Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

means "seal-eater" ('History of the New World,' ii. 350).

An excellent reproduction of the presentation portrait of the author which belongs to Christ's College, Cambridge, forms a pleasing frontispiece has material in hand which will furnish forth a to the volume. We learn with satisfaction that he similar issue, and can assure him that all lovers of their mother tongue will be prepared to give it a hearty reception. There is no writer of the day to whom they are under deeper obligations.

Notes on English Etymology. By the Rev. W. W. Skeat, Litt. D. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) PROF. SKEAT has judged rightly in believing that a collection of his papers on etymological subjects, which are scattered through various publications, would be welcome to all who are interested in the study of English. Most of the 'Notes' included in the present volume have appeared in the Transactions Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Edited by W. Rhys Roberts. (Cambridge, University Press.) of the Philological Society during the last twenty years, and a few in the more recent numbers of PROF. ROBERTS has edited the Greek text of the N. & Q. The papers on words imported from three critical letters of Dionysius, and provided an South America and the West Indies are complete English translation of them, a glossary of rhetorical monographs on the subjects with which they deal, terms, and ample introductory matter. The book is and a copious hand-list of early Anglo-French words a companion volume to his edition of Longinus on will be found convenient and useful for reference. the Sublime' in 1899, and is one which deserves a The chief value, however, of the book lies in the warm meed of praise. We are always glad to see series of detached notes in which points of un- such thorough, well-equipped editions as this prosettled etymology are submitted to a fuller and ceeding from the University Presses; they do not more complete discussion than was possible even in come too often, and the outside world is apt to be the author's large dictionary. These, as embody- scornful about the amount of work in the shape of ing the final conclusions, retractations, and amend solid contributions to thought and the literature ments of a scholar in a field where he is facile of learning which has been given to us of late by princeps, carry the utmost weight and importance. our greater universities. There is perhaps some Indeed, to our thinking, no fairy tale can compare reason for these complaints, crude as they are. in interest with these fossilized histories, as they Dionysius as a literary critic cannot compare in yield up their secret meaning and origin under ability or originality with the author of the treatise the magic wand of the analytical etymologist. In on the sublime, be he Longinus or another, but his many instances stubborn vocables now reveal them- remarks are always worth reading. He belongs to selves for the first time in their true colours, and the careful rather than the original type of scholar, with surprising results-e.g., calf, crease, darn, and the merits of the first class are apt to be undergallop, &c. In other instances Prof. Skeat's dis- estimated to-day. He is happiest in his estimates coveries have been more or less anticipated by other of authors who show elaboration of style, though investigators. A very similar account of bronze, he appreciates Lysias, a model of lucidity whom e.g., will be found in Schrader's Prehistoric Anti-Thucydidean students do not read sufficiently. quities of the Aryan Peoples,' p. 200, the English Vexing to the modern reader is his depreciation of translation of which appeared in 1890. We notice the style of Plato, the divine master of grace and also some cases where etymologies advanced in ease in language. This same ease is more the gift Dr. Palmer's 'Folk Etymology,' 1883, are now of Oxford than Cambridge, but it is pleasant to adopted. The account of scour, to traverse hastily, find that Prof. Roberts's translation is not lacking there given (p. 648), separating it from scour, to in so essential a quality, and not shackled by the cleanse, and deriving it through the Old French claims of those who want a mere "crib." Somefrom Lat. excurrere, is thus accepted by Prof. Skeat. times we differ from him as to the best rendering His note on Glory, Hand of,' agrees closely with of a word, but always he seems to have thought Palmer's Hand of Glory' (p. 161). Unconscious over the solution of the difficulty and found a cerebration will no doubt often reproduce in this way out of it. Thus vola of a patriot is better way what one has formerly read and forgotten. rendered, we think, by "partiality" than "enthuSimilarly the explanation of the Shakespearian siasm," and devòs of Thucydides is more poßepòs crux, "We may deliver our supplications in the than "clever." We do not hold with such a quill" (2 Hen. VI.,' I. iii. 4), as meaning "col- phrase as "when he elects to write." It is surely lectedly," "all together" (Fr. en cueill-ette), had recent, Transatlantic, undesirable English. Despite already been given in the Folk-Etymology,' p. 310, his pedantry, Dionysius has some of the supreme though spoilt there by an alternative suggestion Greek talent for seeing the right thing. A criticism nihil ad rem. of his on Thucydides we saw echoed the other day by the latest of critics on the newest of Greek histories. "Of all literary virtues, the most important is propriety." We fancy moderns without the Greek will imagine that this refers to what is called "unexceptionable morality," whereas "propriety" is only rò πрÉжоν. The whole discussion on Thucydides is interesting, more arresting than we had thought it; but we still lack an adequate reason for his extraordinary style-a better reason than that he invented it to give Greek grammarians a living. There is something pleasing in the serene spectacle of Dionysius criticizing his Plato and Demosthenes in letters to a friend in an age when

The origin of blot is not a little curious, coming as it does from plot, pelote (O.F. blote) a pellet or ball of earth or dirt. The similar contraction in platoon from peloton might have been referred to. A parallel is afforded also by the surname Pratt (formerly Prott), which, if we mistake not, is a contraction of Perrot.

