Margarete Seemann, Sir John Davies. Sein leben und seine werke. (Wiener beiträge 41.) Wien und Leipzig, W. Braumüller. 1913. Pr. Kr. 4,80 = M. 4,—.

There is no doubt that Sir John Davies has suffered, inevitably but still to some extent unjustly, from the greatness of his poetic contemporaries: and one is glad to see more attention directed to him. Perhaps his present commentator, not unnaturally, allows too much comparative merit to his principal poem, Nosce Teipsum. The dignity of its subject is undeniable: and there are unquestionably fine passages. But perhaps Sir John does not escape the danger which hardly any philosopher in verse with the possible exception of Lucretius has escaped that the philosophy will overweight and hamper the poetry, and that the poetry will trip up and disarrange the philosophy. Instructly poetical criticism, Orchestra and Astraca, comparatively fanciful and even trivial as they may seem, must rank higher. In fact, philosophy itself is not absent from the former, and is much better assimilated; while the ingenuity of the acrostics of the latter is not in the least a barren tour de force, but a triumph of graceful art. Still these are points on which opinions may differ; that Davies's poetry as a whole deserves consideration is indisputable. His life, too, was not an ordinary or uninteresting one; and the fortunes of his eccentric widow have not unsympathetically diverted most of those who have known them. The whole subject is treated in this essay succinctly but well.

G. Saintsbury.

James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760). In diplomatischem neudruck mit den lesarten der umarbeitungen herausgeg. v. Otto L. Jiriczek, professor an der universität Würzburg. Heidelberg 1915, Carl Winter. XIV u. 64 ss. 8°. (Anglistische forschungen, hgg. v. Joh. Hoops, 47.)

Ähnlich wie Percy's Reliques sind auch die seinerzeit so gewaltiges aufsehen erregenden und für die englische wie für die deutsche literaturgeschichte gleich bedeutungsvollen Ossianischen dichtungen Macphersons meist nur in der durch spätere zusätze und vermeintliche verbesserungen des herausgebers veränderten gestalt in umlauf; so ist es auch wenig bekannt, daß noch im gleichen jahre (1760) des erscheinens der Editio princeps (von

Jiriczek A genannt) eine "Second Edition" (von Jiriczek B genannt) erschien, die keineswegs eine bloße titelauflage war und den 15 fragmenten von A noch ein neues beifügte. Außerdem dürften nach L. Chr. Stern (Zs. f. vgl. L.G. N. F. VIII. 1895, s. 68) die zwei fragmente V und XII noch vor der ersten buchausgabe im Juniheft des "Gentleman's Magazine", London 1760, erschienen sein (Jiriczek nennt diese fassung M), und 1761 (titeljahr 1762) hatte Macpherson in seinen Fingalband die fragmente I, II, IV, V, X-XII, XIII-XV (und VII. als variante zu "Temora") mit weitgehenden stilistischen retouchen verarbeitet (von Jiriczek F genannt), während die weiter nicht mehr verwerteten fragmente dauernd von der aufnahme in die späteren gesamtausgaben ausgeschlossen blieben. Die endgültige fassung gab Macpherson 1773 in der zweibändigen ausgabe: The Poems of Ossian (von Jiriczek P genannt), und man kann darin ersehen, wie die ursprüngliche gestalt, die doch geschichtlich die wichtigste ist, immer mehr dem zeitgeschmacke und der künstlichen mache unterworfen wurde. So ist der Textus receptus, wie er ua. in modernisierter gestalt in der Tauchnitz Edition (von Jiriczek T genannt) vorliegt, weder der für wissenschaftliche forschung, noch der für den literarischen feinschmecker geeignete, obwohl für beide die späteren umgestaltungen auch ihr interesse haben. Es ist daher sehr dankenswert, das uns Jiriczek in vorliegendem, auch äußerlich sehr ansprechendem heftchen die ursprüngliche gestalt der Fragments mit sorgfältiger beigabe der varianten in B, M, F, P, T bequem zugänglich gemacht hat. Die fachleute werden dieses trotz aller philologischen mühewaltung anspruchslose geschenk gewiß zu schätzen wissen. Wenn der verdiente herausgeber aber zum schlusse der sehr berechtigten hoffnung ausdruck gibt, daß die neuausgabe neben philologischen benutzern auch ein und den andern leser findes, so möchte ich diesen gedanken besonders der auch in der äußeren herstellung ihrer verlagswerke so geschickten verlagsbuchhandlung nahelegen: Gerade jetzt, wo man sich auch in unsern gebildeten weiteren kreisen für das "Celtic Revival" und was damit zusammenhängt interessiert, würde ein hübsch ausgestattetes bändchen, das die Fragments mit einer wortgetreuen deutschen übersetzung brächte, gewiß willkommen sein.

Cöln, 16. Februar 1917.

A. Schröer.

Wessex Edition of the Works of Thomas Hardy in Prose and Verse. With Prefaces and Notes. In 20 vols. 8vo. Cloth gilt. 7 s. 6 d. net each. With Photogravure Frontispiece and a Map of the Wessex of the Novels and Poems in each vol. London 1912, Macmillan and Co.

Wessex is the name given by Thomas Hardy to "a province bounded on the north by the Thames, on the south by the English Channel, on the east by a line running from Hayling Island to Windsor Forest, and on the west by the Cornish coast".

