MISCELLANEOUS.
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
Those who know Mr. Craik's happy tact for seizing on the more striking points of a character or an incident, his acquaintance with our national history and biography, his love of research, and perseverance in following up a clue, were prepared to expect both instruction and amusement from his Romance of the Peerage. Nor were they doomed to disappointment. Each succeeding volume has added to the interest of the work and there can be little doubt, that the favour with which the first three volumes have been received by the reading world, will be extended to the one now published, and which concludes the first series, or main division of Mr. Craik's projected work.
Our space will permit us to do little more than specify its principal contents; but when we state that in the present volume Mr. Craik treats of the great Earl of Cork and the Boyles; of the founders of the Fermor, Bouverie, Osborne, and Bamfylde families; that he gives us with great completeness the history of Anne Clifford, the most remarkable woman of her time; that he furnishes pleasant gossipping pictures of the rise of the families of Fox, Phips, and Petty; the history of the celebrated claim of the Trunkmaker to the honours of the Percies,—of the story of the heiress of the Percies who married Tom Thynn of Longleat Hall; and lastly, that of Ann of Buccleugh,
the widow of the unfortunate Monmouth, we shall have done more than enough to make our readers wish to share the pleasure we have derived from turning over Mr. Craik's amusing pages.
Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson will sell on Monday next, and two following days, a valuable collection of books, chiefly the property of a gentleman deceased, among which we may specify la Vie Saint Germain L'Auxerrois (lettres gothèques), printed on vellum, and quite unique; no other copy even on paper being known.
We have received the following Catalogues:— Williams and Norgate's (14. Henrietta Street, Covent Garden) German Book Circular, a Quarterly List of New Publications, No. 26.; John Russell Smith's (4. Old Compton Street, Soho) Catalogue No. 1. for 1851 of an extensive Collection of Choice, Useful, and Curious Books in most Classes of Literature, English and Foreign.
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.
BACON'S ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, interpreted by WATS, Oxford, 1621, 1640, folio.