The explanation of the word Esquimaux, which Prof. Skeat takes from Tylor (given also in Taylor's Names and Places'), has been discredited by more recent writers. Our most learned authority on res Americana, Mr. E. J. Payne, shows that the name is taken from the Algonquin askik-amo, which

everything was being shaken by the decadence of imperial Rome, and the greatest change the world of thought has ever seen was close at hand.

་

THREE articles in the Edinburgh Review will remain of permanent value as an index of the state of knowledge and feeling at the beginning of the century. In Greece and Asia' are gathered in narrow compass the prominent facts relating to the early Hellenic civilization. It is a difficult subject whereon to write-one, indeed, on which few persons think clearly. We have been so accustomed to believe, in spite of the evidence that has always existed to the contrary, that our progress has been solely due to the influences of Semitic and Greek thought, that it will come as something like a shock to many good people to learn how much Hellas was in its beginnings indebted to races regarded as in every way inferior to the Aryans. We do not feel called upon to question this self-satisfying piece of optimism, but must draw attention to the facts that the alphabet itself has probably come from Hittite rather than Phoenician sources, and that true alphabets, as distinguished from cuneiform and hieratic, were the work of busy merchantmen and traders rather than of grave and thoughtful students struggling after logical simplicity. The sum of the matter is here said to be that Greek civilization was mainly derived from the non-Aryan population of Asia Minor, and thus indirectly from the Mongol race in Babylonia, which first established art and a written character in Cappadocia." "Temporary Stars' has gathered up all that is at present known, or which rests on a wide basis of probability, regarding those strange suns which burst upon the sight

heard such misguided people say that the late
bishop's writings are dull, a statement indicating
that they are not only devoid of the historical
instinct, but also are deficient in power of
appreciating a style remarkable for excellence.
teenth Century,' by Mr. W. Miller, is an instructive
'Europe and the Ottoman Power before the Nine-
be found in English. It is not easy to account for
paper, as it contains information not elsewhere to
the decay of a great military power which was for
so long a terror to the Christian West. The writer
does not endeavour to do this, but he furnishes
some details which may be helpful to any one who
ventures upon this intricate subject. Mr. F. Baring
writes on the New Forest, and shows, as we believe
conclusively, that the cruelty of William the Norman
in clearing that region for the purpose of making it
think, indeed, he might have gone further in the
a great game preserve has been exaggerated. We
way of extenuation. The removal of rural popula-
tions from one site to another was not in the
Middle Ages a great hardship, certainly not so
cruel as the clearances in the Scottish High-
lands which have in recent days met with ardent
defenders. We wish Mr. Baring would devote his
attention to William's devastations in the north
of England. Have they also been exaggerated by
chroniclers and historians? Mr. C. Bonnier gives
from a Douce MS. a list of English towns with what
he calls their attributes, which he regards as more
come down to us.
complete than the others which are known to have
We believe it to be identical
with a similar catalogue which appeared in our
pages some years ago (6th S. viii. 223).

THE LATE DR. SYKES, OF DONCASTER. — Will those readers of N. & Q' who happen to have on loan any books belonging to the late Dr. Sykes kindly communicate with the Rev. W. C. Boulter, Norton Vicarage, Evesham?

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for a short time, and then, so far as human vision is concerned, sink into nothingness or become mere points of light. Until the spectroscope came into use nothing was known regarding these phenomena beyond their mere presence and that almost all of them had been seen among the great nebule of the Milky Way. Now their chemical nature is to a great degree ascertained, and an important step has been taken towards solving the mystery of planet formation. We imagine that 'The Time-Spirit of the Nineteenth Century' will furnish many texts for controversy. With its main outlines we are in full sympathy, but on such a subject no two persons capable of abstract thought can be found who are in absolute agreement. The estimates of the survivors from the eighteenth century, several of whom continued to our own time, are especially good, as are also the remarks on the revived scho-spondents must observe the following rules. Let lasticism which has been a distinctive characteristic of these latter days. The review of Mr. Corbett's books on Drake furnishes pleasant and instructive reading. The hero has been so long the victim of romance that it is delightful to have the truth, or what is a very near approach thereto, set before us in a form which will attract readers. The notice of Tolstoi is written with feeling by one who understands his subject. It is at present, however, far too early to come to definite conclusions.

PROF. MAITLAND has contributed to the English Historical Review an excellent memoir of the late Bishop of Oxford. It must give pleasure to every one who has a genuine love of knowledge, as distinguished from the vague generalizations which pass current among those who feel aggrieved if they do not find in the histories they read the excitement which a novel gives them. We have

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