Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/532

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. v. jrs* i, 1912.

in 1909, a new building having been first erected in Kingsway.

There is not a page of text which does not testify to the fact that Sir Laurence believes in the principle of " verify your references." The entire work gives evidence of immense labour. The Introduction acknowledges the great help rendered by Mr. W. W. Braines, in charge of the Library and Records Branch, who undertook all the research work for the historical portion. The illustrations include a map of Lincoln's Inn Fields at the present day, and one of the Fields in 1592 ; and there are ninety-five other plates, among them several relating to the Royal College of Surgeons, with a portrait of Hunter. The letterpress and entire get-up are all that can be desired. We have but one suggestion to make, and that is that, if possible, future volumes should have the text printed on featherweight paper. This would be less fatiguing to the eye than the present highly glazed paper, and would lessen the weight.

Boole - Prices Current. Vol. XXVI. Part II. (Elliot Stock.)

THE contents of this part relate to the sale of books and manuscripts from the Amherst Library and the libraries of Dr. Jessopp, Dr. J F. Payne, and Ward Hunt, by Messrs. Sotheby ; that of Judge Willis by Messrs. Hodgson ; that of Charles Letts by Messrs. Puttick ; and other miscellaneous sales. We mention a few of the rarities : These include John Bunyon's copy of Foxe's ' Book of Martyrs,' the property of the Bedford Literary Institute, 3 vols., 1641. 'This was bought in at 600?. The first edition, in the original boards, of Keats's Poems, fetched 101?. ; ' Aristoteles, Ethicorum Libri X,' Oxford, 1479, being the second book printed at Oxford ; many Dickens items at the usual high prices ; the Letter Journal to the Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, with wrapper endorsed " from Sheridan," 1792, 107?. ; several of R. L. Stevenson's works, and his writing-desk, which fetched 125?. ; ' The Black Book of Carisbrooke Priory,' 20?. ; the first edition of Chapman's ' Iliad ' and ' Odyssey,' circa 1616, 20?. ; the first edition of the ' Angler,' 1653, also Cotton's 1676, together 2 vols., modern morocco, 750?. ; many choice Hora? and scarce Herbals ; the first issue of the first edition of ' The Faerie Queene,' 1590, 43?. ; and the 4 Chronicle of St. Albans,' 1497, 27?.

THE June Fortnightly Review offers its readers a more than usually various feast. Mr. Lawton on 'Albert Besnard,' Mr. Francis Gribble on 'The Secret of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore,' Mr. H. M. Paull on ' John Gay,' and Mr. Horace Samuel on ' August Striudberg,' invite us, as we pass from one to another, to focus attention on sufficiently diver- gent personalities, of whom three at least, to the mass of the English public, will have something of the attraction of novelty. The articles are tolerably well put together, but the writers, different as are their subjects and their points of view have hardly been able to avoid the pitfalls of what we may call allusive cataloguing. Mr. Nevinson's -ketch of Nero is impressive and makes excellent points, even if it is a little long and a little too obviously addressed to the eye. Of the political papers principally concerned with

Ireland and Germany we found Mr. Sydney Brooks's ' Sir Horace Plunkett and his Work ' the most interesting. Mr. Thring discusses-- the ' Advantages and Defects of the Copyright Act,' giving a summary of the most important points, which should prove of great practical utility. There are two poems, of which one at least, Mr. Thomas Hardy's verses on the loss of the Titanic, will be eagerly read. The idea in this is a fine one, but the metre seemed to us inappropriate, and there is more than one prosaic word which jars.

THE June Cornhill Magazine is a very attractive number. Sir Henry Lucy's 'Sixty i r ears in the Wilderness ' gives us the account of his meetings with six explorers, and his reminiscences make interesting reading, even though no very extra- ordinary incidents are forthcoming. We were sorry, though, to observe that he approves of Antarctic mountains being named after English politicians. In ' One of the Puzzles of Waterloo : Napoleon's Scaffold,' Dr. Fitchett revives a subject dealt with in ' N. & Q.' at 4 S. ix. 469, 538 ; x. 37, 97 ; 5 S. ii. 316 ; iii. 58. It might interest him to turn up these discussions. Mrs. Skrine's paper on 'The Church in Mary Ferrar's House' is pleasing as it could not fail to be, both from the nature of the subject and as coming from her pen but it is a little marred by the too obvious endeavour at beauti- ful writing. The best paper in the number we thought Miss Meinertzhagen's ' Towards Ararat,' an article made up of the letters of an English girl written home from the borders of the Caspian Sea, where she was travelling last summer with her brother. The details by which the several pictures are made up are chosen with an admirable skill all the better because it seems unconscious ; the writing is sufficiently pointed and rapid ; and the writer does not impair the freshness and interest of her unusually interesting subject-matter by undue obtrusion of her own reflections.

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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.

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'^B aldings, Chancery Lane, E.G.

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. Otherwise much time has to be spent in tracing the querist.

A. F. S. Letter forwarded, but it should have borne a penny stamp.

LEO CULLETON. Forwarded to the REV. C. B. MOUNT.

ERRATOI. P. 411, col. 1, 1. 3, for "renuis" read nernus.