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MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC

Mr. Disraeli's work, entitled Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First, has been pronounced by one of the great critical authorities of our own days, "the most important work" on the subject that modern times have produced. Those who differ from Mr. Disraeli's view of the character of the king and the part he played in the great drama of his age may, in some degree, dissent from this eulogy. None will, however, deny that the work, looking to its anecdotical character, and the great use made in it of sources of information hitherto unemployed, is one of the most amusing as well as interesting histories of that eventful period. While those who share with the editor, Mr. B. Disraeli, and many reflecting men, the opinion that in the great questions which are now agitating the public mind, history is only repeating itself; and that the "chapters on the Genius of the Papacy; on the Critical Position of our earlier Protestant Sovereigns with regard to their Roman Catholic Subjects, from the consequences of the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; on the Study of Polemical Divinity prevalent at the commencement of the Seventeenth Century, and kindred themes, are, in fact, the history of the events, the thoughts, the passions, and the perplexities of the present agitated epoch," will agree that the republication of the work at this moment is at once opportune and acceptable.

We have received a copy of Dr. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: a Collection of Old Ballad Tunes, chiefly from rare MSS. and Early printed Books, deciphered from the obsolete Notation, and harmonized and arranged according to Modern Usage. If any thing could add to the extensive popularity which Percy's work has continued to enjoy ever since its first appearance, (for have we not Washbourne's handsome reprint of it, published within this year or two?) it must be the quaint and racy melodies, the "old antique strains," to which these fine old ballads were anciently sung. Dr. Rimbault, who combines great musical acquirements with a rich store of antiquarian knowledge, in giving us these, has produced a work as carefully executed as it is original in its character; one which can only be exceeded in interest by the Musical Illustrations of Shakspeare's Plays, which we are glad to see promised from the same competent authority.

We are at length enabled to announce that The Treatise on Equivocation, so often referred to in our columns, is about to be published under the editorship of Mr. Jardine, whose attention has long been directed to it from its connexion with the Gunpowder Conspiracy; and whose intimate acquaintance with that subject, as shown in his Criminal Trials, is a sufficient pledge for his ability to do justice to this curious and important historical document.

We regret to learn, from the Catalogue of the Museum of Mediæval Art, collected by the late Mr. Cottingham, which has been very carefully drawn up, with a preface by Mr. Shaw, that, if the Family are disappointed in disposing of the Museum to the Government, or by private contract, it will be submitted to Public Sale in April next, and a Collection of the most ample and varied examples of Mediæval Architecture ever brought together, which has been formed at a vast outlay both of labour and cost, will be dispersed, and be thereby rendered inaccessible and valueless to the architectural student.

The Rev. W.H. Kelke has published some Notices of Sepulchral Monuments in English Churches, a work which is not intended for professed antiquaries, but for that large class of persons who, although they have some taste for the subject of which it treats, have neither time nor inclination to enter deeply into it, and as will, we have no doubt, be very acceptable to those to whom it is immediately addressed.

We regret to announce the death of one of our earliest and most valued contributors, Professor T.S. Davies of Woolwich. "Probably few men in England," says the Athenæum, "were better versed in the methods of the old geometers, or possessed a more critical appreciation of their relative merits." His death is a great loss to geometrical science, as well as to a large circle of friends.

We have received the following Catalogues:—Stacey and Co. (19. Southampton Street, Strand) Catalogue of Books chiefly relating to History, Commerce, and Legislation; G. Bumstead's (205. High Holborn) Catalogue of Interesting and Rare Books on the Occult Sciences, America, Asia, &c.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS

To meet the wishes of many friends, and to avoid the inconvenience arising from the diversity of prices in our Monthly Parts, we propose in future to publish a fifth, or Supplementary Number, every Month in which there are only four Saturdays. By this arrangement our Monthly Parts will be of the uniform price of One shilling and Three pence, with the exception of those for January and July, which will include the Index of the preceding half-year at the price of One shilling and Ninepence each. Thus the yearly subscription to NOTES AND QUERIES, either in unstamped Weekly Numbers or Monthly Parts, will be SIXTEEN SHILLINGS. The subscription for the Stamped Edition, with which Gentlemen may be supplied regularly by giving their Orders direct to the Publisher, MR. GEORGE BELL, 186. Fleet Street (accompanied by a Post Office Order), is One pound and Fourpence for a twelve-month, or Ten shillings and Two pence for six months.

