Monasterio de Sahagun, by the "Archivo Historico Nacional;" of the notices of some of the Becerros y Cartularios in the same institution, by Don José Fordadada; of the Catalogue of the 625 Spanish MSS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, of which the first part has just appeared, by Morel Fatio; the Guia de la Villa y Archivo de Simancas, by Diez Sanchez; the Manual de Paleografia diplomática Española, and the Paleografia Visigoda of Señor Munoz y Rivero; not to mention the labours of the veteran Gayangos, and the catalogues or indications of separate collections which have appeared in provincial journals-all these show how earnestly such studies are pursued in Spain.

JEREMIE, Commentaire sur, Dar Rabbi Josef ben Siméon
Kara, Auteur français du XIe siècle, p. p. Léon Schlosberg.
Paris: Durlacher.
ZAHN, Th. Forschungen zur Geschichte d. neutestament-
lichen Kanons u. der altkirchlichen Literatur. 1. Thl.
Tatian's Diatessarɔn. Erlangen: Deichert. 7 M.

HISTORY.

In original works, the Ancient Geography of Spain, by Fernandez Guerra, which has met the enthusiastic approval of Hübner, is being printed by the Government; and Fernandez y Bosc. E.. et L. BONNEMERE. Histoire nationale des Gaulois Gonzalez continues the labours of Amador de los Rios on the Semitic populations of Spain.

In the collection of folk-lore, progress is being made. Señors Delmas and Trueba are working in the Basque Provinces, and so also is V. de Arana (whose Leyendas Bascongadas are announced for November); in Andalusia several labourers are in the field; in Barcelona the publishers Domenech and Co., have begun a series of works, entitled Artes y Letras, on popular poetry and traditions. We may also call attention to the nicely printed "Coleccion de Autores Castellanos," by Perez Dubrull, Madrid, in which the Romancero espiritual of Valdivielso and the Obras drámaticas of Ayala have already appeared.

sons Vercingétorix. Paris: Firmin-Didot. 8 fr. PHILLIMORE, Lucy. Sir Christopher Wren: his Family and his Times. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

Précis militaire de la Campagne de 1813 en Allemagne. REMUSAT, Madame de, A Selection from the Letters of, to her Husband and Son. 1804-13. Trans. Mrs. Cashel Hoey and

Leipzig: Brockhaus. 2 M. 50 Pf.

J. Lillie. Sampson Low & Co. 16s.

RENAN. E. Marc-Aurèle et la Fin du Monde antique. Paris: SCHMIDT, K. Jus primas noctis. Eine geschichtl. Unter

C. Lévy. 7 fr. 50 e.

sucbg. Freiburg-i.-B.: Herder. 8 M. WILSON, Erasmus. The Egypt of the Past. Kegan Paul,

Trench & Co. 128.

WITT. Mame. de. Scènes historiques. 20 Série. Paris:

Hachette, 5 fr.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

ANNALES de l'Observatoire astronomique, magnétique et météorologique de Toulouse. T. 1. 1873-78. Paris: Gauthier-Villars.

We subjoin the two short poems of Nuñez DARWIN O. The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the

de Arce referred to above :

A ESPAÑA.

Roto el respecto, la obediencia rota, de Dios y de la ley perdido el freno, vas marchando entre lágrimas y cieno y aire de tempestad tu rostro azota.

Ni causa oculta, ni razon ignota busques al mal que te devoro el seno ; tu iniquidad, como sutil veneno, las fuerzas de tus músculos agota.

No esperes en revuelta sacudida alcanzar el remedio por tu mano, ¡ oh sociedad rebelde y corompida !

Perseguiras la libertad en vano, que cuando un pueblo la virtud olvida lleva en sus propios vicios su tirano. 1866.

GENERAL LITERATURE.

Action of Worms. Murray.

L'ANNÉE MÉDICALE. 30 Année. 1880. Paris: Plon. 4 fr.
LAPPARENT, A. de. Traité de Géologie. 2o Faso. Paris:
Savy.

