Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/36

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NOTES -AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. JULY e, 1901.


Louis Philippe offered him a pension, which was declined. Mr. John Fyyie gives an account of

  • The Marriage of Mrs. Fitzherbert and George the

Fourth,' and calls for the publication of papers on the subject which are supposed still to exist. Lord Albemarle records that the king was buried with a portrait round his neck of the woman he had so long abandoned. The story is more interesting as well as more edifying than are most of the narratives of royal conquest, Mr. Herbert Paul's recollections of the late Bishop of London are entertaining. They contain, however, one nai've and rather embarrassing statement. "No bishop on the bench," says Mr. Paul, "was fonder of French novels." Are we then to accept, what seems implied, that French novels constitute an agreeable or ordinary pabulum of bishops? There are many good articles in the number, but most of them are political or otherwise controversial. The Poll Mall has as frontispiece a reproduction of Mr. Sargent's picture of the Misses Wertheimer which arrests attention in the year's Academy. The opening article consists of an account of ' Glasgow " the Second City," ' with numerous illustrations. Glas- gow has, says the writer, " the attributes of a great American city." This remark was made to us nearly half a century ago by an American who accompanied us there and preferred it to London. 'A Woman's Shopping' throws a light not wholly captivating or satisfactory upon some of " pretty Fanny's ways." A good account is given of James Stephens, the Fenian head-centre, who, it appears, barely escaped being shot by his own followers as " a rogue, an impostor, and a traitor." An excellent account of Stowe, once the seat of the Dukes of Buckingham, follows with many illustrations. Mr. Archer's ' Real Conversations ' are diminishing in interest. In the latest with Mr. George Moore Mr. Archer seems unable to keep his tongue out of his cheek. Like a song in ' Twelfth Night ' the conversation "is silly sooth." A readable paper is supplied on ' Opera in Germany and in England.' In the Cornhill the article of most interest is the ' Notes of an Octogenarian,' by Miss Louisa Cour- tenay. They deal with many people in whom the world still maintains a lively interest Lady Morgan, Madame d'Arblay, the Miss Berrys, Rogers, Sydney Smith, the Duke of Welling- ton, &c. Prof. Beeching is, we are positively told, though we doubted it not before, the author of 'Provincial Letters,' the latest of which deals with Lincoln. He is a writer it is always pleasant to meet, though we shall always see either obtuse- ness or want of invention in taking and maintain- ing a title such as Urbanus Sylvan. What is said about Hugh of Lincoln (the little Christian we mean) still "gives" us "pause." Mr. Fitchett's ' Tale of the Great Mutiny ' remains as stirring as ever. Its pictures are particularly lifelike. Mr. Ernest Myers writes 9n 'Alfred of England.' 'A Londoner's Log-book' is agreeably continued. -' A Surrey Pepys ' in the Gentleman's is a certain Thomas Turner, a diarist who, more than a hundred years later than Pepys, left a candid avowal of his misdeeds. Mr. Philip Kent, who writes on ' Some Vulgar Errors,' falls himself into one or two very uncommon errors, as when he substitutes floating "on her watery hearse "for Milton's "float upon her watery bier." It may be doubted whether many of the errors to which this later Sir Thomas Browne refers are still maintained. Does anybody now think that the young bear has to be licked


into shape by its mother ? Miss Georgiana Hill gives another of her historical studies. Mr. Almy depicts

  • The Coleridge Country.' Mr. Lang is still at his

best in Longman's, and in his ' At the Sign of the Ship ' has a lively disputation with Prof. Beeching. What Mr. Lang has to say on the substitution of philology for literature is painfully true, and has an application wider than he cares to make. On crystal-gazing and other subjects he is no less excellent. ' The Disappearance of Plants ' opens out a sad question. The woman who goes with a trowel and a basket to spots of natural beauty in order to uproot rare ferns and flowers is almost as much of a pirate as the ordinary naturalist who, in order to classify or possess specimens of birds and butterflies, compasses their extinction; and this brings us to bewail the appearance in Longman's of an article such as 'The Amateur Poacher.' Mr. Walter Pollock's ghost story is very striking. In addition to many lighter articles the Idler has ' Walks and Talks with Tolstoy,' which are very interesting, a good description of * Beauty Spots in the Tyrol,' and an account, of ' Great Achievements in Bridge Building.' Scribner's, which arrives top late for full notice, has a read- able ' Tour in Sicily,' ' Passages from a Diary in the Pacific,' 'The Delta Country of Alaska' (all admirably illustrated), and an account of Matthew Arnold.

THE cheap summer guides are beginning to come in. One of the first in the field is Mr. Percy Lindley's ' Holidays in Eastern Counties,' which is agreeably written and illustrated, and leads the traveller to many unfamiliar spots. Milgate's interesting guide to Reculver, giving much useful information at a very cheap price, reaches us from Herne Bay.


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