P.
Dragons (Vol. iii., p. 40.).—I think the Draco of the Crusaders' times must have been the Boa constrictor. If you will look into St. Jerome's Vitas Patrum, you will find that he mentions the trail of a "draco" seen in the sand in the Desert, which appeared as if a great beam had been dragged along. I think it not likely that a crocodile would have
ventured so far from the banks of the Nile as to be seen in the Desert.
P.
Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
The members of the Percy Society have just received the third and concluding volume of The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, a new Text, with Illustrative Notes, edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. It is urged as an objection to Tyrwhitt's excellent edition of the Canterbury Tales, that one does not know his authority for any particular reading, inasmuch as he has given what he considered the best among the different MSS. he consulted. Mr. Wright has gone on an entirely different principle. Considering the Harleian MS. (No. 7334.) as both "the oldest and best manuscript he has yet met with," he has "reproduced it with literal accuracy," and for the adoption of this course Mr. Wright may plead the good example of German scholars when editing the Nibelungen Lied. That the members of the Society approve the principle of giving complete editions of works like the present, has been shown by the anxiety with which they have looked for the completion of Mr. Wright's labours; and we doubt not that, if the Council follow up this edition of the Canterbury Tales with some other of the collected works which they have announced—such as those of Hoccleve, Taylor the Water Poet, &c.—they will readily fill up any vacancies which may now exist in their list of members.
Mr. Parker has just issued another handsome, and handsomely illustrated volume to gladden the hearts of all ecclesiologists and architectural antiquaries. We allude to Mr. Freeman's Essay on the Origin and Development of Window Tracery in England, which consists of an improved and extended form of several papers on the subject of Tracery read before the Oxford Architectural Society at intervals during the years 1846 and 1848. To those of our readers who know what are Mr. Freeman's abilities for the task he has undertaken, the present announcement will be a sufficient inducement to make them turn to the volume itself; while those who have not yet paid any attention to this interesting chapter in the history of Architectural progress, will find no better introduction to the study of it than Mr. Freeman's able volume with its four hundred illustrations.
Mr. Foss has, we hear, gone to press with two additional volumes of his Judges of England, which will carry his subject down to the end of the reign of Richard III.