NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
Messrs. Longman have just published, in two thick and closely printed volumes, A New Gazetteer or Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands and Narrow Seas, &c., by James A. Sharp. When we tell our readers that in these two volumes are recorded the name, position, history, &c. of every city, town, village, hamlet, &c. which appears in the censuses of 1821, 1831, 1841; or in the works of Carlisle, Pott, Gorton, Lewis, Fullarton, Chambers, Hall, and other general writers; and, indeed, that among the sixty thousand articles of which these volumes consist, will be found particulars not only of all the natural objects of the country—as rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, passes, waterfalls, bays, ports, headlands, islands, shoals—but also of every locality or object of historical interest or antiquarian character: as Roman stations and camps, Roman and British ways, Saxon towns, Druid stones, cromlechs, round towers, Danish Raths, Picts' houses, castles, abbeys, &c., not to mention railway, police, and coast-guard stations, hunting "fixtures," &c., they will at once perceive what a vast amount of useful, indeed of most valuable, information, the persevering industry of Mr. Sharp has enabled him to bring together. That a work consisting of so large a mass of facts and figures should contain some errors, is more than probable; but having tested it by referring to localities with which we are personally acquainted, we are enabled to say that it has stood that test in a manner to make us feel assured that it is a book to be fully relied upon, and one, therefore, which we have no doubt will eventually take its place in every well-appointed library.
Books Received.—Tangible Typography, or How the Blind Read, by E. C. Johnson, is a little volume detailing various modes of printing books for the blind, and well calculated to awaken an interest in the benevolent objects of The Society for Printing and Distributing Books for the Use of the Blind.—The Ghost of Junius, &c., by Francis Ayerst. This endeavour to identity Junius with Lieut.-General Sir Robert Rich, on the strength of a letter written by that officer to Viscount Barrington, years after the celebrated Letters of Junius had appeared, is the largest theory based on the smallest fact with which we are acquainted.—Mr. Bohn has just issued in his Standard Library the fourth volume of his edition of The Prose Works of John Milton; containing the First Book of A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scripture alone, translated from the Original by the Lord Bishop of Winchester. The present edition has had the advantage of a thorough revision.—Mr. Bohn has also enriched his Scientific Library by the publication of The Physical and Metaphysical Works of Lord Bacon, including his Dignity and Advancement of Learning, and his Novum Organon, or Precepts for the Interpretation of Nature, edited by Joseph Devey, who has availed himself of the best translations, and enriched the Novum Organon with the remarks of the two Playfairs, Sir John Herschel, and the German and French editors.—Matthew Paris' English History, from the Year 1235 to 1273; translated from the Latin by Dr. Giles, Volume the Second, is the new issue of Bohn's Antiquarian Library; while, in his Classical Library, he has published a volume which will be, we doubt not, welcome to many: The Idylls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, and the War Songs of Tyrtæus, literally translated into English Prose, by Rev. J. Banks; with Metrical Versions, by J. M. Chapman.—The Churchman's Magazine, a Monthly Review of Church Progress and General Literature. Judging from the January and February Numbers which are now before us, we can have no doubt that this Magazine for Churchmen will please those to whom it is addressed.