It is well known that when Isaac Bickerstaff began his lucubrations in 1709, he projected a periodical which, in accordance with the Quicquid agunt homines… nostri farrago libelli that so frequently served as the motto of its earlier numbers, should include various departments, of which one was to be the department of foreign and domestic news. It is also well known that this department was virtually abandoned before the Tatler had half run its course, and absolutely given over long before January 2, 1711, on which day Steele bade goodbye to his readers. But the precise rate at which the department of news diminished in importance, and the causes which probably governed the change, have been the subject of some very inaccurate statements and conjectures, although not all references to the matter have been wide of the mark.

By the term ‘sepulehrum’ is designated that device or structure employed in churches—especially in the middle ages—to symbolize, or in more complete manner to represent, the tomb of Christ. This sepulchrum, so named in the liturgy, first appears in connection with the ancient office of the Depositio Crucis, or burial of the cross, which after mass on Good Friday typified the burial of Christ. Complementing and completing the Depositio was another office, privately celebrated by the priest and clergy before matins on Easter Sunday, typifying the resurrection, and called the Elevatio Crucis. When, after the tenth century, troping of the Introit for Easter morning—the famous Quem Quaeritis—developed into a little liturgical play with the impersonation of the angel or angels, and of the three Maries coming to anoint the body of the Lord, there was naturally a development of the heretofore symbolic sepulchrum in the altar, into what resulted finally in a separate structure.

The ensuing paper seeks to trace for the first time one of the most important formative influences on the poet Spenser's youth; to make clear that it was at work in his schooldays at the Merchant Taylors' School, during his years at Pembroke College, and thereafter; to show that it shaped no inconsiderable part of The Shepheardes Calendar and Mother Hubberds Tale; and that to this influence is due whatever disfavor he encountered before his so-called “exile” into Ireland. I allude to Spenser's relations with the Bishop of Rochester.

The life of Walt Whitman may be divided roughly into two parts. The first extends from his birth on Long Island in 1819 to that “transparent summer morning” when be and his soul lay together on the grass and the sudden revelation came with its surpassing peace and knowledge; the second embraces the rest of his life, when he lived under the “potent, felt, interior command” and set forth his propaganda to America.

The Episode of Finn presents perhaps greater difficulties to the critic than any other passage in Beowulf. The manuscript text is lacking in clearness and the narrative teems with obscure allusions. The complication is further increased by the fact that of the five extant epic monuments in Anglo-Saxon three contain references to the “matter of Finn” in a virtually discrepant form. In Widsith we find mention of the two principal antagonists of the saga, and the Finnsburg Fragment clearly pertains to the subject-matter of the lay which the court minstrel chants at King Hrothgar's banquet and which the poet of Beowulf interpolates in what would seem to be a form of “headings.”