Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/439

 12 8. m. SEPT., i9i7.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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An Outline of the History of Printing : to which is added the History of Printing in Colours. By B. A. Peddle. (Grafton & Co., 2s. 6d.) MR. B. A. PEDDIB, the courteous librarian of the too little used St. Bride Typographical Library, has a scholar's (not a pedant's) knowledge of the history and craft of printing. This Outline is admirably concise, critical in its rejection of unwisely accumulated legend, and accurate wherever we have had occasion to test it. This short monograph is a record for the instructed, not for the amateur ; it contains a sketch of the history of printing, and accounts of the developments of machines and processes for printing and engraving.

BOOKSELLEBS' CATALOGUES.

MESSRS SOTHERAN & Co. have provided book- lovers with a pleasant surprise in their new Price Current, ' The History of Civilization : as shown in a Catalogue of Second-hand Books on Anthropology, Folk-Lore, Archaeology, and Socio- logy,' principally from the library of the late Sir Laurence Gomme. The price is half-a-crown net, but purchasers will not grudge the money. The 216 pages contain 3,695 entries, classified in three main divisions : General Works, Early and Primitive Man, and The Bise of Civilization. The second division comprises seven sections, ranging from Palaeolithic and Neolithic Man to Gipsy-Lore. The third division is in two parts : Oriental, with five sections, devoted to Ancient Egypt and Africa, India, the Ancient West Asiatic Monarchies, the Moslem World, and the Far East ; and Occidental, with eighteen sections, the first relating to Ancient Greece and Borne, and others dealing with Celtic Britain, Boman Britain, Anglo-Saxon England, and England after the Norman Conquest. Wales, Scotland, and Ireland are the subjects of other sections ; and the Teutonic Baces, the Latin Baces, and the Slavonic Baces are similarly treated. It will be seen that much care has been expended on the arrangement and classification of the volume, but these are not the distinguishing feature of the volume. That consists in the compiler's notes, which, besides furnishing critical accounts of the contents of many of the volumes (often from the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' and similarly authoritative sources), contain caustic comments on the things happening around us to-day or the tendencies of the times. Under 3675, ' The North-West Coast of America : being Besults of Becent Ethnological Besearches,' is the note : " The fetishes may have given the German Emperor the idea of the great Hinden- burg nail-fetish in Berlin." ' The Pleasant His- tory of Beynard the Fox ' (3488) is described as " the standard drawing-room table-book in the Palace at Sofia." Of the author of 'The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark' (3540) it is said: "Worsaae was not only a great antiquary, but a Danish patriot, who well withstood Jakob Grimm's characteristic factfaking to justify the German robbery of the Southern duchies." Sinclair's ' Satan's Invisible World Discovered ' (458) is thus annotated : "If it had not been for the more profitable excitements provided by the Industrial Revolution, Scotland would have got very dull without the Devil." The com- mentator is not always wielding the scourge, for

this is what he says of the founder of ' N. & Q.' and his ' Longevity of Man ' (489) : " When Mr. Thorns well passed his eightieth birthday everybody hoped he was going to disprove his own thesis ; but unfortunately ' he would not do so.' " And the opening portion of the com- ment on Munro's ' Archaeology and False An- tiquities ' (352) will amuse readers of ' N. & Q.' : "The first systematic exposure of the tempt- ing and profitable trade of hoaxing the eager archaeologist a kind of cross between robbing a blind man's dog and seething a kid in its mother's milk."

Our few extracts show that there is plenty of stimulating reading in the book, for the annotator is a man of strong opinions and expresses them in vigorous language.

From MR. FRANCIS EDWARDS we have received an ' Abbreviated Catalogue of Books on Archi- tecture, Art and Archaeology, &c.,' No. 376 of his series. The first two entries prove that it contains works attractive to persons differing widely in their purchasing powers: No. 1, con- sisting of Gotch s ' Architecture of the B^enais- sance in England,' Belcher and Macartney's ' Later Benaissance Architecture in England,' and Garner and Strattpn's ' Domestic Architec- ture of England during the Tudor Period,' together 6 vols. with over 500 plates, is 20?. ; while No. 2, Gasquet's ' Greater Abbeys of England,' is to be had for 6s. There are several Book-plate Monographs at Is. Qd. each ; on the other hand, a complete set of Archceologia, 1770- 1914. costs 30Z. ; Crealock's ' Deer-stalking in the Highlands,' folio, 1892, is 14Z. ; and Dug- dale's ' Monasticon,' 8 vols., folio, 1846, 161. There are numerous entries under Bandolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, London, Paris, and Views. Beaders who were interested in the account given in ' N. & Q.' of the members of Grillion's Club may like to know that they can obtain portraits of a number of members of that select company at 3s. each ; and the books entered under Stained Glass may be of service to those who are now discussing that subject in our pages.

MR. HENRY GRAY sends No. 1, Part 1, of his ' Catalogue of Privately Printed Books and Pamphlets,' extending from A. to Jenkins, and comprising " interesting and rare items in bio- graphy, family history, genealogy, law, medicine, poetry, theology, topography, travel, <fcc., in- cluding many presentation copies." This de- scription will give an idea of the wide field covered by the 1160 entries, and the price of the works included is very moderate, the majority being under 10s. A well-known Indian name of a former generation appears under entry 1156 as " Jejee Choy (Sir Jamsee jee of Bombay)." The Catalogue also contains a supplement of Armorial Book-plates, extending from Abbot to Dreyer.

MR. JAMES MITRES of Leeds devotes his Cata- logue 206 to ' Books Ancient and Modern.' Many of the prices here again are suitable to pockets of very moderate capacity, a considerable number ranging from Is. to 5s. More expensive works, however, are not lacking. Thus William Bawley's first edition of Bacon's ' History, Naturall and Experimentall,' printed by John Haviland for William Lee and Humphry Mosley, 1638, is 51. 5s. ; and the second edition of Cranmer's