tions from country graveyards which the late Mr. Leland Duncan used to compile in his holidays. He published that of Tenterden, but there are many sets still left in manuscript. It is hoped, the editor says in his preface, that sufficient interest will be shown in these inscriptions of Lydd to encourage the publication of the others. Mr. Finn has edited his friend's work with the care and competence of a fellowworker, giving us exactly what was originally set down for him and making some annotations and additions. There are indexes of Persons, Places, Coats-of-Arms, and General Subjects, as well as a short Lydd Index; and an appendix gives us four wills of persons whose tomb inscriptions appear. The inscriptions are set out in sections according to their situationSection A beginning with the N.E. corner of the north part of the churchyard and proceeding westwards. They number 445, of which the earliest is the altar-tomb of the Strugell family, with dates 1551-1581. The General Subject index reveals how comparatively numerous are the seamen's graves, and, in fact, a seaman claims the most interesting of all the inscriptions, that to Lieut. Thomas Edgar of the Royal Navy, who, as it records, having come into the Navy at ten years of age, was with Captain Cook in his last voyage, and died in 1801 at the age of fifty-six. Tom Edgar at last has sailed out of the world," runs the first of six lines which close his epitaph. There are several appearances of names generation after generation, the most notable instance being Godfrey, which goes on for nearly five hundred years, from a great brass in the nave of the church dated 1430 to the war memorial. Lydd had a piece of singular good fortune in the early eighteenth century in the shape of a curate, the Rev. Thomas Cobb, who made notes of the inscriptions within the church in his day. His work, in the order in which he arranged the monuments, is incorporated here (numbered continuously with the monuments of the churchyard) and has many features of the interest people like to call quaint. The Bate family adorned their tombs with verse more than most. The vicar John Motesfont, who died in 1420 and whose will is given, has leonine verses in brass around the stone which bears his brass image and his name. Fortyfour monuments are thus described by Thomas Cobb, and about as many more have been added since his day. Note, not infrequent, of inscriptions perishing or having lost part of their letters enhances the value of this record, which should serve to stimulate further the interest already awakened in the question of transcribing old churchyard inscriptions while they are yet legible.

The Sources of English Literature. A Guide for Students. By Arundell Esdaile. bridge University Press, 68. net).

We

Every one even slightly tinctured with letters knows that bibliography is the biggest corporate achievement in literature of this "Age of the Antonines." There were bibliographers before us, many of whom had parts and cleverness and have left work still to be used, but within the last half century, and most in its latest decade, this art of bibliography has developed from a mere useful adjunct to literature into a substantial, one might almost say independent existence. It is at once the help and the control of the student, and still more so of the editor, all which is as much as to say that it has reached the stage when short general sketches and outlines of what has been done in it are really needed to furnish every student with a minimum equipment in the matter. Mr. Arundell Esdaile's authority could not well be bettered, and he adds to that an easy way of writing and a sure eye for what should be included and what is best omitted in a comprehensive survey for beginners. have to thank him for a most useful book, enlivened with touches of humour and anecdote. The sections on Bibliographies of Literary Forms and of Single Authors, and that on Private Libraries and Sales, especially the last, claim particular recognition; but we esteem hardly less the indications given concerning the present value of old work. This may be said to begin with the first two parts of Andrew Maunsell's Catalogue of Printed Books,' published in 1595. Touching on the project for a complete bibliography of world literature, which some enthusiasts urge forward, Mr. Esdaile reckons that, at the time when the lectures which form this volume were given, there must have been some thirty million books and printed pieces in existence; and in the two years or so since then, it would seem that (estimating from the 1925 accessions to the British Museum) the English books and pamphlets alone have been increased by about 80,000. In view of these figures, the world catalogue becomes an enterprise which mere imagination rather boggles at; nevertheless that which cannot be imagined has often been performed, and perhaps, in the process of compiling it and in its circulation and use, a bibliography of world literature is yet destined to be no inconsiderable ally to the activities of the League of Nations.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor, correspondents are requested to put in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of

N. & Q. to which the latter refers.

found.