ROSCOE, H. E. A Treatise on Chemistry. Vol. III. Part I.
Organic Chemistry. Macmillan. 21s.
SIEMENS, W. Gesammelte Abhandlungen u. Vorträge.
Berlin: Springer. 14 M.
STIRLING, J. Hutchison. Text-Book to Kant. Simpkin,

Marshall & Co. 148.

POEMA morale, das mittelenglische. Im krit Text, nach den 6 vorhandenen Handschriften zum 1. Male hrsg. v. H. Lewin. Halle: Niemeyer. 2 M. REISIG, Ch. K. Vorlesungen üb. lateinische Sprachwissenschaft, m. den Anmerken. v. F. Haase. Unter Benutzg.

der hinterlassenen Manuscripte neu bearb. v. H. Hagen. 1. Bd. Berlin: Calvary. 6 M.

THIBAUT, li Romanz de la Poire. Erotisch-allegor. Gedicht

aus dem XIII. Jahrh., hrsg. v. F. Stehlich.
Niemeyer. 4 M.

CORRESPONDENCE. MACLISE'S PICTURE, "THE SERENADE," AND MR. BROWNING'S POEM, "IN A GONDOLA." 3 St. George's Square, N.W.: Oct. 12, 1881.

Can any of your readers tell me where Maclise's picture of The Serenade from a Gondola in Venice is; and whether it was exhibited in London about the year 1840 or 1841 ?

from a letter of Charles Dickens to Maclise, Mr. Shepherd sends me the following extract written from Albano in 1844:

"In a certain picture called The Serenade, for which Browning wrote that verse in Lincoln's Inn ANNUAIRE de l'Economie politique et de la Statistique, par Fields, you, O Mac, painted a sky" (Life, book iv.,

MM. Guillaumin. Garnier, Block, etc. 38° Année. Paris: Guillaumin. 9 fr. BLACK, W. The Beautiful Wretch. &c. Macmillan. 31s. 6d. Bock, C. The Head Hunters of Borneo: up the Mahakkam and down the Barita. Sampson Low & Co. 368. CONSTANT. Benjamin, Lettres de, à Madame Récamier, 180730. Paris: C. Lévy. 7 fr. 50 c.

DU CHAILLU. The Land of the Midnight Sun. Murray. GABORIAU, E. Les Amours d'une Empoisonneuse. Paris: Dentu. 3 fr. 50 c.

HARDY. Lady Duffus. Through Cities and Prairie Lands: Sketches of an American Tour. Chapman & Hall. 14s. MEIGNAN, V. Le comte Kappyanyi: Récit hongrois. Paris: Plon. 3 fr. 50 0,

picture, before he himself had seen it. When he saw it, he thought the picture worth more than a stanza, and, therefore, wrote his In a Gondola from it.

Neither any entry of the picture nor the verses are in the Royal Academy catalogues from 1835 to 1847, says Mr. Shepherd; nor is any mention made of The Serenade in the Memoir of Daniel Maclise, R.A. (1871), by Mr. O'Driscoll, whose only authority for Maolise's paintings seems to have been the Academy catalogues. But some art-reader of the ACADEMY may, perhaps, have a note as to the history and whereabouts of this Serenade by Maclise. F. J. FURNIVALL.

AN OLD SYRIAC MS. LOST OR HIDDEN IN
ENGLAND OR IRELAND.

Münsingen: Sept. 28, 1881. In the year 1686 there was printed at Dublin An History of the Twofold Invention of the Cross whereon Our Saviour was crucified. Translated out of An antient Aramaean Biologist. Together with An Account of the Conversion of the Ethiopians out of Abulpharagius's Ecclesiastical History. By Dudley Loftus J. utriusq. Dr.

In the Preface to the Reader the editor states:

"This History of the Cross is here translated out of an antient Oriental MS., transmitted about five years since from Aleppo, by Dr. Robert Huntingdon, now Provost of the College of Dublin, unto the Bishop of Fernes and Leighlin, then Provost of It is contained in a Biologie of Eastern the same. Saints, written in a fair Estrangalar Character, wherein the Aramaeans usually write matters of most precious concern.'

