Barwick does not attempt to deal
who have freely laid
open their libraries lived with the bookseller Herringham with the latter years of the century, and
to students.
who have freely laid
open their libraries lived with the bookseller Herringham with the latter years of the century, and
to students.
Athenaeum - London - 1912a
Now at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, the science of history of the Middle Ages, and the author's gestion, the effect of which, if it is occa-
a part charity played in the mental life distant and visionary avenues of sug-
stage. We had amassed observations, but exuberant optimism has for once carried sionally enigmatic and enforces a pause,
we had not been able to correlate them or him over the line of scientific statement. is singularly arresting. The lines them-
to draw definite conclusions from them. ” The frequent quotations from Maeterlinck selves are packed with substance, and
are a source of irritation to the reader-are a kind of heavy armour containing
To York Powell, as to Prof. Robinson
and all students of the “ New History,
an altogether unnecessary irritation in a profound and intricate thought.
volume of historical essays.
the labours of Lyell and Darwin gave a
The results are not always felicitous.
key, long sought. With the flood of light The book, if it breaks fresh
We can see the machining process that
let in by scientific workers in biology, ground for English students of the lies behind the final evolution—the effort
anthropology, and geology, history is * New History," is eminently readable, that sets it in motion. Though the devo
steadily but surely coming into its own, thus satisfying the claim we make above, tion and the feeling that go to its making
and not, as heretofore, regarded as the it treats freshly a subject of the first are of the tensest, the craftsmanship
now
sport of political and theological partisans. importance, and it is of value as a mark is an irregular ebb and flow,
When, however, York Powell stated that of American progress. In fact, it is the surging into triumph, now limping along
style has nothing to do with history, kind of book to wake up our historical in tortuous, dissonant, and cumbrous
he made a grievous error. It has specialists at home to the deplorable rhythms. Mr. Galsworthy's poetry is less
everything to do with it, if history is state of things in our elementary and of a sublime discovery and revelation
meant to be read. The most valuable public schools in the matter of the teaching than a slow and somewhat painful “ ex-
researches, couched in the language of of history and the methods of the historian. foliation ” of a reflective temper into
the specialist who cannot write, are likely
poetic forms. We quote, as is only fair,
to remain infructuous for all but deter-
an example of the fusion of form and
mined students, and finally to be rewritten
matter into a resonant harmony, which
by somebody who has, perhaps, less
is rarer than we could wish :-
discrimination. Why should not
a Moods, Songs, and Doggerels. By John Then, as I choked and manned my soul
popular audience” read history ? The
Galsworthy. (Heinemann. )
For death, two stars came flying low,
fact that it is made unreadable is a
As might some disembodied owl,
Circling unsighted, but for glow
disgrace to learning. If Darwin had had MR. GALSWORTHY, in producing a volume Of its twin yellow eyes ; then all
the brilliant style of Huxley, he would of poems, some of them reprinted from
The owlish stars came clustering near ;
not have been less sound, and would have various periodicals and magazines, may
And from its horrid grandeur tall
That gallows-yew bent down to hear.
won appreciation much earlier. If clear have wandered into a bypath of author-
writing is an art rather than a science, ship, but certainly not for the purpose of Nothing could be more alien to his lofti-
it is an art every one should practise " warbling his Doric lay” in easeful ness, austerity, and not infrequent arid-
Some great men have deliberately made dolce far niente, as his title might wellness of expression, than the pellucid
themselves difficult to understand, but suggest. It is merely that the peculiar cadences and tremulous fluidity of Mr.
they are not the greater for that. Is it spirit which has stamped an indelible mark W. H. Davies. Mr. Galsworthy lacks
a sin to be elegant and amusing as well upon contemporary letters has migrated the almost insolent lyrical carelessness
as instructive? We hope not. Writers intact into a different medium of self- of success which is the blossom of a
with these characteristics are always realization; so that, in scanning these consummate art. Endeavour is the pre-
suspected, but they do better service to thoughtful and earnest poems, we have vailing note of his poetry. As a con-
learning than the composers of unreadable not to analyze the quality of Mr. Gals- sequence of the most intense mental
monographs. We have emphasized this worthy's outlook and mind, but to groping, analogies, phrases, and images
point more than once, regretting that measure exactly how fruitfully he has come crowding into his net in unruly
Science, the great bringer of light to-day, acclimatized himself to his new mode of masses, not obedient to his beck, but
should have so many followers who are self - expression.
self - expression. If Mr. Cunninghame capriciously, suddenly, and now empty-
experts in tedium and obscurity.
Graham is the aristocrat of modern handed, now heavy-laden with gifts. The
Prof. Harvey Robinson makes great pudder of a world,” and Mr. Shaw its is a more adaptable instrument to the
literature, treading disdainfully
this more roomy, expansive character of prose
play over some of the mistakes of the
masters of the Old History and the
Puritan Mephistopheles, SO Mr. Gals-
purpose
errors in popular text-books. With a worthy, in equal aloofness, is its Hamlet-master of many moods. For that he is too
sharp pen and a critical faculty keenly grave, melancholy, and questioning- ruminative, too serious, too consciously
alert, he takes The Fall of Rome, for haunted by the riddle which baffles affected by the high office of his muse,
instance, as our school manuals deal with him, but which impels him, willy-nilly, Moodiness is too strong a word, but some-
it, and pricks one monstrous bubble of to wrestle with it. With this intro- thing akin to that informs much of his
error. A judicial eye for the value of spectiveness and its concomitant liabili- spirit, seldom oscillating, except to sway
evidence, à light touch in the summing- ties his verse is charged and impreg- into elegiac retrospectiveness or broaden
up, and a complete freedom from the nated, so much so that we are forced to into a more universal and capacious
pedantic follies which are apt to encrust scrutinize his achievement from the sub- solemnity.
the university professor's mind, give Mr. jective angle rather than from that of
We offer these criticisms in no un-
Robinson a great advantage in pre-
poetic creativeness.
kindly feeling towards these impressive
senting his case. With all his scholarship Mr. Galsworthy is the warrior, the poems, but as the outcome of a genuine
and wide reading there is an ample human psychologist, the pitiful explorer of life, regard for Mr. Galsworthy's work in
sympathy and understanding, so that he rather than the poet. Indeed, there all the departments of literature he
writes easily and well on his subject, and is more actual poetic abandon in his has enriched. His broad and tolerant
the Essays are within the range of the prose than in his poetry. In spite of a humanity, his deep sympathy, the subtlety
average reader. There are some state-curiously static and architectural quality and keenness of his insight, his force and
ments that cannot yet be accepted as in the design and structure of the verse, penetration, have been equalled by but
settled fact, and the Professor, it seems as persistent in the short as in the long few of the men of letters of our day,
to us, hardly does full justice to the poems, it is not, as a whole, a unified and whatever channel of expression they have
Middle Ages. To compare “ the unthink- delicately woven fabric. We are selected. Neither his verse nor his prose
ing charity of the Middle Ages” with stantly brought up sharp on the reflec- is to be counted ephemeral. It is in no
"the organized social work of to-day,' tion that too onerous a burden is laid spirit of paradox that we suggest that the
to the disadvantage of the former, will not l upon the metrical body of the verse for former would gain by a more prolific use
con-
## p. 432 (#324) ############################################
432
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 1408, APRIL 20, 1912
In no
a
of the graceful slightness of his 'Land |tion of it, and the main factor, for good many early editions, even of the Bible, it
Song of the West Country:-
or evil, in the development of the is impossible to be sure whether any
There's many a drop of tender rain
character of our race, from the intro- particular copy is complete or no. The
As we go jogging, jogging on,
duction of Christianity among our Anglo- 1577 Geneva New Testament is such a
And many a while that's fine again. Saxon forefathers to the present day. case. Even Mr. Fry, the greatest authority
There's many a dip and many a rise,
And many a smile of friendly eyes.
It is not our intention to pursue the train on English Bibles and a lifelong collector,
There's many a scent and many a tune, of thought these considerations awake; was deceived in thinking he had a perfect
And over all the little moon,
but even considered merely as a printed copy, for in reality two “ signatures”
As we go jogging on.
book, the Holy Scripture holds pride of were missing. The Kalmuck versions of
Or take the tender and whimsical lines place. From the time of Coverdale to the 1820 (? ) seem to be imperfect, and pro-
To My Dog':-
present, the output of Bibles has been one bably some other Oriental editions are
My dear, when I leave you
of the mainstays of the printing trade in the same condition. Apart from un-
I always drop a bit of me-
This Catalogue describes a thousand edi- avoidable deficiencies of this kind, for
A holy glove or sainted shoe
Your wistful corse I leave it to,
tions of the Scriptures in English before which every student must be prepared,
For all your soul has gone to see
the nineteenth century, answering to an the editors are to be warmly congratulated
How I could have the stony heart
output of four or five million copies. on one of the most accurate, as well as the
So to abandon you.
