Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
It would be difficult to find a book better calculated to prove the good service which the Camden Society is rendering to historical literature, than the one which has just been circulated among its members. The work, which is entitled Letters and Papers of the Verney Family down to the end of the year 1639. Printed from the original MSS. in the possession of Sir Harry Verney, Bart., edited by John Bruce, Esq., Treas. S. A., is of direct historical value, although at the first glance it would seem rather to illustrate the fortunes of the Verneys than the history of the country. For, as the editor well observes—
"The most valuable materials, even for general history, are to be found among the records of private and personal experience. More true knowledge of the spirit of an age, more real acquaintance with the feelings and actual circumstances of a people, may be gleaned from a delineation of the affairs of a single family, than from studied historical composition. The one is the expression of cotemporary and spontaneous feeling, and, although limited, is unquestionably genuine; the other is a deduction from knowledge, imperfect even when most extensive, and too frequently coloured by the feelings and prejudices of a subsequent and altered period."
But, valuable as are the materials which the liberality of Sir Harry Verney has placed at the disposal of the Society, it is obvious that they are of a nature which a publisher might hesitate to produce, even if their owner, which is very doubtful, had thought fit to place them in the hands of one for that purpose. Hence the utility of a society which has influence to draw from the muniment rooms of our old families, such materials as those found in the present volume, and which, strung together with the agreeable and instructive narrative with which Mr. Bruce has accompanied them, will secure for the Verney Papers the character of being one of the very best, as well as of the most amusing books, which the Camden Society has given to the world.
Having had an opportunity of being present at the private view of Messrs. De la Motte and Cundall's Photographic Institution, in New Bond Street, we were highly pleased with the interesting specimens of the art there collected, which in our opinion far exceed any similar productions which have come before the public. We strongly advise our readers to visit this exhibition, that they may see the rapid progress which the art is making, and how applicable it is to their archæological pursuits.
Books Received.—The Vale Royal of England, or the County Palatine of Chester Illustrated. Abridged and revised, &c., by Thomas Hughes. The title-page of this little volume puts forth its claim to the attention of Cheshire antiquaries.—The Family Shakspeare, by Thomas Bowdler, Vol. VI. This volume completes this handsome reprint of an edition of Shakspeare, which fathers and brothers, who may scruple at bringing before their daughters and sisters the blemishes which the character of the age has left in Shakspeare's writings, may safely present to them; as in it nothing is added to the original text, from which only those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read in a family.