Dr. Huntingdon's Syriac MSS. went, after his death, to the Bodleian Library. We find Codd. Hunt." preserved there among the the second MS. which Loftus made use of for the book here mentioned-viz., that of the Ecclesiastical History of Barhebraus-and a third MS. which he used in 1695, the Commentary of Dionysius Bar Salibi on the Gospels; but not the first. Nor is it, as I was told a few years since, to be found at Dublin. The MS. must have been, in all respects, similar to Add. 12174, fol. 291 ff., of the British Museum. But this was written in the year 1196, while Huntingdon's MS., to conclude from the description of the character as given by Loftus in the Preface just quoted, seems to have been of a somewhat older date.

As I am preparing for the press an edition of all Syriac narratives concerning the Invention of the Holy Cross, I should be glad to get any news about the fate of this MS. E. NESTLE.

THE BUDDHA ON WOMEN.

Oxford: Oct. 4, 1881.

Dr. Morris in his interesting review of Mr. Rhys Davids' Buddhist Suttas quotes two passages from the sacred writings in which a have resembled in that respect many of the sages rather unfavourable opinion is expressed about women. The Buddha would therefore seem to of olden and, alas! modern times. However, in justice to the founder of a first sect of female mendicants, I may state that, in one of the Buddhist suttas at least, women are placed on the same moral level as men. In the still unpublished Samyutta Nikaya, one sutta, the Mātugāma samyutta, is devoted to the subject of women. While it is admitted that from natural causes women are inferior to men, it is also stated that nothing can prevent them from reaching the same high standard of moral perfection to which the Buddha taught all his disciples to aspire. As might be expected, Gotama bestows the

of their form and habits given in the text. Then follow practical directions for the prevention and remedy of these pests. In this part Miss Ormerod has had the advantage of communications from numerous correspondents, whose aid she has acknowledged with commendable gratitude and candour. There is no limitation expressed in the title; but it may be safely assumed that Miss Ormerod intends her work merely as a monograph of British injurious insects, although the Colorado beetle and other exceptional insects are admitted. Each country has its own special inflictions. Thus in Jamaica the larvae of the Protoparce jamaicensis is very injurious to the tobacco plant; those of the Euthisanotia timais will sometimes destroy all the lilies in a garden in a few days. Large trees of the Catalpa longisiquila have their leaves stripped by the Hybloea puera. The cucumber vines suffer from Phakellura hyalinata, and the edible calalu is attacked by the Hymenia perspectalis. It would be equally unreasonable and unavailing to seek for any mention of these here. On the more familiar ground of Britain, Miss Ormerod's information is extensive and accurate. Her Manual can be safely recommended to all who are interested in the subject. Such a book placed in the hands of a farmer's son would not only be of practical service, but, if it gave him an interest in entomology, would open to him a new world, and one of great interest. It is a valuable contribution to the literature of the subject, and it is to be hoped that it may come to a second edition, in which case some omissions should be supplied. Among these may be named the Heliophobus popularis and the Characas graminis. The latter has this year been committing some ravages in the district around Clitheroe, where it made sad havoc with the tender parts of the grass. The larvae were in prodigious numbers, and did much damage. It is remarkable that this insect should have escaped Miss Ormerod's notice, as it is described by Koellar, and an instance of its previous devastation at Skiddaw has been recorded by Curtis. Locally, this plague of caterpillars is attributed to the unusual heat of a part of the summer and to the diminution of birds, and especially of seagulls, in the district.

When insects assume the proportions of a plague, it is often because the balance established by Nature has been disturbed. If some insects are injurious to plants, by a grim reversal some plants are equally

inimical to insects. Thus in one of the hothouses at the Jardin des Plantes of Montpellier a curious observation has recently been made of an insect-killing cryptogam, which is described as being of the same genus as the Botrytis, which infests the silk-worm. It was growing upon a Cineraria, and had destroyed all the pucerons that were infesting the plant. The dead aphides, of the genus Siphonophora, could be seen on the leaf,

And

"The summer came, and all the birds were dead;
The days were like hot coals; the very ground
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed
Myriads of caterpillars, and around
The cultivated fields and garden beds
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found
No foe to check their march, till they had made
The land a desert, without leaf or shade."