REPLIED RECEIVED.—It has been suggested to us that we should here acknowledge all communications received by us. We would willingly do so, but that, from their number, such acknowledgment would necessarily occupy far more space than our readers would like to see so employed. But we propose in future to notice all replies that have reached us; by which means those who have replied will be aware that their communications have come to hand, and those who are about to reply will be enabled to judge whether or not they have been anticipated. The following have reached us between the publication of our Number on Saturday last and Wednesday. Our future Lists will comprise those received in the week ending on the Wednesday previous to publication.

Lynch Law—Curse of Scotland—Butcher Willie—Midwives—Steam Navigation—Frozen Horn—Collar of SS.—Holland Land—Umbrellas—Passage in Tennyson—Sword of the Conqueror—Couplet in Defoe—Thruscross—Earth has no rage—Private Memoirs of Elizabeth—By-the-bye—Swearing by Swans—Sir Cloudesley Shovel—Chapel—Difformis—Grasson—Savez—Land Holland—Peter Wilkins—Passage in St. Mark—Cockade and True Blue—Mocker—Mythology of the Stars—Cauking—Ten Children at a Birth—Swans.

W.H.B. will find, on referring to Chappell's National English Airs, that the words of RULE BRITANNIA were written by Thomson (in the Masque of Alfred), and the music composed by Dr. Arne.

TAPETIA.—Miss Linwood's Salvator Mundi, after Carlo Dolce, is, we believe, in one of her Majesty's private apartments at Windsor Castle. We do not insert TAPETIA'S letter, because we by no means agree with the writer in his views of the property of the Crown. The Queen behaved most kindly and liberally on the occasion of the late Exhibition of Mediæval Art: but that is a very different thing from calling for a transfer of the Holbein or Da Vinci drawings to some public museum.

R.W.E. will find the custom of "Going a Gooding," which appears to prevail on St. Thomas's Day in many parts of the country, described in Brand's Popular Antiquities (ed. Ellis).

S.G. (C.C.C.C.) is thanked for his friendly Note. Had we been aware of the facts with which he has now furnished us, of course, the communication to which he refers would not have been inserted in its present shape.

VOLUME THE SECOND OF NOTES AND QUERIES.—We this day issue the INDEX to our Second Volume. Copies of which Volume, strongly bound in cloth, may now be had price 9s. 6d.

We hope next week, by the publication of a Double Number, under our new arrangement, to clear off a large accumulation of correspondence.

NOTES AND QUERIES may be procured, by order, of all Booksellers and newsvenders. It is published at noon on Friday, so that our country Subscribers ought not to experience any difficulty in procuring it regularly. Many of the country Booksellers, &c., are probably, not yet aware of this arrangement, which will enable them to receive NOTES AND QUERIES in their Saturday parcels.

All communications for the Editor of NOTES AND QUERIES should be addressed to the care of MR. BELL, No. 186. Fleet Street.

MUSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS of PERCY'S RELIQUES of ANCIENT POETRY. A Collection of Old Ballad Tunes, &c., chiefly from rare Manuscript and early printed Books, with some Account of the Ballads. By EDWARD F. RIMBAULT, LL.D. In cloth, 12s.

London: CRAMER AND CO., 201. Regent Street.

TO BOOKBUYERS.

This day is published, PART I., for January, of C. SKEET'S MONTHLY CATALOGUE of NEW and SECOND-HAND BOOKS, marked at unusually low prices, for Cash. To be had gratis, and post free, upon application at 21. King William Street, Charing Cross.

Pocket Editions, neatly and uniformly printed, royal 32mo.

GEORGE HERBERT.—The Temple, Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations. Very neatly printed, 32mo., cloth, 2s. 6d.; morocco, 5s.; morocco extra, by HAYDAY, at various prices.

A PRIEST TO THE TEMPLE; or, THE COUNTRY PARSON, his Character and Rule of Holy Life. Cloth 2s.; morocco, 4s. 6d.

