Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/48

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NOTES* AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. JAN. n, 1902.

is " Being a record of the prices obtained a auctions for pictures and prints sold from January 1901, to the end of the season." Holding to th view that all collecting is good, even if some collect ing is better than others, we greet the new volume and wish it a career as distinguished as its prede cessor. This we dare not, however, presage. A collector for over half a century of books, we hav found that luxury sufficiently costly to dispens with the pursuit of all others ; and while we cai meet Mr. Slater as editor of ' Book-Prices Current on his own ground, we are mum when he come before us as editor of 'Art Sales,' having, indeed everything to learn. This much we may say: hi goodly volume contains some 550 pages, consider ably over 100 of which are occupied with an admirably full index with cross - references galore The sale is chronicled of 3,118 items, the prices o which range from a couple of pounds or less to a good many hundreds and thousands. A glanc through the volume, which we do not profess ti have closely studied, shows us that the topmos price paid fora Hobbema was 9,870/., a second work from whose brush brought 2,362/. ICk It is to b hoped that the soul of the artist received in th shades some hint of his modern reputation, sinc< he and his wife died in want. The biggest prices we detect for English pictures are 14,752/. for a Hoppner and 5,800/. for a Ronmey ; Millais's 'No brought 1,471/. ; Turner's ' Buckfastleigh Abbey, 840/. ; a Reynolds went for 1,701/. ; portraits by Gainsborough were sold for 1,869/. and 2,237!. A Mabuse brought 2,520^ ; a Rubens, 3,360Z. ; a Velas- quez, 997/.; a Van der Heist, 1,995/.; a Murillo, 2,7301., and so forth. We are attempting to draw no inferences from these prices, but are simply extracting a few plums from Mr. Slater's book. Not less remarkable are the prices paid for engrav- ings, especially those of J. R. Smith after Reynolds. Of great value are the notes supplied by Mr. Slater with regard to the sales and the individual pic- tures. Some useful information is interpolated as to the prices realized by a few French sales. The book is handsomely and even luxuriously got up, and is a credit to the publishers. It is to be hoped that it will establish itself in public favour and become a " hardy annual." That it will rank with 'Book-Prices Current' we hesitate, as has been said, to believe. We shall be glad, however, to see our vaticinations falsified, and the book is, at least, likely to take its place on shelves of reference and to prove equally useful to the amateur and the dealer.

IN the Nineteenth Century, through the medium ot which it first reached a general public, the cypher "fad" of Mrs. Gallup receives what will probably prove to be its quietus. Two articles on the subject approach it from different sides. Mr. M. Candler shows how unsatisfactory are the his- toric assumptions and how far astray Mrs. Gallup goes in her philology. Mr. R. B. Marston, expand- ng his letter to the Times, proves that if the bi-literal cypher is trustworthy and acceptable Pope s Homer ' is to be added to the works written by Bacon Will no American investigator add to the list of Bacon's productions the letters of Junius and the quatrains of Omar Khayyam ? Mr. Herbert

Y W" 8 \ Dld Titian live to be Ninety-nine rears Old? and answers his own question in the negative. Mr. Cook leans to the view that Titian was born about 1489 and died about 1576-7 at the

age of eighty-seven. The Hon. Hollo Russell holds cheery views as to the ultimate extinction of London fogs. We can but hope that he is not too sanguine. Col. Pedder asks ' Where are the Village Gentry ? ' and shows some of the evils that attend the process of centralization ever proceeding. Mr. Fuller Mait- land has an interesting and valuable paper on ' Music versus the Opera.' Lady Priestley writes on ' Sir James Paget and Louis Pasteur,' and Lady Hely-Hutchinson on 'Female Emigration to South Africa.' It is saddening to hear that three out of the four classes of women available consist of " Lady Helps. Pretentious, delicate, incapable ; Girls. Flighty, self-assertive, purposeless, ignorant, lazy, and inefficient; Kaffirs. With the under- standing and demeanour of children and the vices of men/' In Scribner's appears the first of three papers by Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip on ' The Ame- rican " Commercial Invasion" of Europe.' In this M. de Witte, the Russian Minister of Finance, is made to speak with compromising frankness. No preacher of pleasant things is he. "France hates England, and England hates France ; Germany detests France, and France detests Germany ; Russia hates Germany, and Germany hates Russia." There are illustrations showing American "binders" in the Steppes and the Highlands, electric lines by the Pyramids, cars in Cairo, coalhauling machines in Germany, bridges in Russia, pumps in Bombay, and so forth. 'Sub Umbra Liliorutn' is the title of some impressions concerning Parma. Mr. H. Cabot Lodge writes on ' The Treaty-making Powers of the Senate,' and Mr. Macgowan on 'Military Parades and Parade Training.'

We must call special attention to the following lotices :

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- "ication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.

To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let 3ach note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, \vith the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ng queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to 3ut in parentheses, immediately after the exact leading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication "Duplicate."

F. M. ("Bogus Degrees"). A few universities till supply these.

H. J. MEIGS ("Taxation in Glasgow "). Your riends are wags.

CORRIGENDUM. 9 th S. viii. 509, col. 2, 1. 20 from oot, for "1845 "read 1825.

NOTICE.

Editorial communications should be addressed to

The Editor of ' Notes and Queries'" Advertise- ments and Business Letters to " The Publisher" t the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.

We beg leave to state that we decline to return ommunications which, for any reason, we do not rint ; and to this rule we can make no exception.