This poem, on which Miss Ormerod's book furnishes some instructive comments, would form an admirable subject for reading and illustration in our rural schools.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

CAPT. BURMEISTER, of the steamer Louise, whose return to Hammerfest from the Yenisei we recorded on October 1, reports that, after passing through Kara Strait, at the south end of Novaya Zemlya, on the outward voyage, he did not see any ice in the Kara Sea, but on his return he passed several icebergs which had winter; he also experienced rather bad weather fastened, and were likely to remain for the with snowstoms. During his whole voyage Capt. Burmeister saw nothing whatever of the Oscar Dickson. The Louise brought back from the Yenisei a quantity of rye, some wheat, and other Siberian produce.

A MEETING has lately been held at Buenos Ayres in connexion with the proposed Italian Antarctic expedition. It was arranged to ask the Argentine Government for the assistance of two war vessels, required chiefly for transport

whom our information is unfortunately most Soon after leaving Pupêng, in defective. Yunnan, they entered a belt of country inhabited by Lolo, a hardy mountain race still only partly acknowledging Chinese rule. The

specimens seen were scarcely to be distinguished from the Chinese, except by their not being on the average so tall. The women wore over the ordinary tunic and trowsers a kind of long jacket reaching to the knees, the side seams of which are left open; when they are engaged in manual labour the front part of this jacket is rolled up like an apron. The way in which the Lolo carry long deep baskets on their backs by means of straps round their foreheads and yokes on their necks is not unlike the practice of the Kakhyens on the BurmoChinese frontier. Like them, too, they build their villages away from the roads in almost inaccessible dells in the pine-covered mountains. The Lolo near Pupêng, though at one time very troublesome, have now settled down more quietly, and are successful breeders of horses, mules, sheep, and cattle; they also supply the neighbouring towns with firewood, charcoal, timber, and many kinds of medicinal herbs. To protect travellers on the lonely roads through the Lolo country, the Chinese have established guard-houses within signalling distance of each other, and escorts are provided for caravans transporting valuable merchandise. Between Chaotung-fu and the Szechuen frontier, again, a man and woman of extraordinary appearance were met, the latter dressed in a long jacket-gown of coarse flaxen cloth, with her hair done up like a cone on the top of her head. The man was an even wilder-looking specimen of the Hwa (or variegated) Miao-tsze from the hills; he wore a coat of many colours, with white trowsers, and his long black hair hung loosely about his head and over his shoulders.

THE Paris Geographical Society have received intelligence of the death in South-west Africa of M. Henri Dufour, a young French explorer. M. Dufour left Omaruru at the end of last year for the purpose of exploring the basin of the River Cunene at the south of the Portuguese West African possessions. Nothing having been heard of him for some time, a search was made for him, but without success, though his papers and other property were found. It is thought that he has been murdered by an Ovampo tribe now at war with the Portuguese.

WE are glad to announce the arrival in England from Zanzibar of Sir John Kirk, who has done more than any other man Eastern Africa. For this, as well as his services to promote the cause of exploration in in connexion with the suppression of the slavetrade, he lately had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him. He was the intimate friend of Dr. Livingstone, and was associated with him in some of his journeys in the Zambeze region, &c.

FROM the October Statement of the Palestine

On the

Exploration Society, we learn that it has been found necessary to commence the survey of Eastern Palestine at the south instead of at the north, as was originally intended. arrival of the theodolites, therefore, Lieut. Conder lost no time in making the necessary arrangements, and took his party across the Jordan, his first camp being at Ain Hesban, the old Heshbon. He reports that his base line has been twice measured with as great accuracy as

stein, who communicated this fact to the French Academy of Science in May last, was not able to obtain the same effect outside. The Botrytis bassiana is the cause of the disease, known as muscardine, by which silk-worms are sometimes destroyed. The sporules, float

whether the station we mentioned before should

be formed in San Sebastian Bay, Eastern Tierra del Fuego, or some other locality.

DURING their recent journey from the Irawady to the Yangtsze-kiang, Messrs. Soltau and Stevenson passed through some of the aboriginal tribes of South-western China, about

was obtained in the preceding survey, and that results are an immense quantity of cromlechs, miles of survey. Among the archaeological no fewer than fifty having been sketched in three days. Some of them had small chambers near them from three to five feet long, and three feet high, excavated in detached cubes of rock ten to fifteen feet on each side. Lieut. Conder

reports a small harvest of identifications. He thinks he has found the field of Zophim, the ascent of Luhitb, Jazer, Sibmah, and Minnith.

SCIENCE NOTES.

The Geological Society of Edinburgh.-This society has just issued the first part of its fourth volume of Transactions, containing most of the papers read during the last session. The valedictory address of the president, Mr. Milne Holme, is to some extent controversial, being largely occupied with a discussion of the question whether the ice markings on the rocks of the northern part of Scotland were made by the passage of a thick ice-sheet from Scandinavia, as held by some of the officers of the Geological Survey, or not rather by the agency of floating ice, as the president himself stoutly maintains. It is evident, from other papers in this publication, that glacial phenomena occupy the serious attention of a large number of the members of our Northern geological society. Thus, Mr. H. M. Cadell describes in detail the surface geology of part of the estuary of the Forth, and deals largely with the great Ice age; while Mr. J. Fraser contributes a paper in which he discusses the glacial phenomena of

Strathnairn.

THE subscriptions received for the Rolleston Memorial Fund up to the present date amount to £530. It is hoped that this sum may shortly be considerably augmented, especially by subscriptions expected to be received from Oxford at the beginning of the present term. All promoters of the movement are requested to make its existence known to others likely to interest themselves in the matter. The treasurer is E. Chapman, Esq., of Frewen Hall, Oxford. A general meeting will shortly be held to determine finally the form which the memorial shall take.

Ir is now arranged that the "Rudolf Virchow Stiftung," to which we have before referred, for commemorating the sixtieth birthday of Prof. Virchow, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of his academical activity, shall take the form of a permanent endowment, the annual interest of which is to be devoted to the promotion of scientific research, especially in the department of anthropology. The suggestion is made that Prof. Virchow should himself have the direction of the fund.

We have received from Mr. Thomas Fletcher, of Warrington, a somewhat novel object, on which we are inferentially asked to express an opinion. This is one of his "patent solid flame boiling burners." We believe that Mr. Fletcher, as a well-known inventor of gas apparatus, stands in no need of commendation from us. We can only say that, on the night of the arrival of his present, we used it to boil our kettle for tea; and that the kettle took exactly fourteen minutes to boil. How long it would take to boil on the kitchen fire we don't know. We are informed by a domestic authority, to which we defer, that the contrivance will be extremely useful under certain circumstances.

Soheili; an English-Arabic Dictionary and an It is only in more modern times that European Arabic-English Dictionary, by Dr. Steingass; astronomy has gone rapidly ahead. The author Alif Laila, ba-zubân - Urdu (the Arabian quotes from Bhaskara, who wrote in the Nights in Hindustani), printed in Roman eleventh century, an assertion that "the propcharacters, edited by Mr. F. Pincott, M.B.A.S.; erty of attraction is inherent in the earth. By a Malay, Chinese, French, and English Vocabulary, this property the earth attracts any unsupported of the four languages, by Dr. Bikkers; an with words alphabetically arranged under each heavy thing towards itself. The thing appears to be falling; but it is in a state of being English-Hindi Dictionary, by Mr. F. Pincott; and drawn towards the earth." This is interesting a Laskari Dictionary of terms used at sea in enough; but Mr. Mervin is going too far when the seafaring dialect of India, for the use of he therefore concludes that "the laws of gravicaptains, naval officers, and others trading to tation were known to the Hindus long before India, by the Rev. George Small, interpreter to the time of Sir Isaac Newton." Mr. Alexander the Lascars' Home, Blackwall. Dixon, B.Sc., gives a description of the quartz "Gold." reefs of Ceylon in an article entitled " There is a valuable account of the modern religious festivals still held by the Buddhist Mesurier, of the Ceylon Civil Service; and the villagers in the Kandyan districts by Mr. Le number of the Journal closes with the prospectus of the newly started Pāli Text Society.