During that century the Bible Society most valuable, annotated bibliographies
My dear, when you leave me
alone circulated over seventy-five million ever produced,
You drop no glove, no sainted shoe ;
copies, while the output from other
And yet you know that humans be
Modern bibliography has long emerged
Mere blocks of dull monstrosity
presses, British and American, was pro- from the rhapsodical stage, in which one
Whose spirits cannot follow you
bably equally great.
other described one's feelings at a sight of the
When you ’re away, with all their hearts,
As yours can follow me.
language has there been the slightest book, gave a few personal anecdotes of its
approximation to such
circulation, noble owner, praised the binding, and
My dear, since we must leave
(One sorry day), I you, you me;
though several European countries pos- finally gave the number of pages-often
I'll learn your wistful way to grieve; sessed printed translations of the Bible inaccurately. A bibliographer now aims
Then through the ages we 'll retrieve long before Tyndale's time, and the issue either at noting the existence of a book
Each other's scent and company;
And longing shall not pull my heart-
of new ones has never altogether ceased.
or its presence in a particular library, at
As now you pull my sleeve ! But the great growth of Bible translation indicating the contents for the benefit
The spell of these verses and the quick is due to British initiative, and coincides of students and readers, or giving such
stab of their appeal penetrate where more
The information about it as may enable others
ambitious raptures cannot reach.
Catalogue before us describes trans to ascertain whether a copy is complete
lations of the Scriptures into nearly four and perfect, and whether it belongs to
hundred distinct languages, in addition the same issue. The necessity for an
to three hundred distinct dialects—the elaborate description increases with the
ABOUT BIBLIOGRAPHY.
greater proportion of them made in the age of a book, such a description being
nineteenth century by missionaries who indispensable for those printed in the
THE first volume of Messrs. Darlow and were British or of British race.
first three decades of typography.
Moule's monumental work Bibles The Bible House Library was founded Incunabula have now a great and in-
appeared in the centenary year of the in 1804, and is now, with the possible creasing commercial value. Any one of
British and Foreign Bible Society ; its exception of that in the British Museum, the the thirty thousand fifteenth-century books
completion closes the tercentenary com- largest collection of printed copies of the is worth, when clean and perfect, a sum
memoration of our Authorized Version. Scriptures in existence. In these circum- between two and a thousand pounds,
Its subject and the way in which it has stances the compilers, when entrusted according to age, subject, and rarity.
been compiled alike justify us in placing with the task of producing an historic The issue, therefore, of a complete biblio-
it among the most important pieces of catalogue of the library, wisely deter-graphy of the British Museum incunabula
bibliography of the day. The Bible is mined on making an annotated biblio- is amply justified on that account alone,
not only the chief book in English lite-graphy, embracing not only the books though students of this history of culture
rature, not even approached in importance before them, but also all other important will be more interested in the light it
by any other, but also the very founda- editions of which copies could be examined throws on the comparative civilization and
and described. The first volume, pub- literary requirements of the age, or even
Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions lished in 1903, dealt with 1,400 editions in the methods of book-production which
of Holy Scripture in the Library of the of the English Bible, and has already can be deduced from it. In a full
piled by T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule. taken rank as the standard work on the collation of an early printed volume a
2 vols. 4 parts. (Bible House. )
subject. The second, issued in three parts paragraph is devoted to a summary of the
Catalogue of Books printed in the Fifteenth for convenience, describes some 3,400 facts about the book. It is then further
Century now in the British Museum. -editions in other languages, ancient and described by quoting the beginning and
Part II. Germany : Eltvil-Trier. (British modern, with the scholarship and accuracy end of the text and the last printed
Museum. )
which distinguished its predecessor. No words. The beginning of another page
Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts and work of reference seems to have been left is often quoted to help in the identifica-
Printed Books bequeathed to the British unsearched, no living authority uncon- tion of imperfect copies; the number of
Museum by Alfred H. Huth, (British
Museum. )
sulted. We have given close attention lines on a given page and the measurement
Veröffentlichungen der Gutenberg-Gesellschaft. to those parts of the work on which we of twenty lines of type are added. A
-8-9. Catalogue raisonné des premières could form a first-hand opinion, and the collation must also show the number of
Impressions de Mayence (1445–67). Par result has been a feeling of intense ad separate sheets which make up the book,
S. de Ricci. —10–11. Die Bamberger Pfis miration for the way in which it has been and the number of pages in each. Only a
terdruckel und die 36-zeilige Bibel. Von. compiled. There are many good books long experience can test the accuracy of
The Revival of Printing : a Bibliographical on the bibliography of the Bible, but in these collations, which are now of the
Catalogue of Works issued by the Chief the various editions of it in every lan value of books worth several hundreds of
none of them has so much information on greatest commercial importance, as the
Modern English Presses.
duction by Robert Steele. (Macmillan guage been put before the reading public. pounds will depend on agreement with
& Co. )
After a very careful search we have found them, but the names of those responsible
Transactions of the Bibliographical Society. but two or three, not mistakes, but mis- for the compilation will be sufficient
List of English Editions and Translations of apprehensions, excluding, of course, mat- guarantee that no care has been omitted
Greek and Latin Classics printed before ters under discussion. Collations can, in to ensure it.
1641. . By Henrietta R. Palmer. (Biblio the nature of things, only be taken from What is interesting about modern
graphical Society. )
the copies available, and in the case of bibliography is the way in which small
on
## p. 433 (#325) ############################################
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
433
indications are caught up and their con- printed in England ; three Shakespeare Son, printed by Schott and supposed to
sequences deduced. A number of pages quartos, the very rarest of the set; the be lost, is the same as “The true belief
in a particular copy of a book are faintly only copy in private hands of Cervantes's in Christ' (London, 1550), with another
inked, and you thus find that a printer is Galatea'; à volume of seventy Eliza- preface and title-page, is a curious instance
able to print eight octavo pages at a time, bethan broadside ballads absolutely price of the conveyance of matter (“convey,
who a few months previously was in the less ; eight French incunabula of the finest the wise it call") which has gone on ever
habit of printing only four at a time. A kind, and a manuscript containing twenty- since printing, began. This reference
discoloured slip of proof from a binding one engravings, seventeen of them by (p. 195) may be compared with one at
throws light on the method of printing the “Master of the Berlin Passion, the end of Mr. Scott's paper (p. 187),
in black and red, or a watermark on the some of them unique, and all of them of where Mr. Steele’s discovery is also men-
paper proves that a long-lost book has the highest rarity, are but a few of these tioned. Further evidence of borrowed
been hidden under a new title and a pre-treasures. The Catalogue is furnished matter appears in Mr. G. F. Barwick's
face added twenty years later. Dr. Zedler, with a good portrait of Mr. Huth, and interesting paper on "The Magazines of
in his study of the 36-line Bible, takes is fully illustrated, forming a worthy the Nineteenth century. ' In 1832 The
us into the pressroom, and from the paper memorial of the most important bene- Thiet, a London, Edinburgh, and Dublin
used in each “ gathering helps us to faction of the kind the British Museum weekly journal of literature and science,
deduce the number of presses at work on has received since the bequest of the was published, and retained the unusual
it. Henry Bradshaw and Robert Proctor Grenville Library.
candour of its title for six months.
convertedbibliography from an art into a
It has been for some time a matter of Tennyson’s ‘I stood on a tower in the
science, and their methods have been, and difficulty to ascertain exactly what books wet, is noted as having appeared in
are still being, perfected. As examples have been issued by the more important Good Words, to be judiciously forgotten
we may indicate the notes in the Catalogue English private presses of recent years, later. He had a sonnet in the number
on the Eltvil Press, the removal of the excluding those, of course, which have for August 1831 of a short-lived venture,
Hohenwang second press, and of Proctor published detailed lists. ? The Revival The Englishman's Magazine, which Mr. Bar-
2056 to Basle.
of Printing' gives a complete list of these wick might have mentioned, because that
Mr. Pollard's Introduction restricts
presses, and Mr. Robert Steele introduces number also contained a fine tribute to
itself to such a summary account of it with a critical survey of their aims Tennyson's poetry by Arthur Hallam.
the work done in this volume that one and execution. He is a sound and learned
Next year the magazine died, and was
might readily under-estimate the great judge of printing, and as the work is killed by that very article, according to
amount of new information he and his produced in the well-known style of the
that patronizing and now ludicrous wielder
colleagues have added to our knowledge Riccardi Press, and is, with the exception of the critical bludgeon, Christopher North.
of German fifteenth-century printing.
of one or two regrettable misprints, itself a
Mr. Barwick has noticed in his glance
Mr. de Ricci's monograph on the first model of good printing, while it contains through the magazines that copyists
printed books of Mayence is an example examples of all the most important occasionally substitute their own name
of another kind of modern bibliography modern types, we feel sure that the for that of the author. The oddest
at its best, which attempts, something extremely limited edition will soon be example of some such mistake was the
like his Census of Caxtons of a few exhausted, and recommend those inter-
addition in 1908 of a sonnet by Mrs.
It includes a number of ested to obtain copies at once.
Browning to Dickens's works, on the
books not printed in Mayence - for
example, the Eltvil books—and its special graphy mainly in its scientific aspects,
but
So far we have been considering biblio- strength of the Contributors' Book to
Household Words. In his notice of The
value lies in the history of each copy it is not merely a dry science for book Cornhill Mr. Barwick mentions Godfrey
known and the references to the literature
Sykes as the designer of the cover. He
collectors and enthusiasts.
dealing with it.
is commemorated in the current number
Without in any way disparaging the
The latest volume of the Bibliographical of that periodical, but nothing is said of
labours of earlier bibliographers such as Society's Transactions contains, besides the claim made by Mr. W. Y. Fletcher
Hain and Panzer, we repeat that the the usual technical matter dear to the and reported here, that he brought to
modern science took its rise in England specialist, much of interest to a wider Thackeray's notice the illustrations of
under the impulse of Bradshaw, and our
circle. We referred recently to Mr. H. B. ploughing, sowing, reaping, and threshing,
country still holds pride of place, though Wheatley's work on Dryden in “The which had their origin not in the open air
names like those of Burger, Pellechet, Cambridge History of English Literature of nature, but in The Hours of Anne of
Haebler, and many others rank with our
Here his paper on Dryden's Publishers' Brittany. Jingle's talk has been credited
best. The Bibliographical Society has, occupies the first place, and is well worth to a fellow-clerk of Dickens ; here it is
by its publications, made a history of study. The poet had plenty of enemies suggested that the novelist' derived it
printing in Great Britain possible, while -his change of view in politics and his from a magazine called The Cigar, which
whole periods of typographical history satire alone would have been enough he may have read as a schoolboy. Such
in more important centres of the art
to make them--and Mr. Wheatley thinks spasmodic utterance could, however, be
abroad are totally unknown. Part of our it well to correct some misconceptions discovered in many a living original, and
superiority is due to the public spirit of a
or exaggerations founded on spite. He duly exaggerated for humorous purposes.
long succession of wealthy book-collectors regards it as improbable that Dryden
Mr.
Barwick does not attempt to deal
who have freely laid
open their libraries lived with the bookseller Herringham with the latter years of the century, and
to students. A typical example of these
as a drudge, though he may have visited such typical magazines as The Idler,
was Mr. Alfred H. Huth, whose munificent him as a friend; and he repudiates the
bequest to the nation of fifty of his finest suggestion that Dryden's marriage with strong wave of literary interest. We
books, chosen at will, has just been com- the daughter of an earl was a mésalliance have other magazines now, the typical
memorated by a descriptive catalogue for her. The poet, like Tennyson and specimens being all of the same order :
drawn up with every refinement of modern Herrick, came of a good county family, popular, sensational, and negligent of the
skill by such authorities as Mr. Pollard, and was a person of some mark before
best literary work. Mr. W. Ď. Howells
Mr. Herbert, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, and he became celebrated as a writer.
was able, apparently, to discover a few
Mr. Esdaile, under the superintendence of * The Schotts of Strassburg and their years ago fifty magazines in the United
Dr Kenyon. We have already spoken Press,' by Mr. S. H. Scott, and Mr. States which could be described as of the
of the money value of incunabula in Robert Steele's well-illustrated Notes on literary or æsthetic kind. New York
general. What is to be thought of the English Books Printed Abroad, 1525-48, boasted some forty-five of them devoted
value of half a hundred volumes picked should help materially in clearing up the to belles-lettres," and seems to be as much
by experts from one of the most famous confusions of the period concerning the above London in its appreciation of decent
libraries of England ? The largest and early printers. Mr. Steele's discovery literature in this form as it is below it in
finest copy known of the first book that the ‘Dialogue of the Father and the lits indifference to murder.
years back.
6
## p. 434 (#326) ############################################
434
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
years older
Mr. Barwick has only touched his sub- present age much time is likely to be spent tions, and essays by various writers upon
ject lightly, but it deserves a thorough on them. All that is worth reprinting has different aspects of the relations between
historian. For the magazine is the" book” been made available for modern study, the school and society, together with
of the casual reader, and a better index and it would have been an advantage annotations and expositions. It is not
of public taste than the newspaper or the from the reader's point of view to have a possible, in the space of a review, to give
books which deluded authors sometimes record of such editions, e. g. , that of any adequate notion of the wealth of
write to please themselves, or to satisfy Golding's 'Ovid' brought out under Dr. matter packed into its twelve chapters,
a feeling for art which the public regards Rouse's supervision a few years since. all of which will repay careful reading. It
as a stupid and wilful indifference to
is interesting to find experiments in self-
commercial success.
government by boys at school which
At the end of the volume is a reprint
recall Arnold's methods at Rugby turning
of some brief notes by the late J. F. Payne AMERICA AND EDUCATION.
out very successfully; some American
on ‘English Herbals, which shows once
investigator might do well to examine
more the blushless appropriation of foreign AMERICA is as busy as England in review- these results side by side with those
learning by English writers. Lyte's ing and recasting educational theories concerning college alumni reported by
* Herball 'came from the Flemish through and methods. Among the interesting the Carnegie Foundation. On the whole,
the French, and Gerarde's was founded on investigations recorded in the Report of the experiments and changes described
another man's translation from the Latin a meeting of the Society of College Teachers have clearly tended to give, in an
of Dodoens. Gerarde added, indeed, some of Education held at St. Louis in the end advantageous way, new life and new scope
matter of his own, but he suppressed of February, one into the relation of to school teaching. It should be remem-
the name of Dodoens, and spoke of the mental development to physical growth bered, however, that there may be a
translation as only known to him by and physical defects, and one into methods danger in too much widening of school
hearsay! In speaking of the title of of reading, are especially valuable. From teaching, and that the great business of
Parkinson's book with its well-known Latin carefully kept records concerning 200 school life is, after all, to put into every
pun (Park-in-sun), Dr. Payne forgot to children it appears that tall children are child's hands the tools of learning :
put the first part of it in the genitive, practically" from one to four or even five language, spoken, read, and written, and
Paradisi in Sole. ”
than their shorter coevals, the laws of number. Without the pos-
The List of English Editions and and therefore “ should be treated physio- session of these tools, no civic virtues,
logically as older children than their age no knowledge of natural history or folk-
Translations of Greek and Latin Classics in years would indicate. ” As to reading lore, no athletic prowess, no expertness
printed before -641,' by Henrietta R.
Palmer, with an Introduction by Mr.
we find the following interesting con- even in all the processes of a skilled trade,
clusion :-
Scholderer, is a good example of the ex-
will save an adult living in the civilized
world from being like a person defective
cellent monographs issued by the Biblio- " The incipient articulation, which most
graphical Society. It is, we gather, of readers carry on as a part of their silent in sight or hearing.
American origin, but has been improved reading habits, and which has been developed
In his book about ‘Farm Boys and
by friends in London, Oxford, and Cam- by the methods of exclusive emphasis on
Girls' --which, incidentally, is also about
oral reading in the schools, keeps most
bridge.
persons far below the silent-reading speed | farm men and women-Prof. McKeever
Mr. Scholderer gives a good general which it is possible for them to attain by says many sensible, useful, and suggestive
survey of the subject in his Introduction, improved methods. ”
things. Especially good is the chapter
pointing out some gaps in the List which The Carnegie Foundation's Report in- in which fathers are urged to share a
now appear surprising. The Greek dra- cludes an analysis of the widely differing knowledge of their business affairs and
matists are very sparsely represented, and standards of qualification by which men an actual interest in them with their sons.
there is actually no edition or translation are admitted to the legal profession :-
About boys Prof. McKeever is right
of Æschylus. The inculcation of morality “The miscarriage of justice, the law's throughout, because he thinks of them as
rather than scholarship was the evident delays, the cost of litigation, public disragard individual human beings. About girls
aim of many of the workers. Sir Thomas of law, and disrespect for the judiciary, all he is less satisfactory because he
Hawkins includes only moral odes of proceed in no small degree from this multi- thinks of them not as individuals, but
Horace in his rendering, except 'Donec plication of ill-trained lawyers. ”
creatures complementary to other
gratus eram tibi,' as being commended Distinctly discouraging is that part of individuals—a view which derogates from
by Scaliger, an ode which Raleigh actually the Report which discusses The Influence the dignity of wifehood and motherhood.
made into a dialogue between God and of Organized Alumni on American Col- He realizes to the full the crushing con-
the Soul ! “ Improving” authors like leges. ' Evidently the organized alumni ditions in which
Plutarch and Seneca are strong favourites, are more concerned with their college's country wives die, worn out early in life,
and Aristotle is commended as a safe success in athletic events (even some-
and so undue a proportion of the survivors
guard against scheming schismatics and times by dishonourable means) than with become insane ; yet he deprecates the
religious sophisters. Many of our admired its intellectual progress-a fact which entry of women into outside occupations
classics, such as Plato, were less known indicates that some American colleges in which they have a prospect of living to
in the latter half of the sixteenth century are suffering in an exaggerated form from
a sane old age and of enjoying that
than a book of moral maxims like the the same disease as English institutions.
financial independence which is becoming
' Zodiacus Vitæ' of Marcellus Palin-
as dear to them as to men. What he
Prof. Irving King's" Source Book," as he fails to see is that marriage is not possible
genius, done into English by Barnabe calls it, is a collection of reports, observa- for all and that only when women are
Googe. This relentlessly instructive work
provided the phrase "Rome was not The School Review Monographs
- No. II. generally able to live comfortably and
built in a day”; instructions to be good, Papers presented for Discussion at a Meeting creditably outside marriage will society
at any rate, if you cannot be clever; of the Society of College Teachers of Educa be compelled so to modify its conditions
warnings that most people shut the fold
tion. (University of Chicago Press; Lon as to make them acceptable to many
when the flock is lost; and a host of similar
don, Cambridge University Press. ) independent minded and
capable
commonplaces.
Sixth Annual Report of the Carnegie Founda-
Moreover, only when such
Homer and Ovid fare better than Virgil,
tion for the Advancement of Teaching, 1911. women find married life in rural districts
(New York, 576, Fifth Avenue. )
who appeared in some ridiculous disguises. Social Aspects of Education :
acceptable will any satisfactory form of
The best work in verse throughout is,
a Book of social intercourse be likely to take root
Sources and Original Discussions with there.
as might be expected, paraphrase rather Annotated Bibliographies. By Irving King.
than translation. A good many bare (New York, the Macmillan Company. )
mentions of books now unknown provide Farm Boys and Girls. By William A.
duzzles to be solved, but we doubt if in the McKeever. (Same publishers. )
as
women.
-
1
## p. 435 (#327) ############################################
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
435
THE ATHENÆUM
a
Mr.
Scots invade England, and were defeated Although Widsith' has little poetic
HOME RULE.
outside London by the Romans ”; and merit, its value as a document is very
THE flood of Home Rule literature is his first chapter opens cheerfully with great. In the interpretation and criticism
upon us, and the quality of it varies. The "The Irish Question began with the of the statements of Roman writers
Unionist Irish Essays Committee, which Christian era. ” He tells us much of the respecting Germanic ethnography, and
has prepared “The Case against Home Earl of Essex, Tyrconnel, and Wolfe
Earl of Essex, Tyrconnel, and Wolfe of heroic legend as recorded in Beowulf'
Rule,' has certainly done its work very Tone; but the little he has to
Tone; but the little he has to say about and in German and Scandinavian poetry
thoroughly. Not only is the list of con- the Home Rule question to-day is squeezed and saga, its evidence is indispensable,
tributors imposing, but the method into a few pages, and even in these he while at the same time its obscure allu-
also of dealing with the subject is divagates from his particular branch of sions can only be understood by compari-
comprehensive. The paper - covered the subject. The most interesting novelty son with these fuller sources of information.
volume is avowedly a partisan affair ; but is one not of idea, but of expression.
in spite of these limitations its tone as a
On p. 87 he refers to Gladstone's The poem, apart from obvious interpola-
whole is quiet and judicious, and the policy as "a type of policy that never, tions, can hardly be later than the begin-
essays are marked by much industrious in history, failed to have any but one ning of the eighth century, and some of its
compilation and reasoned argument, and ending. "
traditions go back to times far earlier
a comparative lack of wild statement It is refreshing to turn to the volume than the settlement of the Angles in
Britain.
and heat. Mr. Bonar Law's contribu- by Mr. S. G. Hobson, an avowed Home
It may be described as
tion is a short Preface, in which he in- Ruler. He succeeds in putting the case somewhat inartistic attempt to provide a
dicates that to his mind the Ulster objec- with a freshness which is remarkable narrative framework for certain mnemonic
tion is the greatest obstacle to Home at this stage of the controversy, and his lists of names of peoples and of their
Rule-a statement which has special desire to face the truth leads him occa-
rulers most famous in heroic song, which
interest in view of recent rumours. Mr. sionally to say things that will be probably formed part of the regular
Balfour's contribution is also brief, and unpalatable to many Nationalists. Though education of a minstrel. The fiction is of
Sir Edward Carson's is little more than an not blind to the sentimental issue, he the simpleşt: a minstrel of ancient days,
introductory résumê of succeeding chapters, is chiefly interested in the economic named Widsid, “ the Far-travelled” (the
which range in subject from The question, and his chapters on finance, name actually existed, but is obviously
Religious Difficulty' to 'Private Bill the waste of Irish administration, chosen on account of its meaning), is sup- .
Legislation. ' Especially interesting are an agriculture, and the changes needed posed to recount his travels. As about
admirable article on · Éducation by Mr. for the development of Irish resources, every fourth word is a proper name, there
Godfrey Locker - Lampson; Mr. L. S. are most stimulating, vivid, and sugges- is not much room for story, but now and
Amery's article on the 'Colonial Analogy'; tive.
Hobson holds the view,
of
and Mr. George Wyndham's little treatise shared by many Irishmen to-day, that by an epithet expressing his traditional
on ‘The Completion of Land Purchase,' in the passage of Home Rule will mean
character, or by an allusion to some
which the author of the 1903 Act re- an immediate diminution of clerical in incident in his career. Tradition has no
iterates with Mr. Law's authority the fluence over local and national politics. sense of chronology, and the kings before
Unionist pledge that, should the party He also argues that the new régime will whom Widsith sang, and who bestowed
return to office, the land policy of 1903
see a fresh cleavage of parties in Ireland,
on him rich gifts, belong historically to
will be resumed. By contrast with the a cleavage not religious, but economic three different centuries. The strings of
restraint observed elsewhere, there is a He has a lively and personal style, and proper names are introduced abruptly,
deplorable feverishness about Earl Percy's his work may be commended to all who with little attempt to weave them into
essay on The Military Disadvantages of desire to consider a thoughtful presenta- the texture of the story. The author was
Home Rule. A good deal of his tion of the Home Rule case as it bears a skilled versifier, but the traces of higher
matter is only faintly, if at all, rele- on the great realities that underlie all poetic qualities that may be found in his
vant to the subject allotted to him, and politics.
work are probably due to echoes of the
he has seized the opportunity to spread Mr. de F. Pennefather's pamphlet is older songs from which he derived his
the view that war with Germany cannot concise and well - arranged.
He takes wide knowledge of heroic tradition. Wid.
long, be avoided, to urge compulsory 25 “ Delusions” entertained by Home sith 'has for us moderns an interest like
service, and to inform us that Home Rulers, and subjoins the “ Facts which, that of a fragmentary catalogue of a lost
Rule will mean civil war,
accompanied in his opinion, should shatter them. Now library; we see from it how abundant
by atrocities which will be remembered and then he is somewhat vague, as when and various were the treasures of Old
for centuries. ” This is, to our thinking, he observes that “ To Hell with England” English epic poetry, of which, by the
almost solitary
prophecy of an unnecessarily specific is one of the mottoes of the Irish Nation- merest accident,
kind.
alists.
example survives in ‘ Beowulf. '
Sir Thomas Fraser's volume on The
Mr. Chambers's edition of · Widsith'-
Military Danger ’ is scarcely, more illu- Widsith : a Study in Old English Heroic for this is what the volume really is,
minating than Lord Percy's chapter. Legend. By R. W. Chambers. (Cam- the prolegomena and the text makes this
The author, in fact, occupies by far the
greater portion of his space with an his-
bridge University Press. )
description seem inappropriate-is a re-
torical survey which goes back to the THE Old English poem Widsith' con- markably thorough and serviceable piece
earliest times. The first words in his sists of only 143 lines, and the volume of work. There is no other single book,
Chronology are " 363. Picts and Irish which Mr. Chambers has devoted to its even in German, which contains so com-
illustration contains nearly double that plete a summary of what has been done
Against Home Rule : the Case for the Union. number of pages. He cannot, however, by scholars, from the days of Cony beare
By Arthur J. Balfour, J. Austen Chamber. be fairly charged with either irrelevance and Kemble to the present time, for the
lain, and others. Edited by S. Rosen- or diffuseness. Those who are acquainted elucidation of the poem. Although Mr.
baum. With Introduction by Sir Edo with the enormous mass of comment and Chambers’s general point of view differs
ward Carson, and Preface by A. Bonar controversy to which this brief text has considerably from that indicated in this
Law. (Warne & Co. )
The Military Danger of Home Rule for Ire not have been made much shorter, if it most of his conclusions on questions of
given rise will admit that the book could article, we find ourselves able to accept
land. By Major-General Sir Thomas
Fraser. (John Murray. )
was to include not only a reasoned expo- detail. That these are seldom novel is
Irish Home Rule: the Last Phase.
sition of the author's own conclusions, but no ground for reproach; the reasoning
By
S. G. Hobson. (Stephen Swift & Co. )
also an adequate discussion of the con- by which they are supported is often new
The Fundamental Delusions of Home Rule. flicting theories of eminent scholars with and ingenious. The textual conjectures
By de F. Pennefather, (Love & Malcom: regard to the manifold problems which are justified, and the translation and
son. )
the poem presents.
bibliography are satisfactory.
an
## p. 436 (#328) ############################################
436
THE A THENÆUM
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
FOR
In &
McLachlan (Herbert), St. LUKE, EVANGELIST pictorial faculty is prolific, and the pageantry
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
AND HISTORIAN, with an Introduction of his lines quite readable. On the other
by Prof. A. S. Peake, 2/6 net.
hand, the short pieces are commonplace and
(Notice in these columns does not proclude longer
Sherratt & Hughes garish.
review. )
This is a set of disconnected essays upon Fragments, collected by Beatrice Allhusen
Tbeology.
different aspects of the writings and cha-
and Iris Fox Reeve, 3/6 net.
Crooker (Joseph Henry), THE CHURCH OF
racter of St.
nineteenth century, the science of history of the Middle Ages, and the author's gestion, the effect of which, if it is occa-
a part charity played in the mental life distant and visionary avenues of sug-
stage. We had amassed observations, but exuberant optimism has for once carried sionally enigmatic and enforces a pause,
we had not been able to correlate them or him over the line of scientific statement. is singularly arresting. The lines them-
to draw definite conclusions from them. ” The frequent quotations from Maeterlinck selves are packed with substance, and
are a source of irritation to the reader-are a kind of heavy armour containing
To York Powell, as to Prof. Robinson
and all students of the “ New History,
an altogether unnecessary irritation in a profound and intricate thought.
volume of historical essays.
the labours of Lyell and Darwin gave a
The results are not always felicitous.
key, long sought. With the flood of light The book, if it breaks fresh
We can see the machining process that
let in by scientific workers in biology, ground for English students of the lies behind the final evolution—the effort
anthropology, and geology, history is * New History," is eminently readable, that sets it in motion. Though the devo
steadily but surely coming into its own, thus satisfying the claim we make above, tion and the feeling that go to its making
and not, as heretofore, regarded as the it treats freshly a subject of the first are of the tensest, the craftsmanship
now
sport of political and theological partisans. importance, and it is of value as a mark is an irregular ebb and flow,
When, however, York Powell stated that of American progress. In fact, it is the surging into triumph, now limping along
style has nothing to do with history, kind of book to wake up our historical in tortuous, dissonant, and cumbrous
he made a grievous error. It has specialists at home to the deplorable rhythms. Mr. Galsworthy's poetry is less
everything to do with it, if history is state of things in our elementary and of a sublime discovery and revelation
meant to be read. The most valuable public schools in the matter of the teaching than a slow and somewhat painful “ ex-
researches, couched in the language of of history and the methods of the historian. foliation ” of a reflective temper into
the specialist who cannot write, are likely
poetic forms. We quote, as is only fair,
to remain infructuous for all but deter-
an example of the fusion of form and
mined students, and finally to be rewritten
matter into a resonant harmony, which
by somebody who has, perhaps, less
is rarer than we could wish :-
discrimination. Why should not
a Moods, Songs, and Doggerels. By John Then, as I choked and manned my soul
popular audience” read history ? The
Galsworthy. (Heinemann. )
For death, two stars came flying low,
fact that it is made unreadable is a
As might some disembodied owl,
Circling unsighted, but for glow
disgrace to learning. If Darwin had had MR. GALSWORTHY, in producing a volume Of its twin yellow eyes ; then all
the brilliant style of Huxley, he would of poems, some of them reprinted from
The owlish stars came clustering near ;
not have been less sound, and would have various periodicals and magazines, may
And from its horrid grandeur tall
That gallows-yew bent down to hear.
won appreciation much earlier. If clear have wandered into a bypath of author-
writing is an art rather than a science, ship, but certainly not for the purpose of Nothing could be more alien to his lofti-
it is an art every one should practise " warbling his Doric lay” in easeful ness, austerity, and not infrequent arid-
Some great men have deliberately made dolce far niente, as his title might wellness of expression, than the pellucid
themselves difficult to understand, but suggest. It is merely that the peculiar cadences and tremulous fluidity of Mr.
they are not the greater for that. Is it spirit which has stamped an indelible mark W. H. Davies. Mr. Galsworthy lacks
a sin to be elegant and amusing as well upon contemporary letters has migrated the almost insolent lyrical carelessness
as instructive? We hope not. Writers intact into a different medium of self- of success which is the blossom of a
with these characteristics are always realization; so that, in scanning these consummate art. Endeavour is the pre-
suspected, but they do better service to thoughtful and earnest poems, we have vailing note of his poetry. As a con-
learning than the composers of unreadable not to analyze the quality of Mr. Gals- sequence of the most intense mental
monographs. We have emphasized this worthy's outlook and mind, but to groping, analogies, phrases, and images
point more than once, regretting that measure exactly how fruitfully he has come crowding into his net in unruly
Science, the great bringer of light to-day, acclimatized himself to his new mode of masses, not obedient to his beck, but
should have so many followers who are self - expression.
self - expression. If Mr. Cunninghame capriciously, suddenly, and now empty-
experts in tedium and obscurity.
Graham is the aristocrat of modern handed, now heavy-laden with gifts. The
Prof. Harvey Robinson makes great pudder of a world,” and Mr. Shaw its is a more adaptable instrument to the
literature, treading disdainfully
this more roomy, expansive character of prose
play over some of the mistakes of the
masters of the Old History and the
Puritan Mephistopheles, SO Mr. Gals-
purpose
errors in popular text-books. With a worthy, in equal aloofness, is its Hamlet-master of many moods. For that he is too
sharp pen and a critical faculty keenly grave, melancholy, and questioning- ruminative, too serious, too consciously
alert, he takes The Fall of Rome, for haunted by the riddle which baffles affected by the high office of his muse,
instance, as our school manuals deal with him, but which impels him, willy-nilly, Moodiness is too strong a word, but some-
it, and pricks one monstrous bubble of to wrestle with it. With this intro- thing akin to that informs much of his
error. A judicial eye for the value of spectiveness and its concomitant liabili- spirit, seldom oscillating, except to sway
evidence, à light touch in the summing- ties his verse is charged and impreg- into elegiac retrospectiveness or broaden
up, and a complete freedom from the nated, so much so that we are forced to into a more universal and capacious
pedantic follies which are apt to encrust scrutinize his achievement from the sub- solemnity.
the university professor's mind, give Mr. jective angle rather than from that of
We offer these criticisms in no un-
Robinson a great advantage in pre-
poetic creativeness.
kindly feeling towards these impressive
senting his case. With all his scholarship Mr. Galsworthy is the warrior, the poems, but as the outcome of a genuine
and wide reading there is an ample human psychologist, the pitiful explorer of life, regard for Mr. Galsworthy's work in
sympathy and understanding, so that he rather than the poet. Indeed, there all the departments of literature he
writes easily and well on his subject, and is more actual poetic abandon in his has enriched. His broad and tolerant
the Essays are within the range of the prose than in his poetry. In spite of a humanity, his deep sympathy, the subtlety
average reader. There are some state-curiously static and architectural quality and keenness of his insight, his force and
ments that cannot yet be accepted as in the design and structure of the verse, penetration, have been equalled by but
settled fact, and the Professor, it seems as persistent in the short as in the long few of the men of letters of our day,
to us, hardly does full justice to the poems, it is not, as a whole, a unified and whatever channel of expression they have
Middle Ages. To compare “ the unthink- delicately woven fabric. We are selected. Neither his verse nor his prose
ing charity of the Middle Ages” with stantly brought up sharp on the reflec- is to be counted ephemeral. It is in no
"the organized social work of to-day,' tion that too onerous a burden is laid spirit of paradox that we suggest that the
to the disadvantage of the former, will not l upon the metrical body of the verse for former would gain by a more prolific use
con-
## p. 432 (#324) ############################################
432
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 1408, APRIL 20, 1912
In no
a
of the graceful slightness of his 'Land |tion of it, and the main factor, for good many early editions, even of the Bible, it
Song of the West Country:-
or evil, in the development of the is impossible to be sure whether any
There's many a drop of tender rain
character of our race, from the intro- particular copy is complete or no. The
As we go jogging, jogging on,
duction of Christianity among our Anglo- 1577 Geneva New Testament is such a
And many a while that's fine again. Saxon forefathers to the present day. case. Even Mr. Fry, the greatest authority
There's many a dip and many a rise,
And many a smile of friendly eyes.
It is not our intention to pursue the train on English Bibles and a lifelong collector,
There's many a scent and many a tune, of thought these considerations awake; was deceived in thinking he had a perfect
And over all the little moon,
but even considered merely as a printed copy, for in reality two “ signatures”
As we go jogging on.
book, the Holy Scripture holds pride of were missing. The Kalmuck versions of
Or take the tender and whimsical lines place. From the time of Coverdale to the 1820 (? ) seem to be imperfect, and pro-
To My Dog':-
present, the output of Bibles has been one bably some other Oriental editions are
My dear, when I leave you
of the mainstays of the printing trade in the same condition. Apart from un-
I always drop a bit of me-
This Catalogue describes a thousand edi- avoidable deficiencies of this kind, for
A holy glove or sainted shoe
Your wistful corse I leave it to,
tions of the Scriptures in English before which every student must be prepared,
For all your soul has gone to see
the nineteenth century, answering to an the editors are to be warmly congratulated
How I could have the stony heart
output of four or five million copies. on one of the most accurate, as well as the
So to abandon you.
During that century the Bible Society most valuable, annotated bibliographies
My dear, when you leave me
alone circulated over seventy-five million ever produced,
You drop no glove, no sainted shoe ;
copies, while the output from other
And yet you know that humans be
Modern bibliography has long emerged
Mere blocks of dull monstrosity
presses, British and American, was pro- from the rhapsodical stage, in which one
Whose spirits cannot follow you
bably equally great.
other described one's feelings at a sight of the
When you ’re away, with all their hearts,
As yours can follow me.
language has there been the slightest book, gave a few personal anecdotes of its
approximation to such
circulation, noble owner, praised the binding, and
My dear, since we must leave
(One sorry day), I you, you me;
though several European countries pos- finally gave the number of pages-often
I'll learn your wistful way to grieve; sessed printed translations of the Bible inaccurately. A bibliographer now aims
Then through the ages we 'll retrieve long before Tyndale's time, and the issue either at noting the existence of a book
Each other's scent and company;
And longing shall not pull my heart-
of new ones has never altogether ceased.
or its presence in a particular library, at
As now you pull my sleeve ! But the great growth of Bible translation indicating the contents for the benefit
The spell of these verses and the quick is due to British initiative, and coincides of students and readers, or giving such
stab of their appeal penetrate where more
The information about it as may enable others
ambitious raptures cannot reach.
Catalogue before us describes trans to ascertain whether a copy is complete
lations of the Scriptures into nearly four and perfect, and whether it belongs to
hundred distinct languages, in addition the same issue. The necessity for an
to three hundred distinct dialects—the elaborate description increases with the
ABOUT BIBLIOGRAPHY.
greater proportion of them made in the age of a book, such a description being
nineteenth century by missionaries who indispensable for those printed in the
THE first volume of Messrs. Darlow and were British or of British race.
first three decades of typography.
Moule's monumental work Bibles The Bible House Library was founded Incunabula have now a great and in-
appeared in the centenary year of the in 1804, and is now, with the possible creasing commercial value. Any one of
British and Foreign Bible Society ; its exception of that in the British Museum, the the thirty thousand fifteenth-century books
completion closes the tercentenary com- largest collection of printed copies of the is worth, when clean and perfect, a sum
memoration of our Authorized Version. Scriptures in existence. In these circum- between two and a thousand pounds,
Its subject and the way in which it has stances the compilers, when entrusted according to age, subject, and rarity.
been compiled alike justify us in placing with the task of producing an historic The issue, therefore, of a complete biblio-
it among the most important pieces of catalogue of the library, wisely deter-graphy of the British Museum incunabula
bibliography of the day. The Bible is mined on making an annotated biblio- is amply justified on that account alone,
not only the chief book in English lite-graphy, embracing not only the books though students of this history of culture
rature, not even approached in importance before them, but also all other important will be more interested in the light it
by any other, but also the very founda- editions of which copies could be examined throws on the comparative civilization and
and described. The first volume, pub- literary requirements of the age, or even
Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions lished in 1903, dealt with 1,400 editions in the methods of book-production which
of Holy Scripture in the Library of the of the English Bible, and has already can be deduced from it. In a full
piled by T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule. taken rank as the standard work on the collation of an early printed volume a
2 vols. 4 parts. (Bible House. )
subject. The second, issued in three parts paragraph is devoted to a summary of the
Catalogue of Books printed in the Fifteenth for convenience, describes some 3,400 facts about the book. It is then further
Century now in the British Museum. -editions in other languages, ancient and described by quoting the beginning and
Part II. Germany : Eltvil-Trier. (British modern, with the scholarship and accuracy end of the text and the last printed
Museum. )
which distinguished its predecessor. No words. The beginning of another page
Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts and work of reference seems to have been left is often quoted to help in the identifica-
Printed Books bequeathed to the British unsearched, no living authority uncon- tion of imperfect copies; the number of
Museum by Alfred H. Huth, (British
Museum. )
sulted. We have given close attention lines on a given page and the measurement
Veröffentlichungen der Gutenberg-Gesellschaft. to those parts of the work on which we of twenty lines of type are added. A
-8-9. Catalogue raisonné des premières could form a first-hand opinion, and the collation must also show the number of
Impressions de Mayence (1445–67). Par result has been a feeling of intense ad separate sheets which make up the book,
S. de Ricci. —10–11. Die Bamberger Pfis miration for the way in which it has been and the number of pages in each. Only a
terdruckel und die 36-zeilige Bibel. Von. compiled. There are many good books long experience can test the accuracy of
The Revival of Printing : a Bibliographical on the bibliography of the Bible, but in these collations, which are now of the
Catalogue of Works issued by the Chief the various editions of it in every lan value of books worth several hundreds of
none of them has so much information on greatest commercial importance, as the
Modern English Presses.
duction by Robert Steele. (Macmillan guage been put before the reading public. pounds will depend on agreement with
& Co. )
After a very careful search we have found them, but the names of those responsible
Transactions of the Bibliographical Society. but two or three, not mistakes, but mis- for the compilation will be sufficient
List of English Editions and Translations of apprehensions, excluding, of course, mat- guarantee that no care has been omitted
Greek and Latin Classics printed before ters under discussion. Collations can, in to ensure it.
1641. . By Henrietta R. Palmer. (Biblio the nature of things, only be taken from What is interesting about modern
graphical Society. )
the copies available, and in the case of bibliography is the way in which small
on
## p. 433 (#325) ############################################
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
433
indications are caught up and their con- printed in England ; three Shakespeare Son, printed by Schott and supposed to
sequences deduced. A number of pages quartos, the very rarest of the set; the be lost, is the same as “The true belief
in a particular copy of a book are faintly only copy in private hands of Cervantes's in Christ' (London, 1550), with another
inked, and you thus find that a printer is Galatea'; à volume of seventy Eliza- preface and title-page, is a curious instance
able to print eight octavo pages at a time, bethan broadside ballads absolutely price of the conveyance of matter (“convey,
who a few months previously was in the less ; eight French incunabula of the finest the wise it call") which has gone on ever
habit of printing only four at a time. A kind, and a manuscript containing twenty- since printing, began. This reference
discoloured slip of proof from a binding one engravings, seventeen of them by (p. 195) may be compared with one at
throws light on the method of printing the “Master of the Berlin Passion, the end of Mr. Scott's paper (p. 187),
in black and red, or a watermark on the some of them unique, and all of them of where Mr. Steele’s discovery is also men-
paper proves that a long-lost book has the highest rarity, are but a few of these tioned. Further evidence of borrowed
been hidden under a new title and a pre-treasures. The Catalogue is furnished matter appears in Mr. G. F. Barwick's
face added twenty years later. Dr. Zedler, with a good portrait of Mr. Huth, and interesting paper on "The Magazines of
in his study of the 36-line Bible, takes is fully illustrated, forming a worthy the Nineteenth century. ' In 1832 The
us into the pressroom, and from the paper memorial of the most important bene- Thiet, a London, Edinburgh, and Dublin
used in each “ gathering helps us to faction of the kind the British Museum weekly journal of literature and science,
deduce the number of presses at work on has received since the bequest of the was published, and retained the unusual
it. Henry Bradshaw and Robert Proctor Grenville Library.
candour of its title for six months.
convertedbibliography from an art into a
It has been for some time a matter of Tennyson’s ‘I stood on a tower in the
science, and their methods have been, and difficulty to ascertain exactly what books wet, is noted as having appeared in
are still being, perfected. As examples have been issued by the more important Good Words, to be judiciously forgotten
we may indicate the notes in the Catalogue English private presses of recent years, later. He had a sonnet in the number
on the Eltvil Press, the removal of the excluding those, of course, which have for August 1831 of a short-lived venture,
Hohenwang second press, and of Proctor published detailed lists. ? The Revival The Englishman's Magazine, which Mr. Bar-
2056 to Basle.
of Printing' gives a complete list of these wick might have mentioned, because that
Mr. Pollard's Introduction restricts
presses, and Mr. Robert Steele introduces number also contained a fine tribute to
itself to such a summary account of it with a critical survey of their aims Tennyson's poetry by Arthur Hallam.
the work done in this volume that one and execution. He is a sound and learned
Next year the magazine died, and was
might readily under-estimate the great judge of printing, and as the work is killed by that very article, according to
amount of new information he and his produced in the well-known style of the
that patronizing and now ludicrous wielder
colleagues have added to our knowledge Riccardi Press, and is, with the exception of the critical bludgeon, Christopher North.
of German fifteenth-century printing.
of one or two regrettable misprints, itself a
Mr. Barwick has noticed in his glance
Mr. de Ricci's monograph on the first model of good printing, while it contains through the magazines that copyists
printed books of Mayence is an example examples of all the most important occasionally substitute their own name
of another kind of modern bibliography modern types, we feel sure that the for that of the author. The oddest
at its best, which attempts, something extremely limited edition will soon be example of some such mistake was the
like his Census of Caxtons of a few exhausted, and recommend those inter-
addition in 1908 of a sonnet by Mrs.
It includes a number of ested to obtain copies at once.
Browning to Dickens's works, on the
books not printed in Mayence - for
example, the Eltvil books—and its special graphy mainly in its scientific aspects,
but
So far we have been considering biblio- strength of the Contributors' Book to
Household Words. In his notice of The
value lies in the history of each copy it is not merely a dry science for book Cornhill Mr. Barwick mentions Godfrey
known and the references to the literature
Sykes as the designer of the cover. He
collectors and enthusiasts.
dealing with it.
is commemorated in the current number
Without in any way disparaging the
The latest volume of the Bibliographical of that periodical, but nothing is said of
labours of earlier bibliographers such as Society's Transactions contains, besides the claim made by Mr. W. Y. Fletcher
Hain and Panzer, we repeat that the the usual technical matter dear to the and reported here, that he brought to
modern science took its rise in England specialist, much of interest to a wider Thackeray's notice the illustrations of
under the impulse of Bradshaw, and our
circle. We referred recently to Mr. H. B. ploughing, sowing, reaping, and threshing,
country still holds pride of place, though Wheatley's work on Dryden in “The which had their origin not in the open air
names like those of Burger, Pellechet, Cambridge History of English Literature of nature, but in The Hours of Anne of
Haebler, and many others rank with our
Here his paper on Dryden's Publishers' Brittany. Jingle's talk has been credited
best. The Bibliographical Society has, occupies the first place, and is well worth to a fellow-clerk of Dickens ; here it is
by its publications, made a history of study. The poet had plenty of enemies suggested that the novelist' derived it
printing in Great Britain possible, while -his change of view in politics and his from a magazine called The Cigar, which
whole periods of typographical history satire alone would have been enough he may have read as a schoolboy. Such
in more important centres of the art
to make them--and Mr. Wheatley thinks spasmodic utterance could, however, be
abroad are totally unknown. Part of our it well to correct some misconceptions discovered in many a living original, and
superiority is due to the public spirit of a
or exaggerations founded on spite. He duly exaggerated for humorous purposes.
long succession of wealthy book-collectors regards it as improbable that Dryden
Mr.
Barwick does not attempt to deal
who have freely laid
open their libraries lived with the bookseller Herringham with the latter years of the century, and
to students. A typical example of these
as a drudge, though he may have visited such typical magazines as The Idler,
was Mr. Alfred H. Huth, whose munificent him as a friend; and he repudiates the
bequest to the nation of fifty of his finest suggestion that Dryden's marriage with strong wave of literary interest. We
books, chosen at will, has just been com- the daughter of an earl was a mésalliance have other magazines now, the typical
memorated by a descriptive catalogue for her. The poet, like Tennyson and specimens being all of the same order :
drawn up with every refinement of modern Herrick, came of a good county family, popular, sensational, and negligent of the
skill by such authorities as Mr. Pollard, and was a person of some mark before
best literary work. Mr. W. Ď. Howells
Mr. Herbert, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, and he became celebrated as a writer.
was able, apparently, to discover a few
Mr. Esdaile, under the superintendence of * The Schotts of Strassburg and their years ago fifty magazines in the United
Dr Kenyon. We have already spoken Press,' by Mr. S. H. Scott, and Mr. States which could be described as of the
of the money value of incunabula in Robert Steele's well-illustrated Notes on literary or æsthetic kind. New York
general. What is to be thought of the English Books Printed Abroad, 1525-48, boasted some forty-five of them devoted
value of half a hundred volumes picked should help materially in clearing up the to belles-lettres," and seems to be as much
by experts from one of the most famous confusions of the period concerning the above London in its appreciation of decent
libraries of England ? The largest and early printers. Mr. Steele's discovery literature in this form as it is below it in
finest copy known of the first book that the ‘Dialogue of the Father and the lits indifference to murder.
years back.
6
## p. 434 (#326) ############################################
434
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
years older
Mr. Barwick has only touched his sub- present age much time is likely to be spent tions, and essays by various writers upon
ject lightly, but it deserves a thorough on them. All that is worth reprinting has different aspects of the relations between
historian. For the magazine is the" book” been made available for modern study, the school and society, together with
of the casual reader, and a better index and it would have been an advantage annotations and expositions. It is not
of public taste than the newspaper or the from the reader's point of view to have a possible, in the space of a review, to give
books which deluded authors sometimes record of such editions, e. g. , that of any adequate notion of the wealth of
write to please themselves, or to satisfy Golding's 'Ovid' brought out under Dr. matter packed into its twelve chapters,
a feeling for art which the public regards Rouse's supervision a few years since. all of which will repay careful reading. It
as a stupid and wilful indifference to
is interesting to find experiments in self-
commercial success.
government by boys at school which
At the end of the volume is a reprint
recall Arnold's methods at Rugby turning
of some brief notes by the late J. F. Payne AMERICA AND EDUCATION.
out very successfully; some American
on ‘English Herbals, which shows once
investigator might do well to examine
more the blushless appropriation of foreign AMERICA is as busy as England in review- these results side by side with those
learning by English writers. Lyte's ing and recasting educational theories concerning college alumni reported by
* Herball 'came from the Flemish through and methods. Among the interesting the Carnegie Foundation. On the whole,
the French, and Gerarde's was founded on investigations recorded in the Report of the experiments and changes described
another man's translation from the Latin a meeting of the Society of College Teachers have clearly tended to give, in an
of Dodoens. Gerarde added, indeed, some of Education held at St. Louis in the end advantageous way, new life and new scope
matter of his own, but he suppressed of February, one into the relation of to school teaching. It should be remem-
the name of Dodoens, and spoke of the mental development to physical growth bered, however, that there may be a
translation as only known to him by and physical defects, and one into methods danger in too much widening of school
hearsay! In speaking of the title of of reading, are especially valuable. From teaching, and that the great business of
Parkinson's book with its well-known Latin carefully kept records concerning 200 school life is, after all, to put into every
pun (Park-in-sun), Dr. Payne forgot to children it appears that tall children are child's hands the tools of learning :
put the first part of it in the genitive, practically" from one to four or even five language, spoken, read, and written, and
Paradisi in Sole. ”
than their shorter coevals, the laws of number. Without the pos-
The List of English Editions and and therefore “ should be treated physio- session of these tools, no civic virtues,
logically as older children than their age no knowledge of natural history or folk-
Translations of Greek and Latin Classics in years would indicate. ” As to reading lore, no athletic prowess, no expertness
printed before -641,' by Henrietta R.
Palmer, with an Introduction by Mr.
we find the following interesting con- even in all the processes of a skilled trade,
clusion :-
Scholderer, is a good example of the ex-
will save an adult living in the civilized
world from being like a person defective
cellent monographs issued by the Biblio- " The incipient articulation, which most
graphical Society. It is, we gather, of readers carry on as a part of their silent in sight or hearing.
American origin, but has been improved reading habits, and which has been developed
In his book about ‘Farm Boys and
by friends in London, Oxford, and Cam- by the methods of exclusive emphasis on
Girls' --which, incidentally, is also about
oral reading in the schools, keeps most
bridge.
persons far below the silent-reading speed | farm men and women-Prof. McKeever
Mr. Scholderer gives a good general which it is possible for them to attain by says many sensible, useful, and suggestive
survey of the subject in his Introduction, improved methods. ”
things. Especially good is the chapter
pointing out some gaps in the List which The Carnegie Foundation's Report in- in which fathers are urged to share a
now appear surprising. The Greek dra- cludes an analysis of the widely differing knowledge of their business affairs and
matists are very sparsely represented, and standards of qualification by which men an actual interest in them with their sons.
there is actually no edition or translation are admitted to the legal profession :-
About boys Prof. McKeever is right
of Æschylus. The inculcation of morality “The miscarriage of justice, the law's throughout, because he thinks of them as
rather than scholarship was the evident delays, the cost of litigation, public disragard individual human beings. About girls
aim of many of the workers. Sir Thomas of law, and disrespect for the judiciary, all he is less satisfactory because he
Hawkins includes only moral odes of proceed in no small degree from this multi- thinks of them not as individuals, but
Horace in his rendering, except 'Donec plication of ill-trained lawyers. ”
creatures complementary to other
gratus eram tibi,' as being commended Distinctly discouraging is that part of individuals—a view which derogates from
by Scaliger, an ode which Raleigh actually the Report which discusses The Influence the dignity of wifehood and motherhood.
made into a dialogue between God and of Organized Alumni on American Col- He realizes to the full the crushing con-
the Soul ! “ Improving” authors like leges. ' Evidently the organized alumni ditions in which
Plutarch and Seneca are strong favourites, are more concerned with their college's country wives die, worn out early in life,
and Aristotle is commended as a safe success in athletic events (even some-
and so undue a proportion of the survivors
guard against scheming schismatics and times by dishonourable means) than with become insane ; yet he deprecates the
religious sophisters. Many of our admired its intellectual progress-a fact which entry of women into outside occupations
classics, such as Plato, were less known indicates that some American colleges in which they have a prospect of living to
in the latter half of the sixteenth century are suffering in an exaggerated form from
a sane old age and of enjoying that
than a book of moral maxims like the the same disease as English institutions.
financial independence which is becoming
' Zodiacus Vitæ' of Marcellus Palin-
as dear to them as to men. What he
Prof. Irving King's" Source Book," as he fails to see is that marriage is not possible
genius, done into English by Barnabe calls it, is a collection of reports, observa- for all and that only when women are
Googe. This relentlessly instructive work
provided the phrase "Rome was not The School Review Monographs
- No. II. generally able to live comfortably and
built in a day”; instructions to be good, Papers presented for Discussion at a Meeting creditably outside marriage will society
at any rate, if you cannot be clever; of the Society of College Teachers of Educa be compelled so to modify its conditions
warnings that most people shut the fold
tion. (University of Chicago Press; Lon as to make them acceptable to many
when the flock is lost; and a host of similar
don, Cambridge University Press. ) independent minded and
capable
commonplaces.
