DR. BREWER'S "HISTORIC NOTE-BOOK."* THIS volume is the third and
last of a series of most useful and attractive handbooks. The first was The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, of which the object was "to explain the meaning of words and expressions in which an allusion is made to some fable, custom, or character." The second of the series, The Reader's Handbook, undertook to "unfold in a few lines the tale of the best-known epic poems of ancient and modern times, the plots of novels and plays, ballads and romances, and to give short biographical sketches of their respective authors." The third of the series is the book before us, and its aim is to do for history what the first of the series did for phraseology, and the second for poetry and romance. The amount and variety of information embodied in the three volumes are considerable, and the arrangement being alpha- betical, reference becomes easy. It appears to have been a lifelong habit with Dr. Brewer to have a slip of paper and a pencil at his side when reading, and to jot down whatever he thought might be useful. These jottings were sorted and put away, and accumulated until he should require them, and then all he had to do for his compilation was the selecting, cor- recting, and bringing them down to date. As a great reader, he had felt the inconvenience of not being able to turn at once to some book for the information he sought, instead of having to search in various volumes for it, and there- fore, judging others by himself, he determined to save their time and labour by collecting in one volume what he had gleaned from many. The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, compiled in this way, was twenty years in hand, and the new volume was prepared in like manner. It was a great undertaking; in fact, so great that it never could be pro- nounced finished. As its title implies,it is simply a " Note- Book " (a good thick one notwithstanding), and consequently suggestive of incompleteness. Being based only upon what
might turn up, and possessing no systematic dealing with each country, it must necessarily miss a good deal. Dr. Brewer himself writes 'of it :—" It is not a Historic Dictionary,' but a dictionary of historic terms and phrases, jottings of odds and ends of history, which historians leave in the cold, or only incidentally mention in the course of their narratives." He has, however, done more than this, and the principal events of every country are duly and concisely recorded. The value of the book merely for reference is immense, and readers of all kinds will be grateful to Dr. Brewer for the mass of historical information he has squeezed into it.
It would be as well, when the current editions of the three • The Historic Note-Book. With an Appendix of Battles. By the Rey. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. London ; Smith, Elder, and Co, 1891.
handbooks are exhausted, to amalgamate their contents and issue a new edition in one volume, like a big dictionary. Such an arrangement would be more convenient, and repetition would be avoided. It is difficult sometimes to know to which of the three volumes to turn for what one wants, as some of the contents might be, and are, with equal propriety in- serted in two of the series ; having found a paragraph in one, it may not occur to the reader to look out the same sub- ject in the other, and so he will miss somewhat. "Guy Fawkes," for instance, appears in The Reader's Handbook, and "Gunpowder Plot" in The Historic Note-Book. Under the former title we find that " Guy Fawkes, the con- spirator, went under the name of John Johnstone, and pretended to be the servant of Mr. Percy ; " but under " Gunpowder Plot " those facts are omitted, although there is a full account of the plot itself ; and there is no connecting. link. So, too, with " Parliament." The Reader's Handbook merely gives the Black Parliament held by Henry VIII. in Bridewell ; a list of other Parliaments is added, but for them the reader is referred to p. 657 of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, where a brief description of each is given. The His- toric Note-Book also contains much useful information under "Parliament," besides a separate paragraph of each remark- able Parliament in its alphabetical place. Clearly it would be advantageous in such a case to have all that had to be re- corded under the head of " Parliament " in one volume.
But the need of a connecting-link is not only felt as regards two out of three books ; it is also felt in dealing with the new volume by itself ; for instance, " Joan of Arc " is disposed of in one place in three lines ; but she is to be found in another place under " Maid of Orleans," where there are more details, yet no reference to " Joan of Arc." Had we been content with the longer paragraph, we should have missed the interesting tradition that Joan of Arc's sword was the mystic sword of St. Catherine. Again, Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James I., often known as the " Queen of Hearts," is entered in Dr. Brewer's book as such, where it is added that her mother used to call her the " Good Palatine," on account of her kindly disposition ; but there is also a paragraph under " Goody Palsgrave," which states that her mother used to call her so, and that " Goody " was a term of contempt. These statements are not in agreement, and the discrepancy would have been avoided had the information been confined to one paragraph, or a reference given from one to the other.
We are glad Dr. Brewer has something to say about University degrees and hoods, though be is silent as to their institution. Probably many of our readers have now and again experienced a desire to know the status and University of a preacher to whom they were listening for the first time, as indicated by the colour of the hood he was wearing, and have not been able to satisfy their curiosity. Whitaker's Almanac is the only other book we know which contains the information ; but it is not easy to find, because the hoods are classified under the degree. Dr. Brewer has improved upon this by arranging them under the colour of the hood, so one can see at a glance that a black hood, with a green silk lining, means D.Sc. Edinburgh. Curiously enough, the two references to blue hoods are both incorrect. We are told that a pale-blue silk hood, with white far border, means "B.C.C. or LL.D. Oxford." The first is probably a printer's error for B.C.L., but we are under the impression that Oxford does not grant an LL.D. degree at all. We do not like to be positive, as those are the initials Dr. Brewer puts after his own name, and therefore he ought to know.
