Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/384

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. OCT. 19, 1907.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Small Library. By James Duff Brown.

(Rout ledge & Sons.)

MR. DUFF BROWN, who is the Borough Librarian of Islington, has here given us ' A Guide to the Collection and Care of Books.' He is already well known as the author of several works on aspects of librarianship, and in the present volume shows sound sense and discernment.

The opening chapter seems to us somewhat unnecessarily petulant in tone. Mr. Brown regards the typical American child as "a warning against forcing the minds of children by artificial educa- tional processes," and his remarks on juvenile literature certainly touch on a good many weak points. On the subject of ' The Household L'ibrary ' valuable hints are given as to books of reference, a point on which the average adult is hopelessly at sea. The lists which in this and other chapters give practical expression to Mr. Brown's view will probably not meet with the entire concurrence of all competent bookmen, but we regard them for the most part as singularly free from priggishness and pedantry alike.

As for ' The School Library,' we are told that : "A course of 'Sandford and Merton,' plus 'A Candle lighted by the Lord ' and similar pieces of morbid religious reading, will not model our Tom Sawyers, Stalkys, and Tom Browns into the uniform bundles of obedient deference so greatly prized by many teachers." Further, we read that " iisually the schoolmaster's list is full of vapid, colourless, and goody-goody stuff which children cannot read." Practical librarians are, it appears, better than teachers at selecting books for the young. This scolding of the schoolmaster is a piece of general- ization popular with reformers, but hardly deserved, we think, nowadays.

If Mr. Brown wrote more calmly, or spent less time in dealing with exaggerations of current defects, his book would read better, and would inspire more confidence. The subject is one on which the best of judges may be at fault. We are surprised, for instance, to find Mr. Brown, on p. 130 of 'Book Selection,' give under 'Drama' ^Eschylus and Sophocles, and omit Euripides, who, thanks to the Court Theatre and Dr. Murray, may be regarded as a modern poet with affinities alike to Mr. Bernard Shaw and Ibsen. To include Addison, Phillips, and Scribe, and omit Euri- pides, among "individual dramatists" seems to us sufficiently amazing. Among essayists we should certainly include Walter Bagehot, a brilliant writer who is much superior to, say, Mulock and Repplier. We would willingly cast away Akenside among poets for T. E. Brown. In 'Literary History,' 'The "Bookman" History of English Literature' is mentioned, but the much better illustrated and at least equally well-written ' English Literature : an Illustrated Record,' is omitted. The selection of books concerning sport and recreative art is weak, and by no means abreast of current information. But it would require nothing less than a syndicate to cover the whole field of books adequately. Mr Brown has supplied within his short space a great deal which will assist the student, whether he aspires to look after and arrange books, or merely to read them.

The Cattle of Ofranfo. By Horace Walpole. With Sir Walter Scott's Introduction ; Preface by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon. (Chatto & Windus.) THIS edition belongs to " The King's Classics," a- series which has won the good will of bpoklovers by its excellent form and competent editing. In this case the reader may be, as we are, somewhat surfeited by so much introduction. Is he, like the modern schoolboy, to be allowed no chance to think for himself, and loaded with notes and in- structions as to different points of view ? We should have been well contented to stop short with Scott, and excogitate our own ideas as to the modern point of view. The contrast between Walpole's story and the novel of to - day is sufficiently arresting. We read of "virtuous- delicacy," "expressions of civility," and of a princess who says : "I should not deserve this in- comparable parent, if the inmost recesses of my soul harboured a thought without her permission.'' That this was regarded as true to nature is pro- bably due to the influence of ' Pamela,' whose virtues had been before the world for twenty-five years when ' The Castle of Otranto ' appeared.

Poema of Shelley. Selected, and with an Introduc- tion by John Churton Collins. (T. C. & E. C. Jack.)

WE have here a collection of Shelley's poems, with excerpts from several dramas, judiciously selected 1 and edited by Mr. Oliphant Smeaton, and with a lengthy analytical Introduction by Prof. Churtor* Collins.

It is late in the day to discuss the merits or demerits of Shelley as a poet, and \ve will there- fore content ourselves with saying that all that is best in the poet's work is here represented ; and if we do not see eye to eye with the writer of the Introduction in his strictures on ' The Cenci ' as a drama, he at least provides an admirable guide to the salient characteristics of a wayward genius.

The coloured illustrations by Jessie M. King^ are fanciful, but in fit keeping with the fairylike nature of the verses they accompany. An excellent portrait of Shelley by A. S. Hartrick forms the- frontispieee of the little volume.

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES.

MR. B. H. BLACKWELL, of Oxford, devotes his- Catalogue CXXV. to Educational Books, new and second-hand. This first part contains Classical Literature.

Mr. James G. Commin, of Exeter, has in his Catalogue 235 a magnificent set of Ruskin, mostly first issues. A list of the contents is given. The 61 volumes are bound in 53, full blue calf, 281. (cost 501.). The first edition of Montaigne's ' Essays ' " done into English," a tall sound copy in the old calf, having the leaf of errata and the rare poem by S. Daniel, 1603, is 65/. There is a choice set of Macaulay, 8 vols., full calf, 1875, 47. 15s. An heraldic MS. of the seventeenth century by William Style contains an alphabet of arms of Families in every county of England, 51. 5x. There is a curious- collection of numbers of The London Gazette, April 26th to Dec. 31st, 1688, II. These contain accounts of the landing of the Prince of Orange at Brixham, the birth of the Prince of Wales, King James's proclamation of a general pardon, &c. Under Addenda are Keene's ' Etchings,' with notes.