GENERAL NOTES

Messrs. Dobell's catalogue for March, 1920, contains mention of a very curious and beautiful book of designs made exclusively of feathers. There are about one hundred and fifty of these designs, which were made, according to the inscription on the title-page, by "Dionisio Minaggio Giardinero Di s^a e^a Guobernator Del Stat di Milano. Inventor et Feccit Lano Del 1618." His Excellency the Governor of the State of Milan was fortunate in possessing so talented a gardener. Dionisio Minaggio was, in his way, a remarkable artist. His feather pictures, which include a beautiful series of birds portrayed in their own plumage, a series of hunting scenes, illustrations of musical instruments, and a number of charming figures from the Old Comedy, are often quite enchanting. The designs are reminiscent of the best sampler work, while the feathers give a richness, variety, and unexpectedness of colouring such as no sampler has ever possessed. Feather work of a much later period is not uncommon; but we should imagine that so large a series of such an early date is something quite unique. The book is priced at £200.

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The catalogue of the library of Mr. Walter Thomas Wallace, which is to be sold in the last days of March by the American Art Association, in New York, has just reached us. Mr. Wallace's astonishingly rich collection includes copies of the four Folios of Shakespeare and of several of the Quartos. Among the Elizabethan rarities are The Palace of Pleasure, Sidney's Arcadia, The Faerie Queene, and other poems of Spenser. Among the eighteenth-century treasures is to be found one of the two known copies of Goldsmith's Threnodia Augustalis. Keats and Shelley are well represented. There is a very complete collection of Tennyson first editions and an almost unique series of Lamb books, including a copy in the original binding of the almost extinct first edition of Poems for Children (1809). There are also remarkably complete sets of first editions of such American authors as Poe, Bryant, Longfellow. We anticipate some new records in the way of prices.

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As we go to press the first reports of the beginning of the Buxton Forman sale at the Anderson Galleries, New York, reach us. They emphasize the present flourishing condition of what the late owner of the books in question once, in an unguarded moment, called "The Keats and Shelley" business. Two copies of books by Keats, which belonged to Fanny Braune (afterwards Mrs. Lindon), were included in the first day's sale. The Poems (1817), inscribed with her name, "Frances Lindon," and presumed to be a presentation copy from the poet, and a first edition of Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, etc. (1820), inscribed on the title-page "to F. B. from J. K." These two books fetched $1750 and $4000, and, at the normal rate of exchange, £350 and £800 respectively. Even a series of eighteen letters from George Keats sold for $1800. Apparently it is better to be a poet's brother than oneself a poet, for an eight-page autograph manuscript of William Blake's poem Genesis, which is still unpublished, was bought by the Rosenbach Company, of Philadelphia, for $1350.

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Other items in this sale were Browning's Pauline, first edition (1833), an uncut copy with the original boards and paper label intact ($2560) and the MS. of Colombe's Birthday, title and fifty-nine folio pages ($1200). Eight hundred dollars, normally the equivalent of £160, was the price paid for a copy of the first edition of Adam Bede (1859), presented by George Eliot to Thackeray.

A. L. H. and I. A. W.