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NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. v. FEB. 10, woo.
antiquarian features of the society, and expressed
the hope that the younger members would be
induced to conduct rambles. The Record is care-
fully edited by Mr. J. Stanley and Mr. W. F.
Harradence, and is well illustrated, thanks to the
kindness of the proprietors of the Illustrated Newt,
Graphic, Sketch, Penny Illustrated, and others. The
illustrations include Sutton Place, Knole, North-
cote, Waverley, Oxford, and Eltham.
Lambkin's Remains, by H. B., is a booklet pub- lished by the proprietors of the /. G. J?. at Ox- ford, these latter initials representing a short-lived periodical of the butterfly sort which is bright for a season. H. B. is a versatile person, part author of a successful child's book, and wholly responsible for an historical study recently crowned by the Academy, and his present fooling is not amiss, though some of it might be improved. Mr. Lambkin represents the pompous pedagogue who has studied enough Pater to be an in- effectual angel, enough philosophy to be conceited, and enough modern journalism to advertise him- self. The essay on success contains a misquotation from Tennyson, which is careless. The tone of superiority suggested as characteristic of Oxford has, possibly, some justification.
THE January number of the Reliquary is a very good one. All the papers in it are full of interest, and it fully keeps up its reputation as the leading an- tiquarian magazine of the day. The article on ' Old Bed- Waggons,' by Mr. R. Quick, is, so far as we are aware, the only instance in which these now almost forgotten household objects have ever been de- scribed. It would be interesting to know whether any have been found in the north or north-east parts of England. What was the usual practice of airing a bed before the invention of the warming- pan in the northern counties ? W T arming-pans were certainly known in the early part of the seven- teenth century, and probably long before. There is a custom which yet obtains in the eastern part of England, and may have been in general use all over the country: bricks heated to such a point that they just escape setting fire to their covering are placed in the centre of a bed, after being wrapped in flannel, and then the bed, mattress, and pillows are piled round them in the manner shown by Mr. Quick in the illustration No. 6. An account of the ' Biddenden Maids,' by Mr. G. Clinch, is of interest. Has its author consulted the wills in the Bishops' Registry at Canterbury? If it exists at all, most likely the will he is anxious to find is there.
Now that we are in a state of war it is not sur prising to find more political articles than usual in the Edinburgh. ' The English Radicals,' a review of a recent book, is as purely historical as if it were devoted to a sketch of the Athenian democracy. The subject is surrounded with difficulty, for in this country, except for very short periods, the Radicals have never formed a distinct party, such as the Whigs and Tories, Liberals and Conservatives Some of the most prominent of those whose names occur to us when we think of the older forms o Radicalism Price, Priestley, Shelley, and the eldei Mill are examples never sat in Parliament. I may be noted also that those of what we may cal the middle time, who helped to force a reluctan. Government to repeal the corn laws, differed verj widely from their predecessors of the French revo
utionary era. 'James Russell Lowell ' is an appre-
iative paper, so far as the man himself is concerned,
ait the writer does not estimate his literary work
,t its full value. The conditions in which litera-
ure is produced alike in verse and prose differ
widely in America and in this country, and the
ontrast was stronger during Lowell's productive
>eriod than it is now. For this sufficient allowance
las not been made. The paper on Millais is, in a
ense, exhaustive. It assuredly does not err in the
lirection of indiscriminate praise. There is in it a
-ein of censure or at least depreciation which,
hough not entirely undeserved, has sometimes
alien on wrong objects. We cannot, for example,
accept what is said of the landscapes without large
leduction ; to affirm, too, that poetry and vul-
garity for we can only name them so often fought
and joined hands together in the same picture " is
a statement wherein few will follow the writer,
le admits that in 'The Vale of Rest' poetry
)redominates, but even there in the chapel and
he sky "a touch of theatricality" is detected.
We hope his taste will improve. ' The Peasants'
Rising of 1381 ' is a valuable essay. We are glad to
ind that the writer's researches have not led him
jO take that too favourable view of John of Gaunt
vhich has found credence with some, mainly, as it
vould appear, because he was a patron of Wyclif.
That he was so does not admit of doubt ; but in
his, as in so much else, it is not unfair to assume
hat the strong self-confident man was playing a
political game. 'A Side Scene of Thought' well
repays reading, but when the end is reached few
will have a distinct idea of what the writer pro-
poses perhaps only a suggestion that more may
DC happening in this complex universe than has
oeen commonly admitted by modern scientists.
Limited, however, as the vision of many of them
may be, we prefer their state to that of poor
Dr. Dee, concerning whose sordid experiences we
have an instructive account. ' Copyright ' is a
proverbially difficult subject. It is here made as
plain as its complex nature will admit of. The
dream of some of us is of a land where copy-
rights never run out. That state of blessedness
has already been arrived at in Mexico.
THE WILD GARDEN' in the Quarterly is a delightful essay which should be pondered over by every one who possesses a plot of ground to cultivate for pleasure. Mere fashion has done much to deprave our taste in all directions. Our gardens have probably suffered more from its perversity than anything else we possess except our old churches. Is the writer quite correct in his surmise that except in monasteries the garden, in the modern sense, did not emerge before the time of the Tudors ? Long before that there was a garden at Berkeley Castle. We cannot believe that it was entirely devoted to potherbs. The Puritan feeling which dominated so much of the life of England in the seventeenth century, though opposed to beauty in so many forms, took kindly to flowers. Much of the pattern-work of to-day is irritating beyond measure, seeming, indeed, as if it were founded on the desire of producing the least amount of beauty with the largest expenditure of trouble. The violent contrasts of colour, almost entirely without neutral tints to relieve them, are in some cases absolutely as physically painful as they are offensive to the higher instincts. There is a very pleasant paper on 'The Sentiment of Thackeray,' which
