The History of Millwall, commonly called the Isle of Dogs, including Notices of the West India Docks and City Canal, and Notes on Poplar, Blackwall, Limehouse,
and Stepney, by B. H. Cowper, is unquestionably one of the most carefully compiled, and judiciously arranged, little topographical works, which we have ever been called upon to notice. The intelligent M.P. who is recorded to have asked a witness before a select committee for the precise locality of the Isle of Dogs, and to have been satisfied with the answer "Between London Bridge and Gravesend," may, if inclined to pursue his inquiries, find its history told most fully and most agreeably in the little volume now before us.
In our Number for the 21st of May last, we called attention to, and spoke in terms of fitting approbation of, the First Part of The English Bible; containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version; newly divided into paragraphs, with concise Introductions to the several Books, and with Maps and Notes illustrative of the Chronology, History, and Geography of the Holy Scriptures; containing also the most remarkable variations of the Ancient Versions, and the chief results of Modern Criticism. Part II., comprising Exodus and Leviticus, is now before us, and exhibits the same merits as its predecessor.
Mr. Miller, of Chandos Street, who during the past year added to the value of the Monthly Catalogues by the addition to each of them of several pages of literary and bibliographical miscellanies, has just collected these into a little volume, under the title of Fly Leaves, or Scraps and Sketches, Literary, Bibliographical, and Miscellaneous, which may find a fitting place beside Davis's Olio, and other works of that class.
We regret to learn, as we do from the Literary Gazette of Saturday last, that the Trustees of the British Museum, in defiance of the earnest recommendation of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Archæological Institute, and with a total disregard of the feelings and opinions of those best qualified to advise them upon the subject, have declined to purchase the Faussett Collection of Early Antiquities, and consequently will lose the Fairford Collection offered to them as a free gift by Mr. Wylie: so that the enlightened foreigner, who visits this great national establishment, and admiring its noble collections of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Assyrian antiquities, asks, "but where are your own national antiquities?" must still be answered, "We have not got one!" They certainly do manage these things better in France and Denmark.
Our readers, we have no doubt, shared the regret with which we read the advertisement in our columns last week from the Rev. Dr. Hincks, who, from the want of encouragement, and in the face of peculiarly adverse circumstances, is compelled to withdraw from the field of Assyrian discovery; and who is advertising for some competent person who will work out what he has in progress. Although Assyrian literature may at present be discouraged by the Church and neglected by the Universities, there can be little doubt that it must ere long assume a very different position: and we therefore trust that some means may yet be taken to prevent Dr. Hincks' withdrawal from a field of study in which he has been so successful.
As we have deviated from our usual course in noticing subjects advertised in our pages, we take the opportunity of calling the attention of our antiquarian friends to the advertisement from the Rev. G. Cumming on the subject of the casts now making from the Runic Monuments in the Isle of Man.
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.
Isaac Taylor's Physical Theory of another Life.