THE second volume of the late M. Paul de Saint-Victor's Les deux Masques, treating of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and the Kalidasa, will be published immediately by M. Calmann Lévy.

tions et Belles-Lettres on September 21, Prof. Ar the meeting of the Académie des InscripMax Müller, besides presenting a copy of the first number of the Analecta Oxoniensia, which contains a Japanese copy of the Sanskrit MS. of the Vajracedika, communicated the discovery of another Sanskrit MS. in Japan, which is probably the oldest in existence. It is written on palm leaves, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library of Japan. But it came originally from the Buddhist monastery of Horuiji; and, according to the annals of that monastery, it was deposited there in the twentythird year of Umayndo, corresponding to 609 A.D. As we recently stated, no MS. from India can be proved to go back beyond the eleventh century. At the same meeting of the Académie, a paper was read from M. Durembourg giving a translation of the Siloam inscription, which he was disposed to assign to the time of Ahaz.

translation into English of the very important THE Indian Antiquary for August contains a paper "On the Dates of Ancient Indian Inscriptions and Coins" contributed in the early part of this year by Prof. Oldenberg, of Berlin, to Prof. von Sallet's Zeitschrift für Numismatik. Indian chronology in the first centuries of the Christian era has hitherto been almost a hopeless puzzle. The coins and inscriptions of that period are dated in years, but nearly every Indianist has had a different opinion as to the initial years of the various eras in which they are dated. The result is that a coin or an inscription dated, let us say, in the year 120 is assigned by various scholars to periods differing sometimes even by centuries. Dr. Oldenberg's theory differs also from any of those hitherto propounded; but it is so fully worked out, so complete and consistent in itself, and so intrinsically probable, that it will be certain to MR. HENRY S. OLCOTT, President of the receive many adherents unless the propounders Theosophical Society. has published at the of previous systems can succeed in establishing society's press in Colombo, Ceylon (London: its fallacy. Briefly, he identifies the well-known Trübner), 4 Buddhist Catechism, which is Saka era with the era of the great Buddhist stated on the title-page to have been "approved monarch Kanishka, whose coronation he fixes and recommended for use in Buddhist schools in A.D. 78. He makes the Kshatrapa era run by Hikkaduwa Sumangala," the distinguished nearly contemporaneously with the Saka era, high-priest of Adam's Peak, and principal of the fixing its commencement at A.D. 100. He places Widyodaya Parivena, the training college for the initial year of the Gupta chronology in 319, Buddhist recluses in Ceylon. None would and the beginning of the Valabhi dynasty have ventured to predict, a few years ago, that in 480. The reasoning with which these conthe authoritative statement of Buddhist doc- clusions are supported seems to remove most of trine to be used as a text-book in Buddhist the difficulties which have hitherto prevented a schools would be written in English and by an unanimity of opinion; and it will be very American; and that it would be so largely a interesting to hear what Mr. Thomas, compilation, as this is acknowledged in the Mr. Fergusson, and Gen. Cunningham may Preface to be, from the works of Mr. Rhys have to say to this bold adventure of the young Davids, Bishop Bigandet, and other European German Professor, who is rapidly pushing his scholars. This little work, which can be pur-way to the front rank of Orientalists. In the chased for a few pence, will give to those succeeding number of the journal there are a interested in such questions a reliable statement few more pages of Mr. Beal's list of of what the Ceylon Buddhists of to-day hold Pilgrims to India." It is much to be regretted to be the essential points of their religion. It that papers of this kind are so often printed in is instructive to notice how completely and the Indian Antiquary in small instalments frankly the latest teachings of science are scattered through various numbers. This mode accepted and endorsed in this catechism for of publication is very suitable to such studies Buddhist children; and how they are taught as Mr. Fleet's great series of "Sanskrit and Oldto repeat, on the authority of the archbishop Canarese Inscriptions," each of which is comof their faith, that Buddhism, like every plete in itself; but the temptation is to resort other religion that has existed many centuries, to it much too frequently. Thus we have in contains untruth mingled with truth. Even this number three and a-half pages more of Dr. gold is found mixed with dross." Hoernle's valuable paper on the Pali inscriptions at Bharhut, to be continued in the next number, which is to contain the plate. One result of this breaking up of papers, which is of Germany, is necessarily the republication of scarcely ever resorted to in the learned periodicals the papers as a whole, to the great loss of the journal as a work of reference.

