Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/90

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. xi JA.N 23, ins.

letters were sold at Puttick & Simpson's in 1855 ; whether these had been published or not, and their present whereabouts, are alike unknown. Prof. Grierson has already done pretty well all there is to be done in the matter of Donne's poems, particularly in the elimination of the spurious, which is a principal task in this part of work on Donne. As will be seen in this Bibliography, the poems have attracted a good deal of attention on the part of the publishers of series and booklets. The most curious of the works described here is undoubtedly ' Biathanatos,' issued last by an anonymous publisher in 1700, having been pub- lished previously in 1644 and 1648. A casuistical defence of suicide, it is not much wonder that it irked the conscience of the author, while it pleased his sense for the curious, and was neither destroyed by him nor yet made public, but circulated we would suppose among the steadier- minded of his friends in MS.

Mr. Keynes gives some useful biographical details concerning that very unsatisfactory personage the younger Donne, who seems to have been a sort of sublimation of those qualities which were somewhat conspicuous in his father in his unregenerate days. However, as Mr. Keynes remarks, posterity must needs re- member with gratitude the labours of his to which we owe so much of our knowledge of his father's works.

Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica : December.

Edited by W. Bruce Bannerman. (Mitchell

Hughes & Clarke, 2s. Qd.)

THE contents include ' Register of St. John's Col- lege, Oxford, Rawlinson MSS. B. 402 (Bodleian),' communicated by the Rev. Edmund Jermyn, The MS. is all in one handwriting. Mrs. L. Bazely contributes particulars of the family of Boothby of Marston Hall. There are pedigrees of Fuller of Bath and of Dudderidge of Burland ; and particulars of the Archers of Norfolk, Viiginia. Mr. A. L. Lewis shows ' The Common Ancestry of Sidney, Bolingbroke, and Shelley.' The Herries notes are continued by Mr. David C. Herries.

Mr. Llewelyn Lloyd is evidently attracted by the difficulties that sometimes fall to pedigree- hunters : an endeavour to trace the history of Lloyd of Cwm Bychan involved him in the task of connecting two extant pedigrees. Under the head of Cwm Bychan the earlier pedigree appears in Pennant's ' Tours in Wales,' and eighteen generations are given. The later pedigree is to be found in Crisp's ' Visitation of England and Wales.' This gives four more. The twenty- two generations covet a period of a thousand years, and show a direct descent from a Welsh prince to the present time.

Mr. George J. Lind continues his register of the interments at the British Cemetery, Oporto, from 1876.

The Library Journal : December. (New York, Publication Office ; London, 22, Bedford Street, 1*. Qd.)

THIS number opens with a page illustration of the library of the United Engineering Societies, New York City, of which a description is given by Mr. W. P. Cutter, together with a plan. The library contains more than 60,000 volumes of great technical value. The library committee, in view of the Panama Exhibition to open on

the 20th of February, had hoped that the exhibit sent to Leipzig would be returned in time to form the basis of the library exhibit at San Francisco, but efforts to obtain it have been futile. As a last resort, an appeal has been made to the United States Secretary of State to obtain the return of the exhibit, and the American Ambas- sador at Berlin has been instructed by cable to endeavour to arrange for its return. Germany has now started its first regularly organized Library School : it was opened at Leipzig on the 12th of October last.

There is an interesting feature of many Ame- rican libraries that is worthy, of home considera- tion ; it is that of having wild -flower tables. Two garden-flower exhibitions last August in- creased the interest in gardens, and drew people who were not in the habit of usin? libraries.

OUR old friend Thorns, after he had founded " dear old ' N. & Q.' " on the 3rd of November, 1849, soon discovered that the material he received was so varied that he had often, to use his favourite phrase, to " cudgel his brains " as to what he should use, and what he should reject. We remember how amused he was on receiving some loaves of bread, being specimens of the first bread to be made by machinery, as well as another occasion when he found a box of matches awaiting him, these being the first to be manufactured so as to light only when rubbed on a preparation placed on one side of the box.

To-day we note receipt of a box which we opened with the expectation of finding some antiquities relating to folk-lore, but, lo and behold ! the handsome box was full of choice chocolates, sent by Messrs. Boisselier of Victoria Works, Watford. The contents, needless to say, are good, but the object is better. One-fifth of the total receipts from sales is to be given to the King of the Belgians through The Daily Telegraph Shilling Fund. We feel sure the result will be to bring in many notes without queries. The boxes are on sale at the principal stores and con- fectioners', at 5s., 3s., and Is. Qd.

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