Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/69

 12 S. IV. FEB., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

63

0n IBooks.

A Bookman's Budget. Composed and compiled

by Austin Dobson. (Oxford University Press,

3s. 6d. net.)

MR. DOBSON has filled in a period when his -ordinary activities were suspended with the making of this little book, which is one that particularly appeals to ' N. & Q.' In bygone days, when the love of books and literature claimed more time, perhaps, than it does now, Mr. Dobson used to write reviews in our own columns, and we notice among the charming little poems wherewith he varies his prose ex- tracts ' A Rondeau (on " Notes and Queries ") ' : In ' N. & Q.' we meet to weigh The Hannibals of yesterday ;

We trace, thro' all its moss o'ergrown, The script upon Time's oldest stone, Nor scorn his latest waif and stray. In such poems Mr. Dobson has long been a master, and here he has reminiscences of two other deft practitioners who have also given their peculiar grace to occasional verse Andrew Lang and Locker-Lampson. A ripe mind steeped in book-lore is, we think, at its happiest when it can reveal thus its sense of literature and life. The neatness of Horace with his wise, if easy criticism, is one of Mr. Dobson's rare gifts. Not that we despise his prose, and that intellectual curiosity which leads to the collection of waifs and strays, epigrams, and those little hints of one man or another which show character. We have seen some sneers at such oddities, but there is more in them than the sour-complexioned or self-centred are ready to allow. I will bury myself in my books, and the Devil

may pipe to his own,

said the gloomy hero in the first edition of 4 Maud.' We need not go so far as that, but we are sure that literature is a true and delightful means of recreation, and all readers of Mr. Dobson's ' Budget ' will be sent happily on many quests in books they have read, and books that they always meant to read, only requiring some such genial impulse as we find in many of his pages.

The illustrations, which are quaint and choice, remind us that this is one of Mr. Dobson's special provinces. He gives us some neat appreciations of artists like Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, to say nothing of earlier masters. Always he is kindly, though critical. " Greenaway-land " he praises as is meet, but neither he nor Ruskin, if we remember right, thinks of the retarding length of the children's frocks. Surely they should go short-skirted at that age.

On poetic diction and style there are many wise words collected here. The favourite books of some eminent men are recorded for our ad- miration and sometimes our surprise ; the joys and occasional shocks of the book-hunter are revealed to us, and the " Rondeaus of the War " remind us that the scholar-poet is not lost in his books. He finds the French saying which in- spired Mr. Winston Churchill's " Pessimism in the civilian is the counterpart of cowardice in the soldier." On many a page, indeed, he presents Us with the neat wisdom of our Allies. We wish that Mr. Dobson's friend and ours, the late Col.

Prideaux, was still with us to comment on this and that, raise new points, and quote new paral- lels. We will only add one ourselves. Mr. Dobson quotes Montaigne's answer to the man who says, " I have done nothing to-day." " Quoi ! avez-vous pas v6cu ? c'est non seulement la fondamentale, mais la plus illustre de vos occupa- tions." He adds a parallel from Horace, and we add this from Morley's ' Gladstone ' : "To me, says Crassus in Cicero, the man hardly seems to be free who does not sometimes do nothing." This is no plea for idleness, but one for a cessation which improves the quality of work. The reck- less, unceasing hurry of to-day spoils good art and good work. We should be glad to see more examples of leisure so well occupied as in collecting this ' Bookman's Budget.'

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES.

ME. HENRY DAVEY'S Catalogue 58 contains over 1,200 entries, many priced under ten shillings, and few exceeding a sovereign. Lists of topographical works will be found under such headings as Essex, Kent, London, Suffolk. Sussex, Scotland, and Wales ; literature under Cruikshank, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Swift ; while Architecture, Art, Court Memoirs, Folk- Lore, Freemasonry, Military, Naval, Sporting, Stage, and Weather indicate the nature of the works grouped under them. A copy of Wright's ' Court Hand Restored,' 1776, recommended recently in ' N. & Q.' by a contributor, is priced 8s. Qd.

MESSBS. HEFFER & SONS of Cambridge include nearly 2,000 entries in their ' General Catalogue of Second-hand Books,' No. 172. Many of the sections will have special interest for readers of

' N. & Q.,' such as First Editions of Modern Authors (including examples of Thomas Hardy, Meredith, and William Morris, and autograph critical letters of James Elroy Flecker and a collection of letters relating to Sir Hugh Lane's pictures) ; Bibliography (including Ames, Dibdin, Hain, Halkett and Laing, and Lowndes) ; Ballads (with a complete set of the publications of the Ballad Society, and another of the Percy Society); Drama (Dyce's ' Beaumont and Fletcher ' and

' Webster,' Hazlitt's ' Dodsley,' Fleay's ' Chronicle History,' &c.) ; and Shakespeare and Shake- speareana (complete set of the Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles, 43 vols., 17 vols. of the Old Spelling Shakespeare, and a complete set of the New Shakspere Society). Other sections relate to Bindings, Folk-Lore and Mythology, French Books, and Illustrated Books, with subdivisions into Black and White, Coloured Plates, and Costume. These titles will indicate the variety and interest of the contents.

MESSRS. T. & M. KENNARD of Leamington Spa give the first place in their ' Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Books,' New Series, 1, to a set of ' Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence,' 1825, 6 vols., polished calf, Wl. Ws. The first edition of Sorrow's ' Zincali,' 2 vols., original cloth, is SI. 8s. ; and Fox-Davies's ' Art of Heraldry,' 1904, folio, with many full-page coloured illustrations, f>l. 5s. The 1751 edition of Bailey's ' Etymological Dictionary,' old calf, is offered for 2s. 6d. ; and Johnson's ' Dictionary,' 1787, folio, old calf, for