The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. VII. (Trübner), astronomy as compared with European science. contains a paper by Mr. Mervin on Indian He very properly points out that the cosmogony of the sacred poets, full of the legends and exaggerations of mythology, should not be regarded as the serious views of the Hindus on scientific subjects. Their standard astronomical works are quite on a par in intelligence and accuracy with European works of similar date.

'Chinese

FINE ART.

The "Ars Moriendi."

A Reproduction of the Copy in the British Museum. Edited by W. H. Rylands, F.S.A. With an Introduction by George Bullen, F.S.A. (Printed for the Holbein Society.)

THE spurious interest at one time excited by the Block-Books, as a factor in the international squabble over the invention of printing, has for many years been followed by the calmness of complete neglect. The Holbein Society has done well to bring the matter once more prominently before the notice of those interested in the early productions of the engraver's craft. The Ars Moriendi is probably, on the whole, the most beautiful of the set of volumes to which it belongs. The work of some unknown artist of unknown date and doubtful locality, it continues to present to students a problem which so far has defied all attempts at solution. Numerous editions are known scattered up and down the libraries of Europe, many of them surviving only in single copies, and some in stray leaves. Among such, the Weygel copy, from which this reproduction has been made, is not only the most perfectly preserved, but it is also the most beautifully executed. No reference is made in the Introduction to the fact that imperfect copies of the same edition are to be found in the University Library at Dublin and the Print Room at Berlin; while the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris claims, at any rate, to possess no less than two perfect copies, in one of which the place of the Latin text is taken by a French translation. The Dublin copy is, in one respect, the most important of the three, in so far as it tends to throw light on the origin of the book, for it is patched with waste sheets of the Canticum Canticorum, thus showing that in the workshop where the one was produced there actually were waste sheets of the other. It seems, therefore, only probable that both were the work of the same school of artists. When it is further borne in mind that the blocks of the Canticum Canticorum, and of an edition of the Biblia Pauperum, came into the possession of the printer, Peter van Os, of Zwolle, and were constantly used by him in a cut-up state in the last years of the fifteenth century, and when, further, it is observed that he published an edition of the Ars Moriendi closely copied from that now under consideration, the conclusion that some common origin must be ascribed to all three acquires an increased probability. In what locality the wood-cutter worked to whose knife these blocks were due remains for the present a mystery; but it seems hardly likely that he can have lived so far from Zwolle as Cologne, the town fixed upon by Weygel. The influence of the style of Roger van der Weyden is strongly marked in the wood-cuts; either, therefore, the proposed date (circ. 1450) must be abandoned, or the proposed city of origin; for Roger's influence had not, in 1450, gained the mastery on the Rhine which it afterwards attained. If these blocks were made on the Rhine, they must be contemporary with the days of the "Master of the Lyversberg Passion "-that is to say, they must be dated circ. 1480. There is, however, no doubt that the system of taking impres

sions from wood-blocks by rubbing the back of the paper with the hand had long before then been given up. The conclusion, therefore, is that the wood-cutter must have worked farther North, probably either in Holland or Belgium. If someone would only settle once for all whether the Paris copy with the French text is from these same blocks or not, we should know better where we are.

While we think that the question of date and place deserves somewhat more attention than has been given it in the Introduction, we cannot but thank Mr. Bullen for the industrious care and exhaustive completeness with which he has brought together so large a number of facts relating to the subjectmatter of the text. The remarkable similarity between its contents and those of the Speculum Artis bene Moriendi, first printed about 1475, is clearly not due to chance; how far the one is derived from the other, or whether both descend from a common source, are questions full of difficulty, and only to be unravelled by the most patient diligence. Mr. Bullen's opinion is that the authors of both had Jean Gerson's Opusculum tripartitum before them, the third part of which is entitled "De Arte Moriendi." Both, at any rate, quote the same sentence from the Opusculum, though with slight differences. So far as the twentyfour pages of reproductions are concerned, there can be but one opinion-they are as good as the work of hand can be. Mr. Price has traced each page with the minutest care, and has succeeded not merely in rendering with marvellous accuracy the expression of the faces and the characteristic handling of the hair, but he has imitated with utmost fidelity the accidental cracks and injuries of the blocks. however, be questioned how far traced It may well, copies of these productions are desirable in a day when photographic processes have been developed to such perfection. No copy made by hand can ever excite the same confidence as one produced purely mechanically. A good copyist must, indeed, reduce himself as far as possible to the level of a machine of the most refined character, and in such an attempt he can by no means compete with the delicacy of the camera. Even Weygel's photographs of the volume are of more real value to the student than the best tracings imaginable; and it may well be doubted whether the Holbein Society would not have done better to employ some process such as heliogravure, surface-printing, or autotype for these reproductions. However this may be, they have certainly produced a most valuable and interesting volume, and one of the most remarkable specimens of the once flourishing art of manual copying which is rapidly taking its place among abandoned crafts.

