NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
Admiration of the works of Holbein in Germany, as in this country, seems to increase with increasing years. We have received from Messrs. Williams and Norgate a copy of a new edition of his Bible Cuts lately published at Leipsic, under the title Hans Holbein's Altes Testament in funfzig Holzschnitten getreu nach den Originalen copirt. Herausgegeben von Hugo Burkner, mit einer Einleitung von D.F. Sotymann, to which we direct the attention of our readers, no less on account of the beauty and fidelity with which these admirable specimens of Holbein's genius have been copied, than of the interesting account of them prefixed by their new editor.
We beg to call the attention of such of our antiquaries as are interested in the history of the Orkneys to a valuable contribution to our knowledge of them, lately published by our accomplished friend, Professor Munch, of the Christiana, under the title of Symbolæ ad Historiam Antiquiorem Rerum Norwegicarum, which contains, I. A short Chronicle of Norway; II. Genealogy of the Earls of Orkney; III. Catalogue of the Kings of Norway—from a MS., for the most part hitherto inedited, and which appears to have been written in Orkney about the middle of the fifteenth century.
While on the subject of foreign works of interest to English readers, we may mention two or three others which we have been for some time intending to bring under the notice of those who know how much light may be thrown upon our early language and literature by a study of the contemporary literature of the Low Countries. The first is, Denkmaeler Niederdeutscher Sprache und Literatur von Dr. Albert Hoefer, Erstes Banchen, which contains the highly curious Low German Whitson play called Claws Bur. The next is a larger, more elaborately edited, and from its introduction and extensive notes and various illustrations, a yet more interesting work to English philologists. It is entitled Leven van Sinte Christina de Wonderbare, an old Dutch poem, now first edited from a MS. of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, by Professor Bormans.
We have received the following Catalogues:—Thomas Kerslake's (3. Park Street, Bristol) Books, including valuable late Purchases; John Wheldon's
(4. Paternoster Row) Catalogue of valuable Collection of Scentific Books; W.H. McKeay's (11. Vinegar Yard, Covent Garden) Catalogue of a Portion of Stock.