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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. FEE. s, 1913.

THE most interesting papers in The Burlington Magazine, for this month are, perhaps, Mr. Clutton Brock's criticism of Alma Tadema ; Signer Gustavo Frizzoni's plea for the reintegration of the Bellini altarpiece now in the Church of Sant' Uhaldo, Pesaro a reintegration which he believes would be effected by transferring to it the Pieta now in the Venetian room at the Vatican ; and Mr. T. A. Joyce's study of Peruvian pottery from the Nasca Valley. We have also the continuation of Mr. W. T. Whitley's 'Turner as a Lecturer,' a, valuable, if somewhat painful addition to our knowledge of the painter gleaned by laborious re- search in the periodicals of the time. Mr. P. M. Turner deals with the pictures of the English .School possessed by or lent by collectors to the Metropolitan Museum at New York a subject which the English public may well follow with serious interest ; and Mrs. C. C. Stopes gives us a first instalment of ' Gleanings from the Records of the Reigns of James I. and Charles I.'

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. FEBRUARY.

MR. WALTER DANIELL'S Catalogue of Auto- graphs (No. 7) contains autographs of statesmen, sovereigns, and legal characters. There are numerous Stuart items, among them a French letter of Charles I., apparently to the King of France, complete and in perfect condition, un- dated, 42Z. 10s. ; a letter of James II. 's before his accession to the Comte d'Estree, with its ilks and seals, 161. 16s. ; and a letter, unsigned, from Rupert to Charles concerning Newark, 181. 18s. There is also a good letter of Queen Elizabeth in French, dated 1582, to the Due de Montpensier, 421. Of the letters of foreign

Srinces the best would seem to be one of Catherine e' Medici, dated 1581, also to the Due de Mont- pensier, 18L 10s. Burke is here well represented, ~by a letter to Mrs. Montagu, 11. 5*. ; a letter -dated 1790 expressing his views on the French Revolution, 121. ; and another of the same vear to Wyndham on a presentation from the resident graduates of Oxford, 51. 10s. We noticed ^n interesting set of letters (the price of which is 121. 15s.) in Sir R. Bulstrode' s correspondence with <Conway, Secretary of State during 1681-3 ; .and we may also mention a letter of Elizabeth's favourite Leicester to Dr. Hofman at Paris, asking him to buy him seeds " and all kinds of rare flowers, besides seeds for melons, cauliflowers, and such like," 50Z. ; and a letter from Strafford, .dated 1635, to the Earl of Leicester, 11. 5s.

MESSRS. E. PARSONS & SONS have sent us their Catalogue No. 26, which gives particulars of some 600 items : engraved portraits and original drawings by Old Masters. They have Beau- varlet's 'Madame du Barry, ' after Drouais, offered for 211. ; Watson's ' Lady Broughton,' after Reynolds, 181. 18s. ; Cousins's mezzotint of ' The Calmady Children ' as ' Nature,' from Lawrence, 311. 16s. ; ' Lady Crosbie,' by Dickinson after Reynolds, 68Z. 5s. ; and ' The Duchess of Devon- shire,' by V. Green after Reynolds, 631. Perhaps the best of the portraits is Bartolozzi's ' Miss Farren,' a proof before title with publication line and artists' names only, for which the price asked as 125?. In the way of original drawings none is more interesting than the Blake : the pencil

drawing of 'The Death Chamber,' showing in the foreground the dead body of a man, a woman crouching behind him, with beside her three figures, apparently floating. For this ,181. 18s. is the price asked. There are two Saint-Aubins : the better, offered for 311. 10s., represents a ' Garden Scene,' with numerous figures curiously disposed. There are three Rembrandts : a portrait of himself, pen and ink, 317. 10s. ; a pen and sepia drawing, ' Christ and the Woman of Samaria,' 18Z. 18s. ; and a crayon sketch of a boy holding a clarionet, 11. Is. Forty-five pounds is the price asked for a Watteau from Graf Festitics collection at Vienna, a drawing in red of a pedlar with a heavy cloak ; and from the Esdaile Collection comes a study for the 'Hope' in the window of the ante-chapel at New College, Oxford, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 181. 18s.

Messrs. Parsons have likewise sent us a Cata- logue (No. 274) of their Old Books and MSS. This sets out a fine array of examples of book- binding, of which the most valuable would appear to be the Breviary of Urban VIII., Plantin- Moretus, 1697, in the Grolier style, for which 18Z. 18s. is asked, though a specimen of Nicolas Eve's work, in brown morocco, 10Z. 10s., and one of Bozerian's in blue, 131. 13s., are hardly less interesting. Good items are four sets of Chinese drawings : one, of date about 1700, con- sisting of 19 drawings of interiors and genre subjects, 26 guineas, and another of the same date of 78 drawings of natural history subjects, 20 guineas ; the third, 1817, composed of 48 ex- amples of work by the flower-painter Han Shan, 81. 8s. ; and the last, for which 11. 10s. is asked, a series of 9 pictures of domestic interest. There are five collections of casts or prints from antique gems, by far the most interesting being the 14,000 casts in red wax from Tassie's collection of antique gems, 1791, of which the price is 25 guineas. An important item is a set of 50 plates (proofs) engraved by Cousins from Lawrence, which includes much of his finest work, and is offered for 85 guineas. For the same price may be had an ' Ovidius Opera Omnia,' in four quarto volumes, Burmann's edition printed at Amster- dam, 1727, with a series of 57 drawings by Claudius de Bock, the subjects being taken from the ' Metamorphoses.' The letters offered are principally of the last century, and include several of high interest, particularly those of Dickens, Fanny Burney, and Leigh Hunt.

[Notices of other Catalogues held over.]

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C. L. Reply to A. C. C. forwarded.

MR. CHARLES WELLS, of The Bristol Times ami Mirror, informs us that that paper noticed the death of Mrs. Colman, J. S. Mill's sister, on 16 January.