NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
The Camden Society has just issued a volume of domestic letters, which contain much curious illustration of the stirring times to which they refer. The volume is entitled Letters of the Lady Brilliana Harley, wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton Bryan, Knight of the Bath, with Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. T. T. Lewis. The writer, Lady Brilliana, was a daughter of Sir Edward Conway, afterwards Baron Conway, and is supposed to have been born whilst her father was Lieut.-Governor of the "Brill." The earlier letters (1625-1633) are addressed to her husband, the remainder (1638-1643) to her son Edward, during his residence at Oxford. The appendix contains several documents of considerable historical interest.
Elements of Jurisprudence, by C. J. Foster, M.A., Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, London, is an able and well-written endeavour to settle the principles upon which law is to be founded. Believing that law is capable of scientific reduction, Professor Foster has in this little work attempted, and with great ability, to show the principles upon which he thinks it must be so reduced.
Mr. Croker has reprinted from The Times his correspondence with Lord John Russell on some passages of Moore's Diary. In the postscript which he has added, explanatory of Mr. Moore's acquaintance and correspondence with him, Mr. Croker convicts Moore, by passages from his own letters, of writing very fulsomely to Mr. Croker, at the same time that he was writing very sneeringly of him.
A three days' sale of very fine books, from the library of a collector, was concluded on Wednesday the 22nd ult. by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, at their house in Wellington Street. The following prices of some of the more rare and curious lots exhibit a high state of bibliographical prosperity, notwithstanding the gloomy aspect of these critical times:—Lot 23, Biographie Universelle, fine paper, 52 vols., 29l.; lot 82, Donne's Poems, a fine large copy, 7l. 10s.; lot 90, Drummond of Hawthornden's Poems, 6l.; lot 137, Book of Christian Prayers, known as Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, 10l.; lot 53, a fine copy of Coryat's Crudities, 10l. 15s.; lot 184, Breydenbach, Sanctarum Peregrinationum in Montem Syon, first edition, 15l. 15s.; lot 190, the Book of Fayttes of Armes and Chyvalry, by Caxton, with two leaves in fac-simile, 77l.; lot 192, Chaucer's Works, the edition of 1542, 10l. 5s.; lot 200, Dugdale's Warwickshire, 13l. 10s.; lot 293, a gorgeous Oriental Manuscript from the Palace of Tippoo Saib, enriched with 157 large paintings, full of subject, 112l.; lot 240, Horæ Virginis Mariæ, a charming Flemish Manuscript, with 12 exquisite illuminations of a high class, 100l.; lot 229, Milton's Minor Poems, first edition, 6l. 6s.; lot 315, Navarre Nouvelles, fine paper, 5l. 5s.; lot 326, Fenton's Certaine Tragicall Discourses, first edition, 11l.; lot 330, Gascoigne's Pleasauntest Workes, fine copy, 14l.; lot 344, Horæ Virginis Mariæ, beautifully printed upon vellum, by Kerver, 26l.; lot 347, Latimer's Sermons, Daye, 1571, 14l.; lot 364, Milton's Comus, first edition, 10l. 10s.; lot 365, Milton's Paradise Lost, first edition, 12l. 17s. 6d.; lot 376, The Shah Nameh, a fine Persian manuscript, 10l. 12s. 6d.; lot 379, Froissart Chroniques, first edition, 22l. 15s.; lot 381, a fine copy of Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, five vols., 69l.; lot 390, the original edition of Holinshed's Chronicles, 16l. 10s.; lot 401, Lancelot du Lac, Chevalier de la Table Ronde, Petit, 1533, 16l.; lot 406, the original edition of Laud's Book of Common Prayer, 12l. 15s.; lot 412, Meliadus de Leonnoys, a romance of the round table, 11l.; lot 417, a superb copy of Montfaucon's Works, with the La Monarchie Française, 50l.; lot 418, Works of Sir Thomas More, with the rare leaf, 14l. 5s.; lot 563, Shakspeare's Life of Sir John Oldcastle, 11l.; lot 564, A Midsomer Night's Dream (1600), 18l. 5s.; lot 611, Shakspeare's Comedies, fine copy of the second edition, 28l.; lot 599, the celebrated Letter of Cardinal Pole, printed on large paper, of which two copies only are known, 64l.; lot 601, Purchas, his Pilgrimes, five vols., a fine copy, with the rare frontispiece, 65l. 10s. The 634 lots produced 2,616l. 4s. 6d.
Books Received.—Dante translated into English Verse, by J. C. Wright, M.A., with Thirty-four Engravings on Steel, after Flaxman. This new volume of Bohn's Illustrated Library is one of those marvels of cheapness with which Mr. Bohn ever and anon surprises us.—Curiosities of Bristol and its Neighborhood, Nos. I.-V., is a sort of local "N. & Q," calculated to interest not Bristolians only.—Poetical Works of John Dryden, edited by Robert Bell, Vol. II., forms the new volume of the Annotated Edition of the English Poets.—The Carafas of Maddaloni: Naples under Spanish Dominion, the new volume of Bohn's Standard Library, is a translation from a German work of considerable research by Alfred Reumont.