duly depicted, as are a hundred other spots of interest or beauty. In addition to the illustrations, which speak for themselves, there is a sensible map. Proof of the attraction of the book is found in the longing-alas! vain and fruitless-to revisit the land of the Severn with which it inspires us.

Modern Spain. By Martin A. S. Hume. (Fisher Unwin.)

A MELANCHOLY tale is that Major Hume has to tell in the account of Modern Spain' he contributes to the "Story of the Nations Series." A hundred and ten years in all are covered by his work, which begins in 1788 practically with the accession of Charles IV. and ends in 1898 with the loss of Cuba. It is a story of unbroken calamity and trouble, due partly to the bigotry and untrustworthiness of her people and partly to the ambition of her neighbours. If a brighter outlook now exists, it is because of the spread of education and, the writer holds, because of the loss of colonies, the control of which was beyond her power. "A return to the days of Fernando or even of Isabella II. is as impossible now as a return to the despotism of the Philips." We are glad to hear such opinions, though the utterance fails to carry conviction. In the pauses between successive records of calamity our author gives us interesting information concerning literature and the stage. We are thus told that Marquez, the celebrated actor, the victim of Ferdinand VII., did for the Spanish stage of the close of the last century and the beginning of the present what Garrick had at an earlier date done for the English. He did, in fact, much more, the obligation of the English stage to Garrick being less than is generally conceived. A great share in the decadence of the Spaniards is attributed to the wasteful and unproductive expenditure on the public services, an evil which no Spanish government has dared to tackle. Each change of government means an entire change of the administrative staff from the Prime Minister to the doorkeeper. "Empleomania" Major Hume calls this, a word coined from the Spanish empleo, of which Dr. Murray takes no notice. This work may be studied with advantage and interest, and is one of the best of the series to which it belongs. Major Hume, who is the editor of the 'Calendar of Spanish State Papers,' is a recognized authority on Spanish | subjects. His book, which is dedicated to the Duke of Wellington, is illustrated by some forty portraits of scenes and celebrities. The spelling is in some cases eccentric. Has Major Hume any authority for speaking of Pozzi di Borgo?

The Age of Johnson (1748-1798). By Thomas Seccombe. (Bell & Sons.)

To the series of "Handbooks of English Literature" edited by Prof. Hales has been added an excellent volume by Mr. Seccombe. In spite of its claims in art, which are indisputable, the eighteenth century has incurred the charge of dulness, chiefly, it appears, on account of the absence of romanticism and imagination from its poetry. From this charge our author is at some pains to defend it. It is certain that the age which produced Gray and Collins, and included Blake and Burns, cannot be ignored in any estimate of British poetry. No less certain is it that in the highest lyrical gifts it is as inferior to that of Milton and the Cavalier poets as it is to the age of Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats. The appearance of Blake's poems while the

was

influence of Pope and his 'Ars Poetica' supreme Mr. Seccombe himself holds to be "one of the greatest anomalies in literary history." The vindication of an age which counted in its ranks men such as Swift, Pope, Sterne, Walpole, Johnson, Goldsmith, and Burke, to say nothing of minor writers, is, of course, superfluous, since none will attack it. Its taste in poetry and the question as to the rank in poetry of Pope and his school are open to be contested. Mr. Seccombe has supplied an admirable volume to an excellent series. His biographies are models of condensation and accuracy, and his book may be read with pleasure and studied with advantage.

Social Chess. By James Mason. (Horace Cox.) MR. RUSKIN, who up to his death took a keen interest in chess, suggested fifteen years ago the publication of a selection of pretty and easily read games, with varied openings, for the delight and advantage of amateurs. This idea Mr. Mason has carried out. After some preliminary matter, interesting enough in itself, we come upon 131 games, almost all brilliant, the longest of which extends to no more than about thirty moves, while in some mate is declared in eight. When such a result is possible, great inequality of play is naturally to be expected. Every variety of popular lead is illustrated, and we have fine games by old friends such as Staunton, Boden, Burden, and Blackburne, as well as Morphy, Mac Donnell, and such later players as Steinitz, Tschigorin, Winawer, and Zukertort. This handsome and instructive little volume should have a place in every chess library. It will be invaluable to beginners, but its service is not limited to such. History of the Taxes on Knowledge: their Origin and Repeal. By Collet Dobson Collet. With an Introduction by George Jacob Holyoake. 2 vols. (Fisher Unwin.) THIS book should be read by all who take an interest in the progress of the Press of this country, for it contains a history of the part played by the society of which Mr. Collet was secretary Association for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge-in freeing the English Press from all taxation.

the

Newspaper readers of the present day can hardly realize how, until past the middle of the present century, the British Press was hemmed in all round by restrictions. The measure passed by Mr. Spring Rice in 1836 consolidated the existing Press into something like a guild. "The members of the guild were protected by the Stamp Office in their monopoly of news; but the Stamp Office gave this protection in order to preserve the revenue, not in order to enforce the law."

