Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/486

 480

NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. DEC. is, 1913.

Ambrose Heal was a prototype of this bene- ficent local collector. To his library at Nower's Hill, Pinner, every searcher in the bypaths of St. Pancras history was welcomed, and it was due to his encouragement, and entirely at his expense, that the valuable St. Pancrav Notes and Queries were re-issued from the ephemeral pages of the local paper.

His last important contribution to local history Avas the paper read to the members of the London .and Middlesex Archaeological Society when they visited " Capper's Farm House," behind his business premises, 15 March last. This has been published in an admirably produced pamphlet.

His collections have been bequeathed to the St. Pancras Library on condition that the autho- rities make suitable provision for housing them. Mr. F. W. Avant, J. P., Councillor, being entrusted t)y his will with their transfer and arrangement.

BOOKSELLEBS' CATALOGUES. DECEMBER.

CATALOGUE No. 35, sent to us by Mr. Charles .J. Sawyer, is one of the most interesting of its kind that we have lately come across. It is more than usually difficult, among so many of the highest interest, to select items for special .attention. The first on the list is a fine fifteenth- century Horse, written in Gothic characters by ,a French scribe, on 165 leaves of vellum, (6 J in. by 4f in.), the text occupying only 15 lines on a page, which measures 3f in. by 2 1 in. The full- page miniatures (ten in number) take up more
 * space,'and there are 5 large initials. The Calendar

is worth noting, as including several names not commonly met with ; and there are a few devo- tional poems in Old Freach, in an ancient hand, on the blank spaces of some of the pages, 90Z. An exceptionally good find is a long letter from William Godwin to Shelley, on the back of -which are Shelley's lines beginning "Mighty Eagle, thou that soarest," as he first wrote them down. "The lines were not, as has been supposed, .addressed to Godwin, but a tribute to Leigh Hunt. The letter has been bound by Sangorski & 'Sutcliffe, 130Z. There are two good Stevenson MSS. : that of his poem ' To H. F. Brown ' and that to Henry James, each bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in folio size in dark-blue levant morocco, with all the appropriate adornments usual the first offered at 125Z., the second at 90Z. Twelve .autograph letters of Dickens, as yet unpublished, ^written to Richard Watson and his wife between 1847 and 1870, preserved in the same decorative rmanner, are offered for 80Z. The unique copy on -vellum of the facsimile of the MS. of the ' Book of Leinster,' with descriptive text on paper, is to foe had for SQL (Dublin, 1880). Of the books which are not included among those, nearly forty in number, of "unique and particular interest " we noticed the following : ' The Historic of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderberg, King of Albanie,' by De Lavardin, with prefatory verses which include fourteen lines by Spenser, " Imprinted by [R. Field] for William Ponsonby, 1596," 12Z. ; .a copy of the 1817 issue of ' The Bevolt of Islam,' .30Z. ; De Castaneda's ' The First Booke of the Historie of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias,' in black-letter, with decorated Initials, dedicated by the translator, Nicholas Lichfield, to Sir Francis Drake, 1582, 15Z. 15s. ; .and a complete set of ' Boxiana,' compiled by

Pierce Egan, 1818-29, 26Z. 10s. Among the extra- illustrated works a first place must be given to a copy of Jesse's ' London ' in the first edition, the extra-illustrations of which run to nearly 1,000 curious and rare portraits and views, 1871, 120?. ; and we noticed also a copy of Alken's ' Tin* National Sports of Great Britain ' in the original edition, a series of fifty coloured plates depicting scenes of racing, hunting, owling, bull- and bear- baiting, and the other British sports, 1823, 871.

MB. HENRY YOUNG of Liverpool in his Cata- logue 446 describes a number of works of un- usually great interest. He has five books with painted edges, of which the most interesting are Dante Gabriel Rossetti's ' Collected Works,' in 2 vols., the first of which contains an autograph letter of Rossetti's, 1887, 30Z. ; and Holman Hunt's ' Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,' 24Z. He has a complete set of the Secret Court Memoirs printed for the Grolier Society, 20 vols., in the Edition de Luxe, 14Z. 14s. ; the edition of ' Complete Works ' of Drydeii brought out in 1821, with Sir Walter Scott as editor, 18 vols., 12Z. 12s. ; a complete set of the Diirer Society Publications, 1898-1911, 24Z. ; Coburger's ' Boethius : De Consolatione Philo- sophic,' having the text printed in single column across the page, and the Commentary by St. Thomas Aquinas in double columns, 1476, 21Z. : and the 1842 Froissart, with the complete set of impressions from H. N. Humphreys's copies from the illuminated MS. in the Bibliotheque Royale, Paris, 121. 12s. An early seventeenth-century Persian MS. of Firdusi's ' Shah Nahmeh,' oil 467 leaves, and containing 45 miniatures besides other ornament, is offered for 52Z. 10s. There are four Surtees first editions : ' Handley Cross,' 81. 8s. ; ' Ask Mamma,' 81. 10s. ; ' Plain or Ringlets,' 8Z. 10s.; and 'Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds,' 5Z. 15s. Qd. all good copies ; and an early edition of ' Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour,' 3Z. 10s. Sir Walter Scott's ' Swift,' in 19 vols., is here offered for 14Z. 14s. ; and for HZ. 11s. the "Post est " 'Horace.' This is an edition (engraved throughout) which was brought out in 1733-7 by J. Pine, and subscribed for by most of the illustrious personages in the day, of which a certain number of the earliest copies were struck off with the mistake " Post est " for "Potest" on an illustration of the medal of Caesar. These, for the curiosity of the error, but also as furnishing the engravings in their finest state, are now the most sought after copies of the edition.

[Notices of other Catalogues held over.]

(K0rasp0ntonts.

EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries ' "Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lishers " at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C.

CORRESPONDENTS who send letters to be for- warded to other contributors should put on the top left-hand corner of their envelopes the number of the page of * N. & Q.' to which their letters refer, so that the contributor may be readily identified.

MR.LEFFMANN and COL. PRIDEAUX. Forwarded.