About this part of England Hardy has written, he knows it thoroughly, it is his "Heimat". With every new work of this author which we read, we get better acquainted with the landscape, the ancient historical features, the buildings, the people, the family genealogies and the old or obsolescent customs of this Wessex of his. In so far it is possible to speak of "Heimatkunst". Yet neither in intention nor in result can his work be called thus primarily. In the General Preface to the whole series, in the Ist vol. of the Wessex Edition, the author justifies the circumscribed scene of action in his novels with a reference to the Greek dramatic literature as his illustrious example. Not merely circumstances, but his own judgment made him follow this example. However, "the people in the novels were meant to be typically and essentially those of any and every place, where

'Thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool,'

beings in whose hearts and minds that which is apparently local should be really universal." "Delineations of humanity", that is what his work intends to be. As an "unintentional and unforeseen supplementary quality" of his work Hardy mentions the descriptions of Wessex manners and customs woven into his stories and states that he has taken great pains to verify these and to give "as true a record of a vanishing life" as he could; while we are told as concerns the local background of these stories that "they have something real for its basis, however illusively treated". In the Verse portion of his work, "to myself the more individual part of my literary fruitage", Hardy says, where he was freer in the form, he had "a wider stage", especially so in his Epic Drama The Dynasts, where "the whole of Europe was his theatre of action", yet seen from above, it is "a Wessex, an Attica, a mere garden". "The principle of the novels" remains. The remarkable workmanship in the build of Hardy's novels is

not a little assisted by this unity of place. As to this harmony of form and clear workmanship, the shorter stories in all their variety and imagination are not less excellent, though concise.

In Wessex therefore, which he knew so well, and where there was "quite enough human nature for one man's literary purpose", he found the local foundation for his universal art.

In the General Preface Hardy tells us, it is "unlikely that imaginative writings extending over more than forty years would exhibit a coherent scientific theory of the universe, even if it had been attempted". What he gave, were "impressions of the moment". As to the "pessimism", which he was reproached with, he observes: "there is a higher characteristic of philosophy than pessimism or than meliorism or even than the optimism of these critics which is truth." And he adds: "Some natures become vocal at tragedy, others at comedy"; it does not mean they do not "perceive the other side of things".

That most of his work deals with tragical lives, rather than with fortunate ones, is undeniable, but as Hardy goes more than skin-deep, as he gauges the depths, and through his sympathy and pity for all suffering has so to say tasted the inmost thoughts and feelings of Man, he hates all false romantic views of life, and does not shrink from hard truths about it, even insists upon these cruel facts. For, "un homme averti en vaut deux". And does not he call up in the Dynasts before our mind's eye a possibility of an Immanent Will of the Universe, now working unconsciously, blindly, becoming conscious, hence less cruel to the individual?

Hardy has classified his work) into:

I. Novels of Character and Environment, to which the seven so called Wessex-Novels belong, with two volumes of shorter tales.

II. Romances and Fantasies, a group of five volumes, of which one is not a novel, but a string of stories.

III. Novels of Ingenuity, a section of his work which he tells us might be called "experiments".

1) A 21st vol, was added in 1913, mentioned in Macmillan's Catalogue as Vol. XVIII of the Prose Works, belonging to a IVth division, viz. IV Mixed Novels, and entitled: A Changed Man, The Waiting Supper, and Other Tales, concluding with The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. Not included in the Series are: Satires of Circumstance. Lyrics and Reveries. With Miscellaneous Pieces.

Verse, grouped into three volumes, the first of which contains Wessex Poems and Poems of the Past and the Present; the other two containing the three parts of the Epic Drama The Dynasts together with Time's Laughing-Stocks. Very little in this Wessex-Edition has been corrected by the author's "later judgment", for fear of a loss of "freshness and spontaneity". A few chapters from an early edition of The Well-Beloved in a magazine were rewritten, and here and there slight changes in the wording of previous prefaces show the care with which the author once more went through his utterances.

The General Preface also tells us in how far magazinepublication had forced him to modify his originally higher aim in the writing of a novel or a tale, while the additional Prefaces of 1912 to the separate volumes give particulars about former editions, account for a new arrangement of the Shorter Tales, relate about the reception of his work by the public and the critics, and about his own aim or opinion of his work, or furnish particulars about Wessex features. Especially the preface to Jude the Obscure is interesting. We learn that the two important parts of the "tragic machinery of the tale" together influencing and operating towards "the shattered ideals of the two chief characters", were ignored by the press, but only "some twenty or thirty pages of sorry detail regarded"; and that the experiences connected with the appearance of the book and related here, "completely cured him of further interest in novel-writing".

The Wessex-Edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles gives us a few pages occurring in Chapt. X from the original manuscript, never printed in the older editions. They present such an enjoyable, characteristic specimen of Hardy's art in picturing a rural festivity, reel-dancing in a hay and peat-barn by the country. people, that we would not gladly go without them now.

The Map of the Wessex of the Novels and Poems being naturally larger than that of the Novels of the Pocket Edition, gives more details.

The Photogravure Frontispieces found in each volume show very fine reproductions of local scenes round which the stories centre, and heighten the impression of the several sorts of Wessex beauty received from Hardy's work.

The author's illustrations of the poems in Vol. I of the Verse, to be found in the early editions, are omitted here. Instead of