. But this great work-the worthy object of an active life-was destined to remain incomplete, and after his retirement from the Royal School of Mines in 1879 its completion became practically impossible. So widely, however, was its value recognized, that the successive volumes, as they appeared, were translated into both French and German. In 1877 the Iron and Steel Institute recognized Dr. Percy's services to metallurgy by the award of the Bessemer Medal; and only shortly before his death he held the presidency of this Institute, and, notwithstanding his failing health,

discharged the duties of the chair with characteristic ability. Up to the time of his death he was Superintendent of Ventilation in the Houses of Parliament, a position which gave him an extensive acquaintance among the members. Dr. Percy was not a traveller, but in London few figures were better known than his, not only in scientific, but in artistic circles. He was a man of great force of character and versatility of tastes; a writer in command of a vigorous and

pure style of English, whose letters, under the

signature "Y.," were for years well known in the Times; a lecturer of power and popularity; and a teacher deeply respected by his students. For more than a quarter of a century Dr. Percy practically directed all the metallurgical teaching in this country, and nearly every assayer of scientific reputation had passed through his laboratory. It is understood that he leaves behind him large collections of metallurgical specimens, objects of natural history, and works of art. What will become of them we do not know, but it may be considered certain that. they will not go to South Kensington.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »