the grant in the reign of Elizabeth is noted by Sir John Harington in his Treatise on Playe' (published in Nuga Antiquæ,' ii. 15, ed. 1779): "Yt hath been a favor (thoughe now not common) to geue a pardon of the cap, viz., to stand coverd." With regard to the Kingsale peerage the following occurs under date 27 June, 1720, in Salmon's 'Chronological Historian,' ed. 1733: "The Lord Kinsale was presented to the King [George I] by the Duke of Grafton, and asserted the ancient Right of his Family, of being covered in his Majesty's Presence." This nobleman, according to Burke, who notices the incident, was Gerald, the twenty-fourth baron. 115, Albany Road, Camberwell.

F. ADAMS.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: "MISS KATIES" (9th S. viii. 403).—The previous word in the sentence, "pismires," gives the clue to Davie Deans's meaning. He refers to mosquitos, which word is still pronounced "miskaties" by the country people in Scotland.

A. & C. BLACK. [Similar replies acknowledged. The "Edinburgh "Waverley, now being published, also explains this in the glossary.]

LARKS FIELD: BARONS DOWN (9th S. viii. 264, 372).—Inasmuch as 'N. & Q' will become authoritative to future generations, please correct an obvious misprint. "Nexex" should read rexen, our vernacular for rushes. We often duplicate the old plural, and now say F. T. ELWORTHY.

rexens.

MONSIGNOR ERSKINE (9th S. viii. 385).Monsignor Charles Erskine was born in Rome 13 Feb., 1743, and was a cadet of the family of the Earl of Kerrie, now Mar and Kellie. He was a son of Colin Erskine, whose father was Sir Alexander Erskine, second baronet, of Cambo, married to Lady Anne Erskine, the elder daughter of the third Earl of Kellie. He was made by Pius VI. successively Consistorial Advocate, Canon of St. Peter's, Domestic Prelate, and Uditore.

He was

diplomatic agent of Pius VI. in London at the end of the eighteenth century, and celebrated the obsequies of Pius VI. at St. Patrick's Church there in 1799 with great solemnity, in the presence of all the foreign ambassadors; and a large number of the French bishops at that time in exile assisted at the ceremony, together with many of the English aristocracy, Protestant as well as Catholic. He was created a Cardinal Deacon in 1801 by Pius VII., of Sta. Maria in Campitelli, a title previously held by the Cardinal Duke of York. When Rome was taken by the French

Erskine was deported to Paris, and died there in March, 1811, the same day on which was born Napoleon's son, the so-called King of Rome. Erskine was buried in the Panthéon at Paris, where an inscription on granite marks his grave. HARTWELL D. GRISSELL, F.S.A. Cardinal Charles Erskine was the son of Colin Erskine and grandson of Sir Charles Erskine, of the county Fife. Colin was an artist at Rome, and married an Italian lady, Charles was born about 1743, was educated at the English College at Rome, and acted as a kind of legate in London, where the Pope, on the conclusion of the Concordat with France, deputed him to require the resignation of the émigré bishops. He is described as a good scholar, an excellent talker, and a back to Rome he visited Paris in 1802, where patriotic Briton. Apparently on his way I believe he died in 1811. J. G. ALGER. Paris.

NATIONAL COVENANT OF 1638 (9th S. viii. 385). This document appears in full in Rushworth's 'Historical Collections,' the second part, p. 734. Rushworth is to be found in all good libraries, and therefore M. N. G. can have no difficulty in obtaining the original words. The document occupies exactly seven pages folio, and is entitled

"The Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland, subscribed at first by the King's Majesty and his Household in the Year of God 1580; thereafter by Persons of all Ranks in the Year 1581, by Ordinance of the Lords of the Secret Council, and Acts of the General Assembly; subscribed again by all sorts of Persons, in the Year 1590, by a new Ordinance of Council, at the desire of the General Assembly; Religion, and the King's Person, and now subscribed with a General Band for maintenance of the True in the Year 1638, by us Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses, Ministers, and Commons under subscribing; together with our Resolution and Promises for the Canses after specified, to maintain the said True Religion, and the King's Majesty, Parliament: the Tenure whereof here followeth." according to the Confession aforesaid, and Acts of Sir Walter Scott in 'Tales of a Grandraised by this document as intense; it was father,' chap. xli., describes the excitement

of thousands, of every age and description, vowing, sworn to by hundreds, thousands, and hundreds with uplifted hands and weeping eyes, that with the Divine assistance, they would dedicate life and fortune to maintain the object of their solemn engagement."

RICHD. WELFORD.

I have a copy of the "Fac-Simile of the National Covenant of Scotland, in its Original Form, with the Autographs of the principal leading Personages, Fr. Schenck, Lith., Edinburgh (entered Stationers' Hall)." It

"TEENAH "FIG TREE (9th S. viii. 344).The question is answered almost precisely in 'Encyclopædia Biblica,' s.v. 'Fig Tree.' C. S. WARD.

THURLOW AND THE DUKE OF GRAFTON (9th S. viii. 405). According to Charles Butler's Reminiscences' (1824, vol. i. pp. 188-90), Thurlow's celebrated reply to the Duke of Grafton was made "during the inquiry into Lord Sandwich's administration of Greenwich Hospital." This inquiry, which was made on the motion of the Duke of Richmond, lasted from March to June, 1779 ('Parl. Hist.,' xx. 484).

Miscellaneous.

G. F. R. B.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Care of Books. By John Willis Clark, M.A., F.S.A. (Cambridge, University Press.) THOUGH appealing naturally and necessarily to bibliophiles, and destined to find a home on the shelves of every place entitled to be called a library, this book of the Registrar of the University of Cambridge is wholly unlike almost anything in the department of bibliography. With that now popular branch of knowledge, indeed, Mr. Clark disclaims any connexion or concern. Bibliography will, he says in his opening pages, be " wholly excluded." Books are, from his point of view, "simply things to be taken care of," and their external features even concern him "only so far as they modify the methods adopted for arrangement and preservation." The title adopted is brief and adequate. The scope of the book might, however, have been more adequately defined had it been expanded. Books: their Housing, Arrangement, and Preservation,' would commend itself to us, though the exception we take, if regarded as such, is frivolous. At any rate, the volume is welcome, and constitutes a chapter in our knowledge concerning libraries and their contents deeply interesting and in its way unique. Disclaim as he may the adjective “bibliographical,” the author cannot prevent its application. A work written concerning books must necessarily be bibliographical, and in portions of his volume-when, for instance, he deals with chained books-our latest bibliographer is on ground previously occupied by the late William Blades. It was while writing his Architectural History of the University of Cambridge' that the

notion arose that the study of the customs affecting the Rede Lecture of June, 1894, he attempted a monastic libraries might prove remunerative. In reconstruction of the monastic library, and showed the value of illuminated MSS. as depicting the life

of a medieval scholar and scribe. As Sandars Lecturer on Bibliography he developed the subject in 1900 so as to include the libraries of Greece and Rome. Since that time he has, in the course of travels undertaken for the purpose, gone further into various libraries, making himself careful measurements, accompanied in many instances by of numerous librarians at home and abroad. The sketches, and invoking successfully the co-operation result is a work creditable in all respects to the writer and in many respects to the publishers, and claiming the homage of book-lovers throughout the world. It is brilliantly illustrated, and many of the designs, those especially from illuminated manuscripts, are of great beauty and interest. If we have reluctantly to hint at censure, in which the author is no wise involved, we would declare that the book is, for its size, marvellously heavy, suggesting the use of the appliances for perusal in vogue in mediæval times, and that the most careful treatment of the volume scarcely precludes the risk of plates or pages becoming detached from the remainder.

It is, of course, superfluous in the case of readers of N. & Q.' to draw attention to the fact that the earliest documents, so soon as perishable records were substituted for stone, were altogether unlike the books of to-day, and that the receptacles for holding them were no less unlike our present shelves. When we reach classic times, and, indeed, almost until the use of printing, books were in rolls, and the pious scribe, at the end of his long labour, not seldom wrote Explicit. Laus Deo.' The earliest record rooms discovered by Layard, and depicted library which Mr. Clark presents consists of the in his Nineveh and its Remains.' These are in the palace of Assur-bani-pal. This involves a respectable antiquity, and Dr. Wallis Budge is disposed to think that the bilingual lists which that monarch had drawn up for his library in Nineveh were intended for the use of students. In well-known passages in the epitome of the first book of the Deipnosophists' of Athenæus we hear of extensive libraries six centuries before our era in the possession of Polycrates. tyrant of Samos, and Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, the latter. according to Aulus Gellius, accessible to all who cared to use it. From the same quarter we hear of the possession of considerable libraries by Euripides the poet and Aristotle the philosopher

to the books of Euripides, and Xenophon speaks of In 'The Frogs' of Aristophanes Eschylus refers the number of books in the possession of Euthy demus, a follower of Socrates. The passage in Aristophanes is as follows—

καὶ μηκέτ' ἔμοιγε κατ' ἔπος, ἀλλ' ἐς τὸν σταθμὸν αὐτὸς, τὰ παιδί, ἡ γυνὴ, Κηφισοφῶν, ἐμβὰς καθήσθω, συλλαβὼν τὰ βιβλία ἐγὼ δὲ δύ' ἔπη τῶν ἐμῶν ἐρῶ μόνονand its authority is not undisputed. Evidence, however, as to how books were cared for in Greece during the golden period is not to be had, and even concerning the libraries at Alexandria and that at Pergamon little is known, though Mr. Clark gives a plan of the rooms at Pergamon supposed to have

been appropriated to the library. Books could occasionally be borrowed from libraries. Our authority for this is again Aulus Gellius. Before the empire libraries were built. Lucullus had a fine collection of books, which seem to have been as much at the disposition of his friends as was in long subsequent times that of Grolier.

At this period we awake to the fact that the matter we discuss occupies only twenty pages in a volume of over three hundred, and we have to arrest progress without having given our readers a taste of the good things they have a chance to enjoy. In dealing with the libraries of mediæval monarchs and institutions Mr. Clark is at bis best, and the designs of the libraries of the Vatican, the Escurial, and the great edifices ecclesiastic and collegiate, are of unending interest and value. We cannot attempt to convey a faint idea of the value of the text and the illustrations, and only resign ourselves to the thought of our powerlessness by the reflection that book-owners will soon count this among their treasures, and will be able to gloat over it at leisure. Under these circumstances the less we attempt to describe the greater may possibly be our claim on their gratitude.

The Works of Thomas Kyd. Edited by Frederick G. Boas, M.A. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) A COLLECTED edition of the works of Kyd, edited from the original texts, is a welcome addition to our pre-Shakespearian literature. The plays with which, on evidence more or less convincing, Kyd is credited have long been accessible to the student. It is, however, satisfactory to possess them in a single volume, together with the other works which may be ascribed to him, and with such biographical particulars concerning his education and his association with his fellow-dramatists as survive. Little exact information is current concerning him, and of the plays contained in the present volume two only are provedly his. The Spanish Tragedie; or, Hieronimo is Mad Againe, containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Belimperia, with the pitifull death of Hieronimo,' is mentioned as Kyd's in Heywood's Apology for Actors,' and Pompey the Great, his faire Corneliaes Tragedie,' is said on the title-page of the edition of 1595 to be "written in French by that excellent Poet Ro: Garnier; and translated into English by Thoma Kid." "The Tragedye of Solyman and Perseda' rests on internal evidence, which, though strong, is not absolutely conclusive. Hawkins, in 'The Origin of the British Drama,' conjectures it to be one of the dramas of Kyd, but it is, in fact, anonymous, is not in the original divided into scenes, and is said by Langbaine not to have been acted. There remains The First Part of Ieronimo, and the Life and Death of Don Andrea. Opinions concerning the authorship of this differ. Mr. Sidney Lee, in his life of Thomas Kyd (D.N.B.'), holds that there is adequate internal evidence for assigning it to the same pen to which we owe The Spanish Tragedie.' On the other hand, Mr. Boas deprives Kyd of the authorship of this piece. That a fore part to 'The Spanish Tragedie,' presumably by Kyd, was in existence in 1592 is held probable. That the piece is preserved in 'The First Part of Ieronimo' of 1605 meets with an "unqualified negative." To the popularity of "The Spanish Tragedie' is ascribed the appearance of the anonymous work in question, which it has been

said was printed in 1605, and contains, Mr. Boas holds, internal evidence of having been written in the seventeenth century, or from five to ten years after the date generally accepted as that of the death of Kyd. Not quite conclusive is in every case the internal evidence advanced. Hieronimo's references to his jubilee, I. i. 25 et seq., may be due to the jubilee of 1600. It is not inconceivable that they have another origin. We agree with Mr. Boas that the assumption that they are an interpolation is purely arbitrary. The frequent jests about the small stature of Ieronimo can scarcely be justified by the appropriation of the play by the Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars. There is ingenuity in the supposition, and the reference to the Induction to The Malcontent' is happy. When we read the well-known lines addressed to Ieronimo by Balthezer,

Thou ynch of Spaine;

much;

Thou man, from thy hose downe ward, scarse so
Thou very little longer than thy beard,
Speake not such big words, &c.,

it is difficult to conceive why, unless some actor known to be of more diminutive stature than his fellows was indicated, they are applied to Ieronimo alone. If all the parts were played by children the insults lose their significance. Is anything known concerning the stature of Ieronimo? If, as has been supposed, Ben Jonson was the original Hieronimo of The Spanish Tragedie,' such a reason could not have been advanced.

Many plays have, with little apparent justification, been ascribed to Kyd. Malone believed him to have a hand in the first Taming of a Shrew' and in Titus Andronicus,' and Mr. Fleay would assign him 'Arden of Feversham,' a theory which has found little favour, but in support of which much may be advanced. A good deal of attention has been, however, accorded the notion that he was the first to dramatize the story of Hamlet. This first Hamlet, or, as Prof. Boas calls it, the "Ur- Hamlet," is attributed to Kyd. Kyd, it may safely be assumed, was the subject of a satirical attack by Thomas Nash in his prefatory epistle to Menaphon,' when he says, "If you entreate him faire on a frostie morning he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speeches." These things have been the subject of much debate during recent days, and we can but refer our readers to the introduction of Prof. Boas. We are not prepared to accept the estimate of Kyd that the professor advances, but we are glad to have his works in a handsome and scholarly edition. Kyd's name frequently rises in dealing with the literature of Tudor times, and his association with Marlowe in the charge of atheism attracts special attention to him. The documents connected with this are included in this edition, as are Kyd's translation from Tasso and his tract on The Murder of John Brewen.' Matter of great interest as illustrating Kyd's work is given in the appendices. The introduction and notes are excellent, and have separate indexes. A close study has been made of the Cornelie' of Garnier, a flat imitation of Seneca, which is, if possible, flatter in the rendering of Kyd. Prof. Boas has done a piece of scholarly work. There are a few other Tudor dramatists that call for similar treatment. Balzac get the name "la Belle Impéria" from the same source as 'The Spanish Tragedie'?

Did

Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Dickens. 2 vols. (Methuen & Co.)

THESE Volumes begin apparently a new and desirable edition of the works of Dickens, to be called the "Rochester Edition." When the writings of a classic, such as Dickens must now be considered, pass out of the copyright stage and become subject to general competition, some advance in typographical attractions and comfort is to be expected. The masterpieces can scarcely be read under conditions pleasanter than are here realized. The type is excellent, the illustrations by Miss Beatrice Alcock reproduce faithfully the London of the epoch, and Mr. Kitton's notes are few and serviceable. Mr. Gissing supplies a discriminating preface, in which he uses terms of eulogy warmer in some respects than we might ourselves employ. It enhances, however, the pleasure of the reader, and the book deserves most that can be said about it. We fail to trace in Barnaby any suggestion of Madge Wildfire beyond the peacocks feathers which he wears, and we look upon the reformation of Mrs Varden as an anticipation of the overflowing benevolence of the coming Christmas volumes. Women such as Mrs. Varden never improve. The characters generally are in Dickens's best vein, and the description of the riot is admirable. What a character for stage presentation by " Dicky" Suett would have been John Willet! It is a pity to find Dickens countenancing such heresies as bye" for by and "from whence" for whence, but his style is not now to be criticized afresh.

66

Notes for a Bibliography of Edward FitzGerald. By Col. W. F. Prideaux, C.S.I. (Hollings.) IN their original shape these notes for a bibliography appeared, as our readers are aware, in our columns (see 9th S. v. 201, 221, 241; vi. 61). With additions and with a reproduction of Charles Keene's clever and characteristic back view of FitzGerald, they have been issued in book form. They do not claim finality. It is difficult, however, to exaggerate their interest for lovers of the poet, and they are, apart from any other claims upon attention, models of discriminating, appreciative, and pleasant criticism. No lover of FitzGerald will dream of being without this delightful volume. Goethe: Hermann und Dorothea. Edited by C. A. Buchheim and Emma S. Buchheim. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.)

WE need only say that this edition reaches the level of its predecessors, which will be ample praise to those who know the late Prof. Buchheim's editions of the German classics. Deeply do we regret that a life so industrious and so well spent in bringing the treasures of a great language and literature before us is finished, while we hope that his mantle of interpretation and scholarship may fall upon his daughter, who has finished this edition. There is a sympathetic sketch of Dr. Buchheim by Prof. Dowden.

Chivalry. By F. Warre Cornish, M.A. (Sonnenschein & Co.)

THIS work of Mr. Cornish is the latest addition to that "Social England Series" which has already given us books such as Mr. S. O. Addy's excellent Evolution of the English House' and Mr. Inderwick's The King's Peace.' It is written with much spirit, capitally illustrated, and constitutes agreeable reading. Quite optimistic is it as regards

its treatment of chivalry, and it is to a certain extent a defence of that institution against the attacks of Freeman and other recent critics. As such it is welcome. One may not dismiss in a few glib phrases an institution such as chivalry; and while it is true that the time of the Crusades is one of the saddest and most sterile in history, when war was the breath of life and the shedding of blood the only occupation worthy of a gentlema the romantic sentiment and refined idealism which sprang out of such a state of affairs have influenced greatly and beneficially our later civilization. Like all works on chivalry, the book owes much to the writings of Curne de Sainte Palaye, but it could not have a better source. It is a work to be kept near at hand for constant reference.

Apropos of the discussion on 'Painted and Engraved Portraits,' begun by MR. MASON 9th S. vii. 341, and continued 9th S. vii. 438, 470, 512; viii. 231, MR. DUNCAN, of the "Britannia," Whitefield, Govan, Glasgow, has sent us a singularly interest ing and effective portrait of Scott, to which he alludes at the last reference. It is modelled from the Chantrey bust and "coloured" from the best existing portraits, and is very lifelike.

UNUSUAL advantages are offered those who now

subscribe to the admirable English Dialect Die tionary' of Dr. Joseph Wright. The preparation of the work has taken over a quarter of a century. Four of the six volumes have been printed, and the whole will be in the subscribers' hands in 196 Those anxious to understand the nature of this exemplary work and the terms on which it can now be obtained should write to Prof. Joseph Wright, Langdale House, Park Town, Oxford.

Notices to Correspondents.

We must call special attention to the following notices:

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately To secure insertion of communications corre spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repest queries are requested to head the second com munication "Duplicate."

M. JACOMB HOOD ("Author Wanted"). - Shall appear next week.

O. A. E. (“ Phrase in Letter”).—This is certainly tautological.

NOTICE.

Editorial communications should be addressed to "The Editor of Notes and Queries ""-Advertise ments and Business Letters to "The Publisherat the Office, Brean's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C

We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rule we can make no exception.