176
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vm. AUG. 24, 1901.
latecl into a foreign tongue, a Spanish translat
dating apparently from the very beginning of
fifteenth century, being accessible, and a Portugi
version, not now to be found, having been execul
with records of incest, Biblical, classical, o
romantic. A useful feature of the present edition
suggested by Dr. Furnivall, consists of a shor
summary of such of the one hundred and fourtee
stories as are not too familiar to need any form
of analysis or explanation. What is known as th
Fairfax MS. has been used by Mr. Macaulay, wh
in the course of his labours has become increasing!
convinced of the value and authenticity of the text
From the introduction we learn that the ' Confessi
Amantis' was the first English book to be trans
lated into a foreign tongue, a Spanish translation
inning of th '. a Portugues been executed
A critical estimate of the poetic merits of the poen is good, and the passages quoted are the best to b selected. The circumstances under which the poen was written at the command of King Richard II. and those under which the dedications were alteret and the complimentary allusions to Chaucer wer omitted, are told. Chaucer seems, indeed, to hav changed his views as to the " morality," using the term in its conventional sense, of the ' Confessi Amantis,' and even to have reflected upon th. author. The orthography, phonology, arid inflexion are treated separately ; a treatise on the metre follows, and the differences (in some cases suffi ciently great) of the forty or so MSS. are explained. Other particulars, including an account of the Spanish translation, are given. The notes are few and useful, and the glossary is ample and satis- factory. Readers are to be congratulated on the approaching completion of an important and a well- executed task. Occleve, whose literary baggage is not extensive, and Lydgate, whose ' Fall of Princes ' and ' Troy Book ' have strong philological interest and are not without other claims on attention, may be commended to the consideration of the Claren- don Press. Lydgate especially uses characteristic words to be found in no other writer.
THE first article in the present issue of the Quar- terly Review relates to Eastern North Africa. ' Negro Nileland and Uganda,' as the article is called, is an eminently picturesque description of those vast regions the greater part of which is under English influence. There is hardly anything therein directly relating to politics, but it sets before the reader, in a manner we have never met with before, the great possibilities of the country and its extreme interest for those who study nature in any of her various forms. To the anthropologist the account of the dwarf races of the south-western limits of the Nile watershed will be of much interest. When the blood has remained unmixed the race appears to represent a very ancient type. It would be rash to affirm that these little men are the most archaic examples of the human race now known to be in existence, but there is not a little to be said in favour of those who hold this opinion. The classical writers had evidently heard in some way or other of these small people, and the tradition of them did not die out, for we find them in medieval romance. Hang- ings adorned with pigmies are mentioned some- times in inventories, and there was in Lincoln Cathedral, before the pillage, a box, silver covered on which were represented "a man and a woman called pigmies." The endeavour to ascertain the exact aate of Dante's pilgrimage to that world which is not ours is by no means light reading, but it is of a high degree of interest. Appearing where
it does, we do not think it was needful to imply
that the subject might be regarded as "trivial and
unimportant." The question in debate is, Was the
year selected by Dante 1300 or 1301 ? The latter is,
to our thinking, the more probable, but certainty
has not yet been arrived at. The paper contains
much curious learning, and the account of the
various dates on which the year has been reckoned
to begin in Christian times will be of service to
some who take little interest in the great Floren-
tine. There are but few matters in which people
have shown a greater capacity for blundering. The
result has been a large crop of chronological mis-
takes. 'The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell' is
well-intentioned, and is written by one excellently
posted up in the annals of the time. It must do
good, as helping to mitigate that excessive hero-
worship which in all cases tends to produce an
equally imbecile reaction. The writer goes cer-
tainly too far when he says that " the story of the
major-generals is an unsolved riddle." Whether
their creation was a blunder or a necessity we will
not discuss. Those, however, who hold the former
opinion do not for the most part realize the extreme
danger in which the country was involved and the
necessity for prompt action. ' Society Croakers' is
one of those light and entertaining papers for which
the Quarterly has for some time been famous. It
gives a picture, in some ways not too favourable,
of the world of seventy years ago. For 'New
Lights on Milton ' we have little but praise,
but we are compelled to say that we regard both
the influence and the intrinsic merit of Milton's
prose works as much undervalued. Novel-readers,
and still more novel-writers, should ponder seriously
3ver ' The Popular Novel.' It is unwontedly severe ;
3ut on such a subject, if any good is to be done,
there must be hard hitting.
We must call special attention to the following
wtices :
ON all communications must be written the name
and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub-
'ication, but as a guarantee of good faith.
WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.
To secure insertion of communications corre-
pondents must observe the following rules. Let
each note, query, or reply be written on a separate
lip of paper, with the signature of the writer and
uch address as he wishes to appear. When answer-
ng queries, or making notes with regard to previous
ntnes in the paper, contributors are requested to
>ut in parentheses, immediately after the exact
eading, the series, volume, and page or pages to
finch they refer. Correspondents who repeat
ueries are requested to head the second com-
mnication " Duplicate."
G. K. A. BELL (" The hand that rocks the cradle ules the world ").- William Ross Wallace, an L .merican. See 9 th S. ii. 358, 458.
NOTICE.
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