Mr. Holyoake-who in his interesting introduction makes reference to the great services rendered by John Francis-tells us how papermakers were hampered in their business by the officers of the Excise; how any one who attempted to publish a paper containing news without a stamp was liable to have all his presses broken up, his stock confiscated, and he and all persons in his house to be imprisoned; and even a reader found with an unstamped paper in his possession was liable to a fine of 20. Mr. Holyoake relates that when he published, during the Crimean War, War Chronicles and War Fly Sheets the Inland Revenue officers purchased six copies as soon as each number was out, and thus he incurred fines of 1207.; and that when the last warrant was

appears as horn in Corpus 267, which form belongs apparently to type 1, produced by late metathesis. Dieter (Ueber Sprache

und Mundart der ältesten engl. Denkmäler,' Göttingen, 1885, pp. 51-53) has given a list of the metathesized forms in Epinal and Corpus which appears to be complete, and in this connexion cf. also Zeuner, 'Sprach. d. kentischen Psalters,' § 45. But the whole question of metathesis in O.E. and Angl.Fris. requires investigation. What is needed is a complete account of the process, with a classification of forms according to dialect and period (i.e., whether due to first or to second metathesis). Further, the distribution of metathesized forms in all the modern English dialects must be determined, and the distinction observed between the early and the later processes. This should be done, not only for the metathesis of r and, but also for that of sk (ks). The forms tusk, ask, &c., have long been explained by the assumption of a second metathesis, of course much later than that of r. A special investigation of the development of the O.E. -sc forms, based upon very copious material, has convinced me that tusk, &c., cannot be explained in this way, for the simple reason that what evidence there is seems against such a change as that of ks from earlier -sc back to sk ever having occurred. In the mean time I hope that some one, with more leisure than I at present have, will take up the suggestion contained in this article. I believe that such an investigation would establish the reality of the three types, *ron, *ræn, and *arn, which I have postulated, and would also prove the existence in Anglo-Frisian of the early process of metathesis prior to Brechung and i-umlaut. HY. CECIL WYLD.

University College, Liverpool.

THE WOODEN HORSE. THERE is an illustration of the wooden horse in Jacques Callot's 'Les Misères,' which was published in Paris in 1633; but it is uncertain when that punishment was first introduced into the French army. Littré assigns no date, and simply describes the cheval de bois as "pièce de bois qui, taillée en arête et mise sur des tréteaux, servait à une punition de soldat." Nor is it clear when the wooden horse first came into use among British troops, but it is mentioned in the Articles of War of 1640. Carlyle, treating of events in England in 1649, alludes to the punishment, and adds :

"Do military men of these times understand the wooden horse? He is a mere triangular ridge or

In that year (1678) a new wooden horse was provided at Rochester at a cost of forty shillings. The price, however, varied, and in 1701 the Coldstream Guards secured one for seventeen shillings and sixpence. It was thought that a cavalry man, from his acquired habits of gripping by his thighs, knees, and calves, would be able to find some relief, so the punishment was used almost exclusively for infantry, and in order to counteract any effort for relief it was often the sentence of a court-martial that four muskets, or a heavy shot, should be fastened to each of the culprit's heels. His hands were also tied behind his back.

By way of exciting the ridicule of spectators it was sometimes ordered that the culprit should sit with his face to the horse's tail, or that jugs, or cups, or other articles be suspended about him as indicating the nature of his offence, or that a written scroll stating his crime be pinned to him; and there are two instances on record of putting a petticoat on him, one a sentence for cowardice, the other for beating and ill-treating his wife.

In Callot's illustration four men are shown on one wooden horse, each man with his hands tied behind his back. In Fleming's 'Deutsche Soldat,' 1726, there is an illustration showing three men on one horse, and their hands are not tied.

The duration of the punishment was from half an hour to three hours, sometimes one day only, sometimes every day for a week. Some punishments in our army fell into a sort of partial disuse before being finally discontinued that is, they remained in use at a few stations only; and the wooden horse, like the "strappado, "neck and heels," and the "picket," fell into disrepute, as it was found to injure its victims so severely that many of them had to be at once discharged from military service.

