Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/66

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vni. j ULY ;i9, 1013.

and deaths, and other old records, chiefly per- sonal and genealogical, connected with the Roman Communion in England and Wales since the Refor- mation. It appears from the list furnished to us that thus far 13 volumes have been issued, while four others are now in the press. The matter offered, as shown by the tables of contents, is for the most part of great interest. The Society num- bers close upon 400 members, Mr. Joseph S. Han- som being the Hon. Secretary.

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. JULY.

IVlR. HENRY DAVEY'S Catalogue 41 contains a rnumber of books under America ; also France, .Italy, and Russia. Among those under London is the ' Hackney Coach Directory,' by J. Quaife, Surveyor to the Board of Hackney Coaches, 1821, Is. 6d.

MESSRS. GILHOFER RANSCHBURG of Vienna offer, in their Catalogue 104, a number of useful works of a wide range of interest. Thus they have some half - dozen rare books on botany, among which we noticed Waldstein and Kitaibel's ' De- scriptiones et Icones Plantarum Rariorum Hun- gariae,' 1,200k., and Sander's 'Reichenbachia,' 850k. Another good section is that of sixteenth-century woodcuts, where we find offered for 300k. a ' Missale Saltzeburgense,' Venice, 1515, and the Ovid of some forty years later, printed by J. de Tournes at Lyons, with 176 engravings by Bernard Salomon, for which the same price is asked. Among the incunabula is the curious work of one Bergomensis, "* De plurimis claris sceletisque [sic} mulieribus opus,' valuable for the extraordinary beauty of the Italian woodcuts with which it is illustrated, 1497, 2,500k. There is a good number of old and curious medical books, of books on art, on music and the dance, on Napoleon, on alchemy, and on the coun- tries of Eastern Europe, to mention but a few of the subjects on which the curious reader will here find entertainment promised him.

MESSRS. HENRY SOTHERAN'S Catalogues are always worth looking through, but their latest one, No. 737, with its copious and interesting illus- trations, is even better than usual. It contains first something over one hundred items in the way of old engravings, among which we noticed, as specially attractive, Dawes's mezzotint after Mor- land's 'Children Gathering Blackberries,' printed in colours, 85/. : Osborne's ' Mrs. Jordan, in the Character of a Country Girl,' after the well-known Romney, stipple, printed in colours and thus ex- ceedingly rare 1107. ; and several good Bartolozzis, including a pair after Angelica Kauffmann : ' Rho- dope in Love with JEsop ' and 'Psammetichus in Love with Rhodope,' III. 10$. The sum of 1597. seems none too great to ask for 28 vellum pages which have been cut from a Flemish Missal of the early sixteenth century, and bear each a large full-page miniature, with beautiful border either copies of Albert Diirer's work, or work obviously influenced by him. In addition to these there are also a page of the MS. text, and 4 engravings by Lucas van Leyden, who has painted them to resemble miniatures. A large and fine miniature, by an unknown sixteenth-century Flemish artist, of for 25?., and the Arundel print of the Van Eyck f Adoration of the Lamb ' at Ghent for 217.
 * St. Margaret of Antioch and her Dragon ' is offered

A collection of 23 autograph letters, signed, of Nelson to Thomas Troubridge, together with one or two other Nelson autographs, should find a ready purchaser. The letters," dated from March 4th to May 27th, 1801, are concerned with the Baltic Ex- pedition and the Battle of Copenhagen, and the extracts printed in the catalogue sufficiently illus- trate the high interest attaching to them, 2107. But no doubt the lover of literature will turn with most expectation to the pages which furnish a list of the Browning relics numerous and full of fas- cinating associations now in the possession of Messrs. Sotheran. These comprise books from Browning's library, MSS. by Mrs. Browning, both unpublished and published autograph letters, por- traits and paintings and objects of art in all con- siderably more than three hundred items. Chief among the portraits, and to be had for 250 guineas, is the life-size portrait in oils of Robert Browning by his son, painted at Venice in the last year of the

Stet's life. The books include a good number of rs. Browning's volumes of the Greek poets ; a copy of her 1845 ' Poems,' containing the numerous MS. alterations and additions from which the 1850 edition was set up, 457. ; first editions, presentation copies from Matthew Arnold, of ' Empedocles on Etna,' 187. 18s., and 'Friendship's Garland,' 157. 15s. ; a copy of Doering's ' Catullus,' given to Browning by Landor, with fragments of MS. by Landor, 107. 10s. ; Mrs. Browning's St. Ghrysostom 'De Sacerdotio, libri VI.' (Hughes), given her by Hugh Boyd and annotated by her, 347. ; three different editions of Euripides, of which the most interesting is the Oxford Barnes of 1812 the 'Tragoediae XX.,' in 6 yols., 24mo, with notes in Mrs. Browning's handwriting 187. 18s. ; a presentation copy of his ' Works ' from Landor, 1853, of which vol. i. bears notes both by Landor and Browning, and has the spelling of some parts altered, apparently for an American reprint, 2 vols., 357.; a fine 'Missale Romanum,' Romae, 1761, 121. 12-s. ; and a first edition, 1844, presented by the publisher to Mrs. Browning, of Coventry Patmore's ( Poems,' 147. 14-s. A delightful item is the two stanzas of ' Heap cassia, sandal- buds and stripes' from 'Paracelsus,' written on vellum in gothic letter by William Morris, having two illuminated initials and grotesque borders, and signed in pencil, 127. 12*. Of the unpublished MSS. by Mrs. Browning the greater portion is juvenile work, and the most interesting two prose pieces of autobiographical interest, one (? 1820) delineating her character as a child, 187. l&s., the other relating the discouragement her writing met with at the hands of her father, 1827, 257.

[Notices of other Catalogues held over.]

ta (K0rmp0ntonts.

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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.

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