Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
The new edition of Mr. Smee's valuable little work on The Eye in Health and Disease, is one to which we desire to direct the attention of all our readers, for the subject is one of great importance, and more especially to reading men. Mr. Smee has obviously devoted great attention to the various derangements to which this hardly-worked yet beautifully-delicate organ is liable; and his remarks cannot fail to prove of great service to those who require the assistance either of the oculist or the optician. To our photographic readers, the present reprint will be of especial interest for the very able paper "On the Stereoscope and Binocular Perspective," which is appended to it.
The Homeric Design of the Shield of Achilles, by William Watkiss Lloyd. A dissertation on a subject immortalised by the poetry of Homer and the sculpture of Flaxman, which will well repay our classical readers for the time spent in its perusal.
Architectural Botany, setting forth the Geometrical Distribution of Foliage, Flowers, Fruit, &c.—a separately published extract from Mr. W. P. Griffith's Ancient Gothic Churches—is a farther endeavour on the part of the author to direct attention to the laws by which vegetable productions were created and imitated by the early architects, and thereby to contribute to securing greater beauty and precision on the part of their successors to the decoration of churches.
Books Received.—Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with Notes by Milman and Guizot, edited by Dr. William Smith. The second volume of this handsome edition, forming part of Murray's British Classics, extends from the reign of Claudius to Julian's victories in Gaul.—The Archæologia Cambrensis, New
Series, No. XVII., has, in addition to an excellent article by Mr. Hartshorne on Conway Castle, a number of other papers on subjects connected with the Principality.—Lives of the Queens of England, by Agnes Strickland, Vol. IV., is entirely dedicated to Glorious Queen Bess, of whom we think far more highly than her biographer.—Poetical Works of William Cowper, edited by Robert Bell, Vol. I. Cowper is so great and deserved a favourite, that his works will probably be among the most popular portion of Parker's Annotated Edition of the English Poets.—The Journal of Sacred Literature, New Series, No. XI., April 1854, contains thirteen various articles illustrative of the Sacred Writings, besides its valuable miscellaneous correspondence and intelligence.—Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays. Part II. of the People's Edition contains for one shilling some six or seven of these brilliant essays, including those on Moore's Byron, Boswell's Johnson, Nugent's Hampden, and Burleigh.—The Cyclopædia Bibliographica, Part XIX. The first portion of this valuable work must be drawing rapidly to a close, as this nineteenth part extends to Rev. R. Valpy.
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.
The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift. London, printed for C. Bathurst, in Fleet Street, 1768. Vol VII. (Vol. VI. ending with "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift," written in Nov. 1731.)