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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 . xn. OCT. 9, 1915.
Jacob Grimm. An Address delivered at the Annual
Meeting of the Philological Society, 7 May,
1915, by William Paton Ker. (Oxford Uni-
versity Press, I*.)
PERHAPS, half a generation hence, some German may come across this address and feel gratitude to the Englishman who could deliver it in 1915 gratitude, not only for the sane and kindly acknow- j ledgment of indebtedness to a German, but also, | and yet more, tor the appeal, across a time of nightmare, to that Germany land of Mdrchen and of patient industry to which middle-aged people look back as a fact of the world of childhood.
Dr. Paton Ker gets deftly into a few pages a full and satisfactory portrait of this hero among philologists, showing his range, his achievement, the mingling in his temperament of stubborn patience and power of endurance with enthusiasm and sentiment, and his straightforward view of obligation in public conduct.
The comparison between him and Wordsworth is apt and instructive, and when the time comes for reflection upon the relation of the present war, and the dispositions it has revealed, to public education, it may well be that some one will profitably recall to men's memories what these both thought of Schidweisheit.
.As an address at the Annual Meeting of the Philological Society it appears timely and pleasant.
A Short Guide-book to Manchester Cathedral. (Sherratt & Hughes, 3d.)
W r E have here a workmanlike little guide which lacks, however, one thing we should have thought essential a ground plan ot the Cathedral. This would have been the more instructive because, with its chantries north and south converted into aisles, the great church has an imposing vista of pillars. Manchester as a See dates but from 1847, and the Collegiate Church, now its Cathedral, by comparison with the older sees, has, perhaps, attracted less attention from the world in gereral than it deserves. It has many most beautiful features, and even one or two details that are unique, and its history reaches back clear to the fifteenth century, with, as it were, misty and shifting Early English and Saxon fabrics behind. The old church with the College founded by Thomas He la Warre, Rector of Man- chester, who, through a failure of the direct male line, became Lord de la Warre, unites in its dedication "the glorious Virgin" and the patron saints of France and England ; and the Cathedral retains this, recording also in its reredos the changed dedication of the College, which under Elizabeth was made " the College of Christ." The great bulk of the Cathedral is fifteenth- cent ui-y work which the restoration of 1882 was not suffered to impair. As a succinct account of it this little work may be commended.
MR. JOSEPH CONRAD'S latest book and ' George Borrow ' are the subjects of the two literary articles in this month's Fortnightly. The latter, by Mr. Augustus Ralli though it leaves out a good deal of Borrow's work is a piece of sound and penetrative criticism, which may really add something to the reader's apprehension of Borrow
clearness and precision, it not, as in many cases 5
it also will, fresh information. We noted a
particularly happy explanation of Sorrow's
effectiveness in the remark that his books,
" although literal records, are touched with a
retrospective enchantment." Mr. Richard Curie r
on the other hand, in the former, gives us a kind
of criticism we feel constrained to deprecate as
exaggerated, and so to put it wasteful. A
pomp of laudation is of no service to the author-
to whom it is offered, and greatly as we ourselves
admire some of Mr. Joseph Conrad's work, it is
hardly of an importance to warrant as much
length and seriousness in the analysis of its merits-
as would suffice for the study of a Shakespearian
tragedy. Mr. Curie says that at the climax of
' Victory ' " the whole thing reaches a height ofr
gloomy power hardly overmatched in ' Lear ' itself.""
W 7 e noted, however, one good suggestion of
rather wider application than the writer here
gives it : " His genius is of a kind to regard
equally the negative and the positive aims of
art." 'Vignettes from the Italian Front,' by
Magdeleine ver Mehr rather confused, a little
wanting in " grip " include some good observa-
tions and episodes. She notes the " typical' 1
soldier expression." " Curiously enough, it is
care-free ; the healthy open-air life, the manual
labour, the lack of personal responsibility, bring
back to the men's eyes the clear insouciant look
of childhood." Mr. James Milne's ' The Soldier
in his Letters ' has a subject and the requisite
material therein of profound interest. These
are the letters, not of the New Army, but of Mr-
Thomas Atkins. We have already taken off our
hat to him on many great occasions, and it is in
praise of these notes that we say that they bring
us what is infinitely welcome, but by no means
new. Of the articles dealing with military and
political affairs we would mention as deserving,
of particular consideration Signer Ezio Gray's
concise but important paper entitled ' Italy in
the Clutches of Germany,' and the double
article headed ' Aspects of Teutonism,' by Mr-
A. W. G. Randall (' The German God ') and Mr;
A. E. P. B. Weigall (' German Logic and its
Results '). A good number.
OF the fifteen papers composing The Nineteenth Century for October, two are ot literary interest, the rest are military and political with direct reference to the Great War. Prof. Dicey writes about Wordsworth and the French Revolu- tion : a very welcome paper, for, in the recon- struction of the world which must come with peace, there are few 1 great men whose outlook* and judgment can be of greater help than Words.- worth's. Prof. Dicey might even have been more explicit than he is upon the peculiar and won- derful reaction both of his genius as a poet and his native common sense to the stress of national tumult and upheaval. The ultimate secret of Wordsworth's power is perhaps not grasped until his whole work is seen in its relation to political hope and insecurity. Arundel' del Re contributes- an essay on ' The Poetry of Gabriele d'Annunzio,' prolix, rather, and not very happy, but worth attending to because of the subject. The paper following it, Mr. A. P.- Sihnett's ' Our Unseen. Enemies and Allies,' is likely to be read with some eagerness. There is a great a,bundance of state- ment in it for which no evidence is supplied,, nor yet line of argument set forth.. Bishop
