Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/345

 ii s. viii. OCT. 25, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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WE have before us half-a-dozen of the new numbers of Messrs. Jack's " People's Books." One or two of them count among the best of the series. We should put at the head of this par- ticular handful Mr. J. A. Hill's Spiritualism. It is richer in matter than in words, and the words are simple, straightforward, and clear both good points in work of this order. The case for Spiritualism is put fairly, and the stories which illustrate it are well chosen and numerous. The history of this long and obstinate search into the world beyond our ken is told in a slight, but for its pvirpose sufficient outline. Another excellent little volume is Prof. Herford's Goethe, the more to be praised because the task of writing a brief life, much more a brief general criticism, of Goethe is a singularly ungrateful one. Of few poets, it would seem, does one find oneself more constantly revising one's judgment ; yet to do this fruitfully one must certainly begin with an attitude of sympathy and admiration, and, if it falls to one to introduce other people to him for the first time, induce them also to begin so. But to write in that sense without redundance or ambiguity is a difficult matter for one who has gone through the gamut of changes with regard to his estimate of the poet. Dr. Herford seems to us to have grappled with the difficulty admirably. We do not understand on what principle some of the verses quoted are translated, some left in German. For Mr. Lindsay's Kant, again, we have almost nothing but praise. We would merely have wished that the chapter on ' The Idea of Criticism ' had been expanded even at the expense of the rest ; for, while we think it is impossible to convey, within these few pages and to the kind of reader for whom these books are intended, any satisfactory idea of the content of Kant's philosophy, that which differentiates it from former philosophies seems both more capable of quite easy popular treatment, and, provided it is done at sufficient length, more likely to fix itself in the reader's mind. The Crusades, by Mr. M. M. C. Calthrop, is another good piece of work, though, in common with every other popular account of the Crusades that we have come across, it is overloaded with minute detail, and drags rather heavily after the romantic exploits of the first three Crusades are done with. To beginners some kind of chart or table of dates and events would probably, have been welcome. Mr. S. L. Bensusan's book on Coleridge is an inadequate study, in which too much space is occupied by lamentation over the poet's defects, and too little by facts. It is surely a pity to ignore him altogether as a metaphysician ; and, again, a pity, at this time of day, to offer such almost childishly shallow remarks about his poetry as we find here. Mr. C. W. Valentine's treatise on The Experimental Psychology of Beauty deals with a subject that is at once obscure and fascinating. It is chiefly and we like it greatly the better for that a record of experi- ments. The chapters on * Beauty of Form ' and ' Beauty of Balance and Symmetry ' struck us a? the best part of the book.

MRS. FRANCES ROSE-TROUP sends us the fol- lowing :

" May I call the attention of your readers to the fact that the volume which is now advertised as about to be published is not my book, ' Ottery

St. Mary : its Manor arid Church,' which was- mentioned in several publications last spring, but an entirely different volume with a similar title ?

"It will be some time before my book can be issued, as the material contained 'in over three hundred unpublished documents must be carefully considered, especially as some of these throw fresh light on vexed questions of manor customs and land tenure. This work cannot be satisfactorily accom- plished in a moment, so I am compelled to postpone its publication a little longer."

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. OCTOBER.

MESSRS. BROWNE & BROWNE, of Newcastle-on- Tyne,send us a Catalogue (No. 107) of 1,160 items, some of which are decidedly attractive. Thus they have George Wither's 'Collection of Emblems,. Ancient and Moderne : Quickened with Metrical! Illustrations, both Morall and Divine, and disposed into Lotteries,' 1635, having the frontispiece by Will Marshall, with the " preposition" and Payne's portrait of the author, 30Z. For 40Z. they offer a complete set of the Waverley Novels 74 volumes in- all, and all first editions with the exception of letter folio containing ' Actes made at a Parliament, begun and holden at Westminster the 21st day of October, in the second and third year of the reign of our Lorde and Lady Philip and Mary,' is to be had for 4Z. 4-s., and for the same price there is a similar folio of the Acts made 'Anno XXL Henrici Octavi.' A particularly good item is a copy of George Fox's ' A Battle-Door for Teachers and Professors to Learn Singular and Plural ' in the first edition the full collation of 57 sheets on 114: leaves, having the leaf of Errata and the additional slip correcting errors later discovered, as well as yet another slip, pasted on the verso of the last leaf, signed G. i., and relating to the Pope's pride in using " You to one " 1660, 151. We may also- mention Surtees's 'Durham,' in 5 vols., 1816-52, 30^.; 'Les Cris de Paris,' 44 coloured lithographs by Delpech after Vernet, c. 1810, 101. ; Ackermann's ' History of the University of Cambridge,' 2 vols., with the coloured plates, 1815, 251. ; a first edition of Jarvis's translation of ' Don Quixote,' with the series of plates by Vandergucht after Vanderbank,. 1742, and a copy of Shelton's translation of the same work, 1652, both 4Z. 4-s. ; Lilford's 'Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands,' 7 vols., containing 421 plates, 60Z.;and ' The Remembrancer, or Impartial Repository of Public Events,' from 1775 to 1782, with an additional volume of Prior Documents, making 15 vols. in all, illustrated with maps and plans, and covering the whole of the American War, 30/.
 * Waverley,' which is a second edition. A black-

MESSRS. MAGGS have sent us their Catalogue No. 308 a list of rare books, in which the most considerable item is a manuscript Bible in French. This is fifteenth-century work, in gothic letters, on 771 leaves of vellum, bound in 3 vols. It has 197 large miniatures, 202 large ornamental initials, as well as other decorations and fine borders, of which the four illustrations given in the Catalogue are, in themselves, enough to attest the unusual beauty and interest. The text is the " des Moulins " version from the Latin, dating from the end of the thirteenth century. The price asked for this work is 3,500Z. There are several other MSS. offered here, much inferior