Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/434

 360

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIIL NOV. 2, 1907.

Mr. Alexander W. Macphail, of Edinburgh, in his List LXXXXI. offers much of interest relating to Scotland. There are lists under Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, &c. Among curious items are a 16mo pamphlet, London, 1659-60, ' A Present De- scription of the People and Country of Scotland,' and 'A Brief Character of the Low Countries tinder the States,' II. 8s. 6d. These two rare pamphlets are extremely scurrilous, and are a bitter attack upon Scotland. Another rare Scotch tract is ' An Exact and Faithful Relation of the Process by Dame Margaret Areskine against Sir -James Foulis,' circa 1690, 16*. 6rf. There is no copy in the Advocates' Library or in the British Museum. Other items include ' The Coinage of Scotland,' illustrated from the Collections of Thomas Coats and others, 1887, 31. 10*. ; Picart's ' Costumes of the World,' Paris, 1707-10, \l. 15s.; Edition de Luxe of Gau tier's Works, limited to 100 copies, 24 vols., 9/. 9s. The original price was 18. 18*., and the plates were destroyed. Under Art are some choice water-colours and pencil drawings.

Messrs. W. N. Pitcher & Co., of Manchester, have in their List 151 a copy of the Edition de Luxe of Matthew Arnold, 15 vols., sateen cloth, the last volume containing a complete bibliography, 1903-4, -5'. 5s. : Gilfillan's 'Poets,' 48 vols., 31. 3s.; Comte's ' Positive Polity,' 4 vols., 21. 2s. ; the second edition of ' Robinson Crusoe ' and the first of the ' Farther Adventures,' 2 vols., calf, W. Taylor, 1719, 14/. ; first edition of ' Silas Marner,' 1861, 10s. Qd. ; the Hon. A. Herbert's ' Nimrod : a Discourse upon Certain Passages of History and Fable,' 4 vols., 1828-9, 67. 6s. (rare, as the author destroyed most of the copies); Hargrave Jenning's Works, 12 vols., scarce, 5?.; Ben Jonson, 9 vols., 1816, 4/. 10s.; Aikin's ' Lancashire,' 1795, extra-illustrated, 2 vols., 4to, 21. 2s. ; Maclise's ' Literary Characters,' 4to, 12s. ; Milton, edited by Masson, 3 vols., 11. 4s. ; Bourrienne's ' Napoleon,' 4 vols., 1836, 11. 14s. ; and, '' Memoirs of Barras,' 4 vols., 21. 8s. A choice set of The, Orchid Review, 14 vols., is 4Z. 10s.; a good .sound copy of Parkinson's 'Theatrum Botanicum,' 1640, scarce, 6f. ; a complete set of the early Chro- nicles of Scotland, 10 vols., 4tl. ; and a complete set of ' Slang and its Analogues,' compiled by J. S. Farmer, together 7 vols., 57.

Messrs. Henry Sotheran & Co. have published a Rough List of Second-Hand Books and Sets of Important Publications. The entries include a uniform set to 1894 of ' The Annual Register,' 257. ; a complete series of the original edition of Burton's 'Arabian Nights,' 16 vols., Benares, privately printed, 1885-8, 311. 10s. ; Matthew Arnold, 22 vols., 2U. ; the Library Edition of Arnold of Rugby, 15 vols., 31. 3s.', Ashbee's 'Facsimile Reprints,' 5J. 5s. ; ' Memoirs of Mrs. Baddeley,' by Mrs. Eliza- beth Steele, 1786, 1!. 2s. Qd. ; Balzac's ' The Human Comedy,' now first completely translated by Sedg- wick, Tomlinson, and Ives, only 250 sets printed, 122 vols., 81. 8s. ; Byron, Murray's Library Edition, 1830-39, extra-illustrated, 10 thick vols., 4to, in 12, large paper, bound in three-quarter Levant morocco, GGl. ; Campbell's ' Chancellors ' and ' Chief Justices,' Library Editions, 10 vols., 31. 15s. ; and Racinet's ' Le Costume Historique,' 6 vols., half -morocco, 12/. 12s. There are choice copies of first editions of Dickens ; and a cheap copy of the Times reprint of 'The Encyclopaedia Britannica,' 35 vols., 151. 15s. {Times net cash price 79^.). Valuable items occur under Shelley, Shakespeare, Ruskin, &c.

Mr. Wilfrid M. Voynich's Catalogue 24 is devoted exclusively to books printed in the fifteenth, six- teenth, and seventeenth centuries. It contains 520 items, none of which is to be found in the British Museum. Certainly there has never existed such an industrious searcher for rarities as Mr. Voyiiich, nor has there ever been one so well rewarded. The entries require too long a description for us to par- ticularize, but the history of the Sicilian private press is so interesting that we just quote the follow- ing in reference to it. The licence is dated Palermo, 26th of November, 1562: "A leading lawyer and writer on Jurisprudence, Giuseppe Cumia, lost his wife, Agata, to whom he was devotedly attached. He was so completely overwhelmed by this mis- fortune that he laid aside his work, and devoted himself to writing verses in her memory. After some time he thought of having these verses printed ; but, as there was no press in Catania, he was obliged to go to Messina, where he engaged some printers to accompany him to Catania with their press, and to print his writings under his personal supervision." The press was set up in his private house, and he took the oppor- tunity to learn printing ; and before the compositors had finished a law-book for him he set up with his own hands the volume of poems. The printers returned to Messina at the end of a year, "while Cumia, who had bought their press from them, continued to print, with the help of his manservant,

his maidservant, and his little son He served as

compositor, his manservant as printer, the maid as inker, and the child as type-distributor."

to

We must call special attention to the following notices :

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately, nor can we advise correspondents as to the value of old books and other objects or as to the means of disposing of them.

To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication " Duplicate."

E. L. ('The Mummy'). The verses you seek were written by Horace Smith, and are printed in Chambers's 'Cyclopaedia of Literature' under the title 'Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Ex- hibition.'

B. (" Handling the Ribbons or Ribbands "). The former is, we fancy, more correct : the latter old- fashioned.

NOTICE.

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