Sixth Annual Report of the Carnegie Founda-
Moreover, only when such
Homer and Ovid fare better than Virgil,
tion for the Advancement of Teaching, 1911. women find married life in rural districts
(New York, 576, Fifth Avenue. )
who appeared in some ridiculous disguises. Social Aspects of Education :
acceptable will any satisfactory form of
The best work in verse throughout is,
a Book of social intercourse be likely to take root
Sources and Original Discussions with there.
as might be expected, paraphrase rather Annotated Bibliographies. By Irving King.
than translation. A good many bare (New York, the Macmillan Company. )
mentions of books now unknown provide Farm Boys and Girls. By William A.
duzzles to be solved, but we doubt if in the McKeever. (Same publishers. )
as
women.
-
1
## p. 435 (#327) ############################################
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
435
THE ATHENÆUM
a
Mr.
Scots invade England, and were defeated Although Widsith' has little poetic
HOME RULE.
outside London by the Romans ”; and merit, its value as a document is very
THE flood of Home Rule literature is his first chapter opens cheerfully with great. In the interpretation and criticism
upon us, and the quality of it varies. The "The Irish Question began with the of the statements of Roman writers
Unionist Irish Essays Committee, which Christian era. ” He tells us much of the respecting Germanic ethnography, and
has prepared “The Case against Home Earl of Essex, Tyrconnel, and Wolfe
Earl of Essex, Tyrconnel, and Wolfe of heroic legend as recorded in Beowulf'
Rule,' has certainly done its work very Tone; but the little he has to
Tone; but the little he has to say about and in German and Scandinavian poetry
thoroughly. Not only is the list of con- the Home Rule question to-day is squeezed and saga, its evidence is indispensable,
tributors imposing, but the method into a few pages, and even in these he while at the same time its obscure allu-
also of dealing with the subject is divagates from his particular branch of sions can only be understood by compari-
comprehensive. The paper - covered the subject. The most interesting novelty son with these fuller sources of information.
volume is avowedly a partisan affair ; but is one not of idea, but of expression.
in spite of these limitations its tone as a
On p. 87 he refers to Gladstone's The poem, apart from obvious interpola-
whole is quiet and judicious, and the policy as "a type of policy that never, tions, can hardly be later than the begin-
essays are marked by much industrious in history, failed to have any but one ning of the eighth century, and some of its
compilation and reasoned argument, and ending. "
traditions go back to times far earlier
a comparative lack of wild statement It is refreshing to turn to the volume than the settlement of the Angles in
Britain.
and heat. Mr. Bonar Law's contribu- by Mr. S. G. Hobson, an avowed Home
It may be described as
tion is a short Preface, in which he in- Ruler. He succeeds in putting the case somewhat inartistic attempt to provide a
dicates that to his mind the Ulster objec- with a freshness which is remarkable narrative framework for certain mnemonic
tion is the greatest obstacle to Home at this stage of the controversy, and his lists of names of peoples and of their
Rule-a statement which has special desire to face the truth leads him occa-
rulers most famous in heroic song, which
interest in view of recent rumours. Mr. sionally to say things that will be probably formed part of the regular
Balfour's contribution is also brief, and unpalatable to many Nationalists. Though education of a minstrel. The fiction is of
Sir Edward Carson's is little more than an not blind to the sentimental issue, he the simpleşt: a minstrel of ancient days,
introductory résumê of succeeding chapters, is chiefly interested in the economic named Widsid, “ the Far-travelled” (the
which range in subject from The question, and his chapters on finance, name actually existed, but is obviously
Religious Difficulty' to 'Private Bill the waste of Irish administration, chosen on account of its meaning), is sup- .
Legislation. ' Especially interesting are an agriculture, and the changes needed posed to recount his travels. As about
admirable article on · Éducation by Mr. for the development of Irish resources, every fourth word is a proper name, there
Godfrey Locker - Lampson; Mr. L. S. are most stimulating, vivid, and sugges- is not much room for story, but now and
Amery's article on the 'Colonial Analogy'; tive.
Hobson holds the view,
of
and Mr. George Wyndham's little treatise shared by many Irishmen to-day, that by an epithet expressing his traditional
on ‘The Completion of Land Purchase,' in the passage of Home Rule will mean
character, or by an allusion to some
which the author of the 1903 Act re- an immediate diminution of clerical in incident in his career. Tradition has no
iterates with Mr. Law's authority the fluence over local and national politics. sense of chronology, and the kings before
Unionist pledge that, should the party He also argues that the new régime will whom Widsith sang, and who bestowed
return to office, the land policy of 1903
see a fresh cleavage of parties in Ireland,
on him rich gifts, belong historically to
will be resumed. By contrast with the a cleavage not religious, but economic three different centuries. The strings of
restraint observed elsewhere, there is a He has a lively and personal style, and proper names are introduced abruptly,
deplorable feverishness about Earl Percy's his work may be commended to all who with little attempt to weave them into
essay on The Military Disadvantages of desire to consider a thoughtful presenta- the texture of the story. The author was
Home Rule. A good deal of his tion of the Home Rule case as it bears a skilled versifier, but the traces of higher
matter is only faintly, if at all, rele- on the great realities that underlie all poetic qualities that may be found in his
vant to the subject allotted to him, and politics.
work are probably due to echoes of the
he has seized the opportunity to spread Mr. de F. Pennefather's pamphlet is older songs from which he derived his
the view that war with Germany cannot concise and well - arranged.
He takes wide knowledge of heroic tradition. Wid.
long, be avoided, to urge compulsory 25 “ Delusions” entertained by Home sith 'has for us moderns an interest like
service, and to inform us that Home Rulers, and subjoins the “ Facts which, that of a fragmentary catalogue of a lost
Rule will mean civil war,
accompanied in his opinion, should shatter them. Now library; we see from it how abundant
by atrocities which will be remembered and then he is somewhat vague, as when and various were the treasures of Old
for centuries. ” This is, to our thinking, he observes that “ To Hell with England” English epic poetry, of which, by the
almost solitary
prophecy of an unnecessarily specific is one of the mottoes of the Irish Nation- merest accident,
kind.
alists.
example survives in ‘ Beowulf. '
Sir Thomas Fraser's volume on The
Mr. Chambers's edition of · Widsith'-
Military Danger ’ is scarcely, more illu- Widsith : a Study in Old English Heroic for this is what the volume really is,
minating than Lord Percy's chapter. Legend. By R. W. Chambers. (Cam- the prolegomena and the text makes this
The author, in fact, occupies by far the
greater portion of his space with an his-
bridge University Press. )
description seem inappropriate-is a re-
torical survey which goes back to the THE Old English poem Widsith' con- markably thorough and serviceable piece
earliest times. The first words in his sists of only 143 lines, and the volume of work. There is no other single book,
Chronology are " 363. Picts and Irish which Mr. Chambers has devoted to its even in German, which contains so com-
illustration contains nearly double that plete a summary of what has been done
Against Home Rule : the Case for the Union. number of pages. He cannot, however, by scholars, from the days of Cony beare
By Arthur J. Balfour, J. Austen Chamber. be fairly charged with either irrelevance and Kemble to the present time, for the
lain, and others. Edited by S. Rosen- or diffuseness. Those who are acquainted elucidation of the poem. Although Mr.
baum. With Introduction by Sir Edo with the enormous mass of comment and Chambers’s general point of view differs
ward Carson, and Preface by A. Bonar controversy to which this brief text has considerably from that indicated in this
Law. (Warne & Co. )
The Military Danger of Home Rule for Ire not have been made much shorter, if it most of his conclusions on questions of
given rise will admit that the book could article, we find ourselves able to accept
land. By Major-General Sir Thomas
Fraser. (John Murray. )
was to include not only a reasoned expo- detail. That these are seldom novel is
Irish Home Rule: the Last Phase.
sition of the author's own conclusions, but no ground for reproach; the reasoning
By
S. G. Hobson. (Stephen Swift & Co. )
also an adequate discussion of the con- by which they are supported is often new
The Fundamental Delusions of Home Rule. flicting theories of eminent scholars with and ingenious. The textual conjectures
By de F. Pennefather, (Love & Malcom: regard to the manifold problems which are justified, and the translation and
son. )
the poem presents.
bibliography are satisfactory.
an
## p. 436 (#328) ############################################
436
THE A THENÆUM
No. 4408, APRIL 20, 1912
FOR
In &
McLachlan (Herbert), St. LUKE, EVANGELIST pictorial faculty is prolific, and the pageantry
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
AND HISTORIAN, with an Introduction of his lines quite readable. On the other
by Prof. A. S. Peake, 2/6 net.
hand, the short pieces are commonplace and
(Notice in these columns does not proclude longer
Sherratt & Hughes garish.
review. )
This is a set of disconnected essays upon Fragments, collected by Beatrice Allhusen
Tbeology.
different aspects of the writings and cha-
and Iris Fox Reeve, 3/6 net.
Crooker (Joseph Henry), THE CHURCH OF
racter of St.