6

NOTES:-Shakespeare's Puritan Relations, 273-
Unpublished Letters of Warren Hastings, 276-
The King's Ships, 277-The Mary Ann Rocks-
Roman Town-planning-Dante Gabriel Rosetti,
280.
QUERIES: The Church of Ford-First Edition of
Gray's
The MacGeorge Copy "-The
Elegy':
Duchess of Douglas, 1669 Dr. John Ward of
Stratford-on-Avon-Naval Records-The Mask:
A humorous and fantastic Review of the
Month-Bishop Samuel Lisle: his burial-place,
281-Thomas Hilton, ob. 1509-Introduction of
paper-lanterns and fireworks into Europe-A
MS. poem addressed to Queen Elizabeth-Lord
Howard of Escrick-"To round in the ears
De Montgomery: biographical particulars
sought-Source wanted, 282.
REPLIES:-English Officers in Austrian Service
Haseley, Oxfordshire 283-The Story of Savile
Row
XVII century tankard
The New
Annual Register. 284-"Boyling the Badge
Poems in praise of books and reading-Execu-
tions by burning Quarills Wilberforce:
obituary notices-English in the Lisbon Earth-
quake, 285-Robert Flood-De Vere Family-
Shields in a Doll's House-A Buddhist Prayer-
Heart of Midlothian': source of quotation
wanted-Author wanted, 286.

"

THE LIBRARY:- The Life and Times of 'Ali ibn Isà- The Study of Political Science and its Relation to Cognate Studies' Viscount Bryce of Dechmont O.M.'-' King Arthur, A Dramatic Opera.'

NOTES AND QUERIES is published every Friday, at 20, High Street, High Wycombe, Bucks (Telephone: Wycombe 306). Subscriptions (£2 28. a year, U.S.A. $10.50, including postage, two half-yearly indexes and two cloth binding cases, or £1 15s. 4d a year, U.S.A. $9, without binding cases) should be sent to the Manager. The London Office is at 14, Burleigh Street, W.C.2 (Telephone: Chancery 8766), where the current issue is on sale. Orders for back numbers, indexes and bound volumes should be sent either to London or to Wycombe; letters for the Editor to the London Office.

Memorabilia.

E have now received for review the last WE section of the New English Dictionary. To readers of N. & Q.' there is no need to labour the greatness of the achievement, the merits of the Dictionary or the difference it has made to the general grasp and understanding of English. Nor will any one be wanting in pious memory of those of its authors who were not suffered to see its conclusion It is the only completed dictionary framed on the historical principles now So familiar to every student. It contains 15,488 pages, 178 miles of type, 50 million words, 500,000 definitions, nearly 2 million quotations. The first volume was published in the eighties, and it is therefore not entirely up-to-date, but a Supplement is in active preparation which will aim at adding important words and meanings of words which have come into use since that part of the alphabet to which they belong was originally published. A copy of this will be offered free to every possessor of the complete Dictionary. The compilers have done full justice to Scotch, and claim to have also done justice to a large extent to American English; owing, how ever, to the rapid growth of the vocabulary of the United States of America there are doubtless many gaps, to fill which is one of the principal objects of the forthcoming Supplement.

The preparation of the Dictionary for publication has been the life-work of a small army of scholars, and has taken over forty years. The foundations of the work were laid by the Philological Society, and the preparation of the vast mass of material-resulting from the perusal by experts of many thousands of books, and filling many millions of slips-has gone on continuously ever since.

The gratitude of all English speakers is due to the volunteer labourers, who in their zeal read and digested whole libraries. The gross outlay by the University has amounted to some £300,000, of which £5,000 was contributed in 1905 by the London Goldsmiths' Company. The Dictionary has been, even in the course of compilation, a daily source of enlightenment and satisfaction to an incalculable number of readers, has been relied on in courts of justice, and appealed to in political controversy, and has established itself as an authority. The Times in 1897 described it "the greatest effort which any University, it may be any printing press, has taken in hand since the invention of printing. It will be not the least of the glories of the University of Oxford to have completed this gigantic task.' congratulations of the whole reading world The University has now the upon its completion.

as

our

MR. H. C. Long contributes to the April number of the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture an interesting article on the Weeds of Arable Land.' A Bishop of Newcastle is credited with describing agriculture as a controversy with weeds,' and author reminds us that in this controversy British farmers lose millions of pounds sterling. In the third week of August, 1909, ten minutes, he says, were spent in collecting such weeds as were easiest to find in a field of standing wheat, over an area of a little more than 100 sq. yds. Twenty-nine species were found, seventeen of them abundant. In another experiment, in good garden soil, which had been well cultivated for at least three years, a square yard was measured off, and, on a day in May, 1909, all the seedling weeds were removed by hand. These seedlings numbered 1.050, the most numerous by far being Buttercup. After discussing the harm weeds do-principally by taking up the light, air, and nourishment from the soil required by the crop-a pleasant word or two suggests at least one useful purpose they serve. Their unwelcome appearance incites to diligent hoeing and digging-a business which cannot be neglected if any good results are to be expected from field or garden, and so the surface of the ground is worked into that good friable condition which would appear to be a principal secret of success in cultivation.

THE Glozel controversy is revived. In The Times of Apr. 17 we read that the second Glozel International Commission has made