26
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 a. vi. JAN., 1920.
COORG STATE : STBANGE TALE OF A
PRINCESS (12 S. v. 264, 296). I am very
much obliged to LADY RUSSELL for giving
the correct story, fuller details of which will
be found in " Lady Login's Recollections,"
which I published in October, 1916 (Smith,
Elder & Co., now merged in Mr. John
Murray, Albemarle Street). My cousin,
Mrs. Gardley, is still in existence, and has a
son to follow her ! I remember my uncle,
Colonel John Campbell, well, and all the
- distress in the family at his disappearance, and the details of it, though only a child at the time.
1 The India Office, which has a library and archives, could have informed any inquirer that the Princess's daughter still draws her pension ! We were brought up together by my mother, and I was her chief bridesmaid at her wedding. E. DALHOUSEE LOGIN. Wissett Grange, Halesworth.
CHARLES LAMB AT THE EAST INDIA HOUSE (12 S. v. 287). Jacob Bosanquet was first appointed a director of the East India House on Aug. 22, 1782, and was still
- acting in that capacity on Lamb's retire- ment, in 1825. The other names mentioned
- in the Essay are fictitious. My authority for the statement is The East India Directory for 1826. S. BUTTERWORTH.
0n
A Day-Book of Landor. Chosen by John Bailey
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2*. net.) FEW enthusiasts, we think, would be so wedded to the products of a single author as to wish to read a selection from him every day in the year. But a " Day-Book " offers a convenient form for ample quotations, and a spice of variety, when, as in Landor's case, the writer is distinguished alike in verse and prose. Landor, too, is somewhat outside the ordinary run of authors and not commonly thumbed by the average reader. Yet he is excellent reading, and his prediction " I shall dine late ; but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select," has long since, we think, been verified among judicious tasters of English. We thank Mr. Bailey, who is well known as a critic of English poetry, for giving us the oppor- tunity to revive our pleasure in a master of letters. He says that Landor has been very fortunate in his editors and critics. The "Golden Treasury" volume is, indeed, admirable, and the ' Imaginary Conversations ' have long since been made accessible to readers of slender purses e.g., in the " Scott Library." But there is still no one volume edition cf the poems such as we hope to see published with an account of Landor's frequent revisions. Mr. Bailey remarks that he himself made a distinction between "poetry" which "was always my amuse- ' meut," and "prose my study and business." But
a man is often happier in his diversions than in his
set task, and, if Landor's prose naturally occupies
the larger share in any selection, we cannot do
without the verse also. The Latin poems, which
rank high in that form of scholarly recreation, are
not likely to attract the present unclassical age, nor
has the long poem of 'Gebir' a host of readers to-
day. But the brief epigrams, reminding us of the
gems of the Palatine Anthology, are surely im-
mortal. We do not call them " the work of a very
nobly-gifted amateur in poetry." We call them
successes of the first rank fit to be compared with
the best things that professionals have done in that
line. There may be not so much merit in a
quatrain as there is in a longer poem, but, if it is
perfect in its way, who wants a cameo to be a bust
or a statue ? Having made this protest, we readily
assent to all Mr. Bailey's acute judgments of
Landor's prose. Often it represents Landor speak-
ing, though the voice is another's ; but so noble a
voice deserves an "easy access to the hearer's
grace."
The really odd contrast is that between the serenity of Landor's writing, and the abrupt violence of his behaviour, which Dickens took for his Mr. Boythorn in ' Bleak House.' If Landor's ' mind was too statuesque for drama," his way of bursting out in actual life was very different. His sympathies were warm, and warmly exhibited, and his taste in authors was occasionally odd. It seems pure perversity for any poet to dislike Plato and to applaud the wisdom and genius of Cicero, who was not in the least original or impassioned, and without his model style would have sunk into deserved neglect. Landor's tribute to Shakespeare pleases us much better, but he was as Mr. Bailey happily remarks, "much more like Milton."
The range of the 'Imaginary Conversatioi^' is surprisingly wide, and without going deep into the speculation which worries many a modern soul, they are full of sound lessons in art and experience of life. In remarking that " authors should never be seen by authors, and little by other people " Landor is echoing the wisdom of Johnson. We are reminded, as we look through the little book, of many sayings that are not new to the world of letters ; but Landor had no need to wish those away who anticipated or followed him in a parti- cular thought. In his life he avoided all competi- tions ; he need not have done so, for his style of writing clear, monumental, dignified satisfies the most rigorous judges, and he can say more in a sentence than most critics. Witness the remark he gives to Person about Spenser. "There is scarcely a poet of the same eminence, whom I have found so delightful to read in, or so tedious to read through."
The edition we notice has a paper cover : that in cloth would, we think, be preferable.
Ireland in Fiction. By Stephen J. Brown, S.J. (Maunsel & Co., Ltd., 10s. 6d. net.)
WHEN the first edition of ' Ireland in Fiction ' was destroyed by fire in 1916, those fortunate possessors of the few copies which survived the catastrophe were able to forge ahead in their studies of Irish life as seen through the coloured glasses of a novelist's spectacles. Those students, however, who were less lucky, have now in their hands a second edition of this useful compilation, in which much new material has been incor- porated. The volume before us is something
