444 General Notes. [April, 
magic plays. Now, we know that it did no such thing. Shake- 
speare’s fairies, witches, ghosts, and devils were all made for him. 
How in the world could people have comprehended him, embraced 
him, loved him, if the atmosphere had been peopled by his wand 
with unfamiliar creatures. But, when he evolved familiar spirits 
and gathered around him forms well-known to the vulgar mind, — 
the people bowed down and said: “ What manner of man is this 
whom even our underworld obeys?” The same is true of Shake- — 
speare’s love of nature. He was thoroughly scientific. He 
served nature; but he also observed how the people looked at 
nature. In Mr. Dyer’s work we are astonished on every page t0 
find references to things which are seen among all the savage 
tribes of éarth, and which had come down to the people of Shake- 
speare’s day as a part of that common legacy of usage, which 
to the lot of all. No man’s folk-lore library is complete without 
this volume. 
Eskimo anp Inpran Picrocrapfs.—Dr. W. J. Hoffman, a’ 
Bureau of Ethnology, has brought his varied talent as re 
physician, and sign-linguist, to bear on the interpretation of the 
numerous Eskimo pictographs in all our museums. Hisasi 
tion with Colonel Mallery in the preparation of his standard yis 
on the sign-language, has rendered Dr. Hoffman not only aer 
with signs as generally understood, but he has made good pa : 
his opportunities in learning to converse with the Indian a 
tions, one after another, when they have been called ove re 
ton. Starting out from the knowledge thus acquired, the au 
: ll 
conceives that pictographs on wigwams, blankets, robes, as We 
ter 
interpreted 
: see 
hing than to p | 
. ae 
The shaman presented the man with some fi 
to the top of his lodge, where he invoked the spi"! 
ver game. After coming down, he told the hunter and SC 
would kill five deer. Sure enough, the hunter went p: Dr. HE 
ceeded as the shaman had predicted.” The paper T actions 
man was first published in the second volume of the igs 
of the Anthropological Society of Washington, and ae eiler, % 
peared in pamphlet form, published by Judd & V 
Washington. + bas 
i 
MecaLiTHIC Monuments IN France.—For ari OF sti 
not been our pleasure to read a more entertaining @ oi Rennes 
‘Monograph than that published recently by P. Bere? 
