NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
Honour to the University of Oxford, Honour to the Rev. Josiah Forshall, and though last not least, Honour to the learned Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, Sir Frederick Madden, for giving us The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal Books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate, by John Wycliffe and his followers. Never did the University Press put forth a more valuable or more important work than these four handsome quartos, (published, too, at the marvellously small price of five guineas), in which are now printed, for the first time, in an entire form, those Versions which may be regarded as the earliest in the English language which embrace any considerable proportion of the Holy Scriptures. By this publication, Oxford has done her part towards wiping away the disgrace which has so long attached to this country—which boasts, and justly and proudly boasts, of being the country of Bibles—for its long-continued neglect of these early versions of the vernacular Scriptures. How great was the influence which they exercised upon the religious opinions and sentiments of the nation at large in the interval between the years 1382 and 1526, how great an amount of scriptural truth they diffused, how effectually they supplied the opponents of the Papal system with the means of exposing its abuses and errors, and how they thereby laid a deep foundation for the reform of the sixteenth century, may be clearly seen by a perusal of the Preface to this great work; on which the learned editors have employed their learning and industry for two and twenty years, to their own high credit, and to the vindication of English scholarship. But our limited space will not admit of our detailing all the claims which this editio princeps of the Wycliffite Scriptures has upon the attention of our readers, or of pointing out all the great services which its editors have rendered to the literary, no less than to the religious world. When we state briefly that in the work before us we have the two versions, the earlier and later versions, printed side by side; that these are accompanied by various readings gathered from the collection of upwards of one hundred different manuscripts; introduced by a preface full of new and most interesting particulars of this first attempt to give to this country the Scriptures in a tongue "understanded of the people;" and the whole rendered complete by an extensive and most valuable glossary, we feel persuaded our readers will agree with us in giving honour to all who have had hand or heart in the production of these deeply interesting volumes.
We have received the following Catalogues:—C.J. Stewart's (11. King William Street, Strand) Catalogue of Doctrinal, Controversial, Practical, and Devotional Divinity; a well-timed catalogue containing some extraordinary Collections, as of Roman and Spanish Indexes of Books prohibited and expurgated, and of Official and Documentary Works on the Inquisition; B.R. Wheatley's (44. Bedford Street, Strand) Catalogue of Scarce and Interesting Books for 1851; Joel Rowsell's (28. Great Queen Street) Catalogue No. XL. of a Select Collection of Second-hand Books; John Miller's (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue No. 15. for 1850 of Books Old and New.