Irish items are plentiful, and Dr. Brewer devotes con- siderable space to the events of recent years. " Parnellism and Crime," the Parnell Commission, Irish Associations with- out number, Irish Land Acts, Irish rebellions, the Phcenix Park murders, the Clan-na.Gael, the "Plan of Campaign," and many other Irish matters are dealt with separately, and defined with judgment and intelligence. Even the " Boycotting " of persons and the " Harcourting " of letters are given, together with their parentage. The Moonlighters, Dr. Brewer states, grew out of and succeeded the Whiteboys of the last century. They were successors, perhaps, but the interval was such that they can hardly be said to have grown out of them, and we question if there was anything in common between the two beyond their rioting at night. The Whiteboys wore white smocks, called themselves the agents of Captain Right, resisted the enclosure of commons, levelled the commons (hence their previous title
of Levellers), and at one time specially persecuted the Pro- testant clergy. But Moonlighters were far worse than these agrarian rebels ; they not only had for their object the intimi- dation of those who refused allegiance to the Land or National League, but their midnight visits were accompanied by murder and maiming, the robbery of firearms, and the muti- lation of cattle. They wore black crape over their faces, and acted under Captain Moonlight, but did not come into existence until 1878.
Dr. Brewer does not do justice to the archer-yeomen of England, and we do not think he mentions bows and arrows anywhere in his book—not even in his "Appendix of Battles," where he describes, among others, Crecy, as the " greatest victory ever won ;" Poictiers, as a victory won by eight thousand English over sixty thousand French ; and Halidon Hill, where thirty thousand Scots were killed, whilst Edward III. lost but one knight, one esquire, and thirteen privates. These battles were wholly won by the English archers, who, we think, deserve a corner somewhere in this Historic Note-Book for such important services. Robin Hood himself is ignored, but not because Dr. Brewer considers him a myth, for he gives May 1st as the anniversary of his death, and states that Edwinstowe, in Notts, was the scene of his marriage. So, too, the Royal Company of Archers (the Queen's Body Guard in Scotland) and the Royal Toxophilite Society might claim as strong a footing in these pages as the Royal Society of Literature or the Society of the Black Pin.
The paragraph headed " Civil Service " must have been one of Dr. Brewer's earliest jottings, and nestled in its pigeon- hole for thirty years or more ; the details are obsolete, and there is no reference to either the Playfair Scheme, which remodelled the service, or to the more recent Ridley Commis- sion, whose report has led to another reorganisation. Dr. Brewer states that the Civil Service Estimates are between seven and eight millions sterling annually ! That will be good news for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. We look in vain for some mention of Hampton Court Palace or Raglan Castle ; surely they are places with ample historical associations to entitle them to notice. On the other hand, it was with some surprise we came upon such a heading as a "Letter of Credit ;" its origin is not given, nor its connection with history, but just its definition, that it is an authority from one bank to another to credit the person named to a stated amount. " Bode's Law," touching the relative distances of the planets from the sun, and " The Tripod of Life," or the brain, the lungs, and the heart, also seem somewhat out of place ; and we wonder why " Slingsby Law- rence " (G. H. Lewes), or " Robert Halt " (M. Vien), or " Timothy Sparks" (Charles Dickens), or " Timothy Tit- comb" (J. G. Holland), have been singled out for notice.
But we have no desire to be too critical; nor have we for- gotten that the work modestly claims to be but a " Note-Book." It could not be otherwise than easy to point to sins of omission in a book ranging over an almost unlimited area, and which has no pretensions to finality ; and our object in noticing some of them is that they may be supplied in a future edition. We have come upon very few actual mistakes, and are glad to bear testimony to the general accuracy of Dr.
Brewer's book, and to the fairness with which he gives both aides of a story when the authorities differ,—as in the case of Pope Joan, or in that of Joan of Arc. It is a book which any one may take up to while away half-an-hour, and the half-hour will grow into an hour ere he puts it down. He will come upon subjects which must interest him, and he cannot fail to add to his historical knowledge ; for though the bulk of what is read may pass away with the moments they occupy, some will linger in the memory. Candidates for examina-
tions where history is one of the subjects, will find it a god- send in going through test-papers ; acrostic-solvers will gladly welcome it among their books of reference ; and people in general will appreciate it for its reliable and out-of-the-way information.
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