NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
On the publication of the first volume of Mr. Peter Cunningham's edition of The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, we did not hesitate to pronounce it "the best, handsomest, and cheapest edition of Goldsmith which has ever issued from the press." The work is now completed by the publication of the fourth volume, which contains Goldsmith's Biographies; Reviews; Animated Nature; Cock Lane Ghost; Vida's Game of Chess (now first printed as it has been found transcribed in Goldsmith's handwriting from the original MS. in the possession of Mr. Bolton Corney), and his Letters. And after a careful revision of the book, we do not hesitate to repeat our original opinion. It is a book which every lover of Goldsmith will delight to place upon his shelves.
We have to congratulate Mr. Darling, and also all who are interested in any way in theological literature, on the completion of that portion of his Cyclopædia Bibliographica which gives us, under the names of the authors, an account, not only of the best works extant in various branches of literature, but more particularly on those important divisions, biblical criticism, commentaries, sermons, dissertations, and other illustrations of the Holy Scriptures; the constitution, government, and liturgies of the Christian Church; ecclesiastical history and biography; the works of the Fathers, and all the most eminent Divines. We sincerely trust that a work so obviously useful, and which has been so carefully compiled, will meet with such encouragement as will justify Mr. Darling in very speedily going to press with the second and not less important division—that in which, by an alphabetical arrangement of subjects, a ready reference may be made to books, treatises, sermons, and dissertations on nearly all heads of divinity, theological controversy, or ecclesiastical inquiry. The utility of such an Index is too obvious to require one word of argument in its favour.
The subject of the non-purchase of the Faussett Collection by the Trustees of the British Museum was brought before Parliament by Mr. Ewart on Thursday, 1st June, when copies were ordered to be laid before the House of Commons "of all reports, memorials, or other communications to or from the Trustees of the British Museum on the subject of the Faussett Collection of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities."
Books Received.—Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, Vol. VI. This volume is entirely occupied with the biography of Mary Beatrice of Modena, the Queen of James II., in which Miss Strickland has availed herself of a large mass of inedited materials.—Selections from the Writings of the Rev. Sydney Smith, forming Nos. 61. and 62. of Longman's Traveller's Library, and containing his admirable Essays on Education, the Ballot, American Debts, Wit and Humour, the Conduct of the Understanding, and Taste.—Critical and Historical Essays, &c., by the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, People's Edition, Part III., includes his Essays on Lord Mahon's War of Succession, Walpole's Letters, Lord Chatham, Mackintosh's History of the Revolution, and Lord Bacon.—Annotated Edition of the English Poets, edited by Robert Bell. This month's issue consists of the second volume of the Poetical Works of William Cowper.