NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
The anniversary of the Camden Society on Monday last, when Mr. Peter Cunningham, Sir F. Madden, and Sir C. Young were elected on the Council, was distinguished by two departures from the usual routine: one, a special vote of thanks to Sir Harry Verney for placing his family papers at the service of the Society; and the other, a general expression of satisfaction on the part of the members at the steps taken by the Council to bring under the consideration of the Commission appointed to inquire into the laws regarding matters testamentary, the great impediments thrown in the way of all historical and literary inquirers by the authorities in the Prerogative Office.
It does not require the skill of an Œdipus to divine that in giving us so graphic a picture of The Vicar and his Duties, the Rev. A. Gatty has had the advantage of sketching from the life, and that his portraiture of
"A good man of religioun
That as a poore Persone of a toun;
But riche he was of holy thought and werke."
is as much a true effigy, though taken with pen and ink, as if he had put that capital parish priest, the Vicar of Leeds, before his camera. To the many friends of Dr. Hook, this little volume will be deeply interesting.
Books Received.—Pulleyn's Etymological Compendium, or Portfolio of Origins and Inventions. Third Edition, revised and improved, by Merton A. Thoms. This new edition of a very popular and useful little book has had the advantage of a thorough revision, and contains much new and interesting information.—Longman's Traveller's Library has lately been enriched by two of Mr. Macaulay's brilliant essays, viz. on Lord Byron and The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, and by a carefully compiled life of Marshal Turenne by the Rev. T. O. Cockayne: while Mr. Murray has added to his valuable collection of Railway Readings, a reprint of The Life of Lord Bacon, by his noble biographer Lord Campbell.—Reynard the Fox, after the German Version of Göthe, with Illustrations by J. Wolf. Part V. This translation is kept up with spirit, and the present number carries us to The Pardon of the wily transgressor.—Mr. Bohn has put forth numerous fresh claims on the favour of poor scholars: in his Standard Library he has given a third volume of Miss Bremer's Works, containing Home and Strife and Peace; in his Classical Library he continues the translation of Aristotle in The Politics and Economics, translated by G. Walford, M.A.; in his Antiquarian Library, he has continued in his series of translations of Early English Chronicles by giving us in one volume a translation of Henry of Huntingdon, and also of the Gesta Stephani; while he will have done good service to naturalists and keepers of aviaries and cage birds by the edition of Bechstein's Cage and Chamber Birds and Sweet's Warblers, which he has included in the same volume of his Illustrated Library.