Grose states that the remains of a wooden horse were standing on the parade at Portsmouth in 1760, but it must not be inferred that the punishment had wholly ceased before

Smollett makes Crabshaw exclaim: “And yet I've been worse mounted, that I have--I'd like to have rid a horse that was foaled of an acorn" ("Sir Launcelot Greaves,' vol. i. chap. viii. p. 166, London, 1762). This passage must have been in Scott's mind when he wrote of the "colt foaled of an acorn" (Old Mortality,' chap. iv.). W. S.

THE LATE MR. BERNARD QUARITCH. As no formal notice has appeared in N. & Q' chronicling the death, on 2 Dec. last, of the "Napoleon of booksellers," be it my privilege to put one on record. The note will also serve as a pendant to my recent article on 'Some Record Book-Prices' culled from his penultimate circular. My sole literary intercourse with the deceased bibliophile was in 1889, when, in reply to a query of mine anent an early copy of the 'Legenda Sanctorum' belonging to a friend, I received the following courteous letter, which explains

itself:

The

"The death of the Napoleon of booksellers has aroused world-wide regret and interest. announcement that Mr. Quaritch was in his eightysecond year has also caused considerable surprise. For so daring were his plans of campaign, and so energetic were his methods of carrying them out, that it was difficult to realize that he was not youthful as well as enthusiastic. Yet it is a far cry to the year 1847, when this naturalized British subject, hailing from Prussian-Saxony, left the service of the late Mr. H. G. Bohn and began business on his own account. His little shop in an alley off Leicester Square speedily became famous, for Mr. Quaritch was not only a Nimrod in the hunting of rare books, but by his catalogues he showed how thoroughly he understood the art of displaying his wares. Nor will lovers of Victorian poetry ever forget that Mr. Quaritch was the publisher of the early editions of FitzGerald's Omar Khayyam,' a poem which is only now 'coming to its own.' About 1860 he removed to Piccadilly, but his operations were limited to no

as well as books, and became the most noted bookThe French booksellers found their Waterloo at buyer in the world, eclipsing all previous names. the famous Didot sale, when he met and beat them. And if he could give nearly 5,000l. for one volume, he in 1882 expended 32,000l. when the Sunderland Library was sold, and about the same time was the largest purchaser at the Hamilton and Beckford sales. At the recent Ashburnham sale his bill amounted to nearly 40,000. Apart from his particular vocation, Mr. Quaritch was a notable man. He was the founder of the Society of Bibliophiles known as Ye Sette of Odde Volumes,' and his friends included all book-lovers from princes and princesses to the humblest of students. What effect his disappearance from the auction-room will have upon book - prices remains to be seen. Of late his presence at a sale cheered the heart of sellers of rare books. For if he had not a commission to purchase, he was always willing to buy and hold,' and practically every copy of the past fallen to his bid. Mazarin or Gutenberg Bible has for many, years In some special departments his knowledge may be equalled, but it will be almost impossible to find a successor who shall possess that combination of qualities which rendered Mr. Quaritch the despair of his rivals, the marvel of his epoch."

Amongst Mr. Quaritch's book-loving and book-buying friends could be numbered Prince Leopold, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Rosebery. But was he himself an author? Did he combine the not unusual rôles of bookmaker and bookseller? A book publisher he was, for, in addition to the work alluded to in the above excerpt, he also issued AngloTurkish and Anglo-Arabic dictionaries and manuals; but beyond his valuable and interesting notes to his circulars, I know of no original production of his pen, nor am I aware that he ever contributed a line to N. & Q.' Curwen's History of Booksellers' will for ever remain incomplete until some editorial hand adds a chapter on the prince of modern booksellers. J. B. McGOVERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE. (See ante, p. 79.) The review of Mr. Collet's book in the Atheneum of 20 January and Notes and Queries of the 27th has brought to my recollection the prosecution in 1836 of John Cleave, who had a shop in Shoe Lane, not far from Hatton Garden, where I carried on my business as newsvendor. John Cleave published Cleave's Police Gazette, and for some time, as I remember, the shop was watched by the police. None of the papers was to be seen, and the officers had great difficulty in tracing the plan of Cleave in getting his publication into the country. Next door to his shop was an undertaker's, and by a friendly arrangement made with him Cleave used to have the