W. M. CONWAY.

THE EXHIBITION OF THE PHOTO. GRAPHIC SOCIETY. that it is unreasonable to expect any extraorPHOTOGRAPHY has so ne... reached perfection dinary revelation in this exhibition. The combined use of the instantaneous shutters and dry plates has achieved a final triumph over the motions of things. Nature and time may, by

no forced metaphor, be said to have been conquered by this art. Intricacies which no eye can trace, action too swift for it to register, can be copied faultlessly by this wonderful here as the photographs of horses in full trot; mechanism. We have nothing quite so striking but we have athletes running races and swinging on the trapeze (228), the river at Henley during the regatta (479), the towers of spume raised by exploding torpedoes (98), and a thousand other fleeting phenomena struck for us with the sharpness and distinctness of a graphy are shown most clearly in the moment medal. On the other hand, the limits of photoof conquest. The motion which we have spoken of as conquered is conquered only to be lost. The runners run no longer; like the persons in the well-known fairy tale, life seems suspended; they stay poised on one leg. And even in the pictures of material phenomena, the momentary aspect is caught, but the cruel, crawling ever in mid-air. Photography gives us the foam" crawls no longer, and the spray hangs for present only, neither the before nor the after, fractions of which enter into even the most swift impression of human vision. But there are other things dear to sight which photography cannot give us. Not to mention colour, the delicate consistency of delicate things, such as light of waves or grapes or clouds, are apflowers and flesh, the transparency and inner parently beyond it-its effects are as superficial as they are instant.

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Its field of triumph is, however, wide enough; and, except the instantaneous mechanism, nothing has recently increased it more than the without this the other would be comparatively process of enlarging small negatives. Indeed,

useless.

almost impossible to have taken his views of Mr. Whymper would have found it the Andes on the scale they are now so delightfully presented to us by the Autotype Company; and Mr. J. T. Dixon could never have "fixed his animals in such happy attitudes, or have produced such unblurred plates, if he had had to bear about with him unwieldy apparatus. of which there are numerous and beautiful Not excepting even the portraits of children, specimens (see especially Mr. Faulkner's 381 and 393), no photographs here reproduce their objects with so little loss as these portraits of animals at the Zoological Gardens. In expression there is nothing so lifelike and unaffected equal its feathers or the hide of the zebra as that of the vulture, in texture nothing to while the loss of colour is scarcely felt. It is difficult to believe that all this detail of skin and hair can be as distinct in the little plate in the corner; but it would appear from comparison with other photographs of animals close to Mr. Dixon's that the little plates are not only less difficult to manage, but produce clearer and more perfect results when enlarged than can be instance. obtained by the use of larger plates in the first

Medals have been awarded to Messrs. William

England, Joseph Gale, William Bedford, H. F. Robinson, and Abel Lewis, whose beautiful plates we have no space to describe. We must, however, find room for a word of praise for Mr. exhibitor in refinement or artistic sense. J. Thomson, F.R.G.S., who is excelled by no His portraits of Lady O. Bentinck are charming; and we are not sure that his group of children on the beach, called Waiting for the Waves, is not the best "natural" composition we have COSMO MONKHOUSE.

ever seen.

THE ART MAGAZINES. THE current number of L'Art contains & vigorous article by M. Paul Lervi advocating the creation of a separate Department of State for the representation of the fine arts in France.