Aiming to convey some idea of the conditions of life at Oxford in the
eighteenth century, the author has chosen from a mass of material the
salient aspects of the academic life of the period and presented them in
“subject catalog” form. He deals with such subjects as university
examinations, college and university teaching, social life in colleges
and the amusements of undergraduates. Oxford’s attitude towards politics
of the time is also revealed.
* * * * *
“Oxford still has her wits; and here one of the brightest, whose verse
has now delighted a whole generation, comes forth to tell in witty prose
the ‘curiosities’ of a bygone age.”
+ =Ath.= 1909, 1: 65. Ja. 16. 1500w.
“A charming series of sketches of the academic long ago.”
+ =Educ. R.= 37: 97. Ja. ’09. 120w.
“Mr. Godley has gone through the material dutifully, he writes with a
sense for English rather above the average, he has an attractive theme,
but he mars all by the supposition that it is dull to be orderly, and
that the reader’s mind cannot dwell on one subject more than five
minutes.”
− + =Nation.= 87: 463. N. 12, ’08. 350w.
“To American readers those chapters which show how the undergraduates
passed their time will be the most interesting in the book.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 20. Ja. 9, ’09. 600w.
“He has brought together in his pleasant Eusebian way most of the chatty
information which a hurried and ugly age wants about that leisured and
charming old Oxford which is so near us and yet so far away.”
+ =Sat. R.= 106: 671. N. 28, ’08. 920w.
“Whether he convinces us or not that the university of that maligned
epoch was better than we thought it, at least he furnishes us with a
good deal of material for forming or revising our judgment.”
+ − =Spec.= 101: 946. D. 5, ’08. 1300w.
=Godsal, Philip T.=^{[5]} Storming of London and the Thames valley
campaign: a military study of the conquest of Britain by the Angles.
10s. 6d. Harrison & Sons, London.
9–4908.
“An attempt to reconstruct the story of the Anglo-Saxon conquest on the
basis of ‘military principles’ and a study of topography and placenames.
The conquest, [the author] believes, was undertaken and carried on by a
highly organized nation, the Angles, occupying the Baltic shores from
Sweden to the Elbe. Their neighbors, the Saxons, played a merely
subordinate part as allies.”—Am. Hist. R.
* * * * *
“The entire work is a series of conjectures and inferences, some of them
quite plausible, but most of them highly improbable. To these
conjectures the author gives the value of established facts. Evidently
such a work can not be regarded as serious history. It rather belongs in
that class of writings that we sometimes call historical fiction.” L. M.
Larson.
− =Am. Hist. R.= 14: 601. Ap. ’09. 300w.
− =Ath.= 1908, 2: 540. O. 31. 880w.
“The author knows nothing of such work as Mr. F. Haverfield’s on the
condition of Britain in this age, nor has he any adequate comprehension
of the position of the Roman empire in the fifth century. He has no
grasp of the succession of tradition, e.g. from Gildas to Bede. Most of
the book is built upon ‘a priori’ reasoning from military considerations
drawn from warfare of to-day.” T. N.
− =Eng. Hist. R.= 24: 606. Jl. ’09. 550w.
“His ample volume gives evidence of long and profound study of the
subject and of deep interest in it, and will make an important addition
to the historical literature dealing with the overflow of Britain by the
Angles and allied tribes.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 14: 32. Ja. 16, ’09. 150w.
“Amid much that is tawdry and turgid there exists, however, considerable
skill and ingenuity in the presentation of his case by the author.”
− + =Sat. R.= 107: 533. Ap. 24, ’09. 1000w.
“A theory, like a soldier, may be a good servant but a bad master, and
we fancy most people will declare that Major Godsal has been mastered by
his. We have certainly found it very interesting.”
− + =Spec.= 102: 342. F. 27, ’09. 1650w.
=Going, Charles Buxton.= Star-glow and song. **$1.20. Harper.
9–9808.
Among these eighty varied poems are poems of nature, love, hero-worship,
subliminal fancy, sleepy-time melodies, and songs of the sea.
* * * * *
+ =A. L. A. Bkl.= 5: 165. Je. ’09.
“It is easy to say that it is good average magazine-poetry, workmanlike,
earnest, and uninspired; but that sounds like faint praise; and the book
deserves no condemnation. In its two hundred pages there is not a banal
thought nor a slovenly line.” Brian Hooker.
+ =Bookm.= 29: 369. Je. ’09. 250w.
− =Engin. N.= 61: sup. 57. My. 13, ’09. 430w.
“These verses are marked by clear thought, a terse, compressed, yet
perfectly lucid expression, born, it may be, of two or three writers
whose manner still holds the public attention.”
+ =Ind.= 67: 367. Ag. 12, ’09. 320w.
+ =Nation.= 89: 54. Jl. 15, ’09. 200w.
=N. Y. Times.= 14: 503. Ag. 21, ’09. 250w.
“In his collection entitled ‘Star-glow and song’ there is a good deal of
lyric and dramatic fervor.”
+ =R. of Rs.= 40: 123. Jl. ’09. 40w.
=Goll, August.=^{[12]} Criminal types in Shakespeare; tr. by Mrs.
Charles Weekes. *5s. Methuen, London.
The reason why the problem of the criminal is still unsolved is set
forth in Mr. Goll’s introduction. “Society never seriously takes the
trouble to penetrate the shell of the criminal’s actions, or find the
path to his soul. He represents to the public simply a danger to be
feared, to the jurist a crime to be punished, to the prison authorities
a sin to be purged, and to no one is he a human being to be understood.
Mr. Goll goes into the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore.’ He dissects and analyses
the types he takes from the immortal genius of Shakespeare, puts them
under a microscope, and shows step by step the minds at work, till one
gets a new insight into criminal methods, and studies the poet’s
characters in a new light.” (Spec.)
* * * * *
“Practically Mr. Goll’s book does not enlighten as much, but as a
literary study of a set of Shakespearean characters it is worth
reading.”
+ =Sat. R.= 108: 572. N. 6, ’09. 300w.
“To all students of criminology this book should appeal; to all lovers
of Skakespeare it should be a companion volume, for it is written by a
student capable of exhibiting many of the poet’s characters in a new
light. In addition, it is full of things that will entertain the general
reader.”
+ =Spec.= 102: 980. Je. 19, ’09. 650w.
=Gomme, E. E. C.=, tr.^{[10]} Anglo-Saxon chronicle. *$2. Macmillan.