JOHN SELDEN.—TABLE TALK, being the Discourses of JOHN SELDEN, or is Sense of various Matters of Weight and High Consequence, relating especially to Religion and the State. Royal 32mo. cloth, 2s.; morocco. 4s. 6d.; morocco extra, by Hayday, at various prices.

GEORGE BELL, 186. Fleet Street.

Committee for the Repair of the

TOMB OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

JOHN BRUCE, Esq., Treas. S.A.
J. PAYNE COLLIER, Esq., V.P.S.A.
PETER CUNNINGHAM, Esq., F.S.A.
THOMAS W. KING, Esq., F.S.A
SIR FREDERICK MADDEN, K.H.
JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS, Esq., F.S.A.
HENRY SHAW, Esq., F.S.A.
SAMUEL SHEPHERD, Esq., F.S.A.
WILLIAM J. THOMS, Esq., F.S.A.

The Tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey is fast mouldering into irretrievable decay. A sum of One Hundred Pounds will effect a perfect repair. The Committee have not thought it right to fix any limit to the subscription; they themselves, have opened the list with a contribution from each of them of Five Shillings; but they will be ready to receive any amount, more or less, which those who value poetry and honour Chaucer may be kind enough to remit to them.

Subscriptions have been received from the Earls of Carlisle, Ellesmere, and Shaftesbury, Viscounts Strangford and Mahon, Pres. Soc. Antiq., The Lords Braybrooke and Londesborough, and many other noblemen and gentlemen.

Subscriptions are received by all the members of the Committee, and at the Union Bank, Pall Mall East. Post-office orders may be made payable at the Charing Cross Office, to William Richard Drake, Esq., the Treasurer, 46. Parliament Street, or William J. Thomas, Esq., Hon Sec., 25. Holy-Well Street, Millbank.

THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for DECEMBER contains the following articles:—1. An Evening with Voltaire, by Mr. R.N. Neville; 2. The New Cratylus; 3. Old Ballads from the Bright Collection; 4. The Abbé de Saint-Pierre; 5 Norman Crosses (with Engravings); 6. Duchess of Queensberry and Gay; 7. Dryden and Flecknoe; 8. Legends of the Monastic Orders; 9. T. Lodge and his Works; 10. Birth of the Old Pretender; 11. History of Winchelsea (with Engravings); 12. Autobiography of Mr. Britton; 13. The recent Papal Bull historically considered: with Notes of the Month. Review of New Publications, Literary and Antiquarian Intelligence, Historical Chronicle, and OBITUARY, including Memoirs of Lord Rancliffe, Lord Stanley of Alderley, Lord Leigh, Chief Justice Doherty, Rev. Dr. Thackeray, John Jardine, Esq., Thomas Hodgson, Esq., F.S.A., Newcastle, &c., &c. Price 2s. 6d.

"The Gentleman's Magazine has been revived with a degree of spirit and talent which promises the best assurance of its former popularity."—Taunton Courier.

"The additional talent which the new year has brought to its assistance, will give an impetus advantageous to the circulation of The Gentleman's, and, high as it previously stood, will advance it still more in the estimation of those who are enabled to appreciate its worth."—Poole Herald.

The Magazine for January, 1851, will contain a portrait of the late Thomas Amyot, Esq., Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries.

NICHOLS AND SON, 25. Parliament Street.

Price 1d., by Post 2d., or 5s. per Hundred for Distribution.

WESTMINSTER AND DR. WISEMAN; or, FACTS v. FICTION. By WILLIAM PAGE WOOD, Esq., M.P., Q.C. Reprinted from The Times, with an Advertisement on the subject of the WESTMINSTER SPIRITUAL AID FUND, and especially on the Duty and Justice of applying the Revenues of the suspended Stalls of the Abbey for the adequate Endowment of the District Churches in the immediate neighbourhood.

Second Edition, with an Appendix.

London: GEORGE BELL, 186. Fleet Street; MESSRS. RIVINGTONS, St. Paul's Church-yard, and Waterloo Place; and THOMAS HATCHARD, 187. Piccadilly; and by Order of all Booksellers.

MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF NEW BOOKS.

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW, No. CLXXV. 8vo. 6s.