NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

There is one feature in Murray's Reading for the Rail, namely, that of making the volumes not of one uniform price, but varying from One Shilling and upwards, the advantages of which are shown very clearly by the first two of the series which have appeared. For it would have been a difficulty for the most Procrustean of editors to have compressed The Essays from The Times within the limits of that capital shilling's worth, The Chase, by Nimrod. Well do we remember, that on the appearance of that sparkling sketch in the Quarterly, in the same way that many—who like Michael Cassio,

"never set a squadron in the field,

Nor the division of a battle knew,

More than a spinster,"

have watched with the deepest interest the masterly strategy of Marlborough, Napoleon, or that greater still, The Duke—hundreds who never set foot in stirrup—who certainly never joined in a view hallo! followed with the greatest interest and anxiety the adventures of Snob and his little bay mare in the Quorn Country. If Mr. Murray does not sell ten or twenty thousand copies of this amusing tractate, we shall be greatly deceived. May he sell as many of its more important companion, The Essays from the Times: for, as he well observes in his prefatory notice to the volume in question, these brilliant Papers on Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, Railway Novels, Louis Philippe, Southey, &c. exhibit "literary merits and a moral tone well calculated to promote the important national object" advocated by that powerful journal in the article on the Literature of the Rail to which the present series owes its origin. How many hundreds, nay thousands, must there be who, having read these Essays and Reviews in The Times, where they were made to point a moral most effectually, have especially desired to possess them in a more permanent form; and who, having secured the present admirable selection, will look anxiously for the period when Mr. Murray will be enabled to give a second volume of them.

Among the many works illustrative of the history of France—literary, social, and monumental—for which the French are mainly indebted to the enlightened administration of M. Guizot, when Minister of Public Instruction, there is not one of greater value than the handsome quarto published by M. Didron, the learned Secretary of the Comité des Arts et Monuments, entitled Iconographie Chrétienne. Of the importance and utility of this volume, with its admirable illustrations, every journal in this country devoted to art or archæology has exhibited repeated proofs: and of the many wonderfully cheap books which Mr. Bohn has from time to time produced, there is not one to compare with the Translation of this interesting volume, which he has just put forth under the title of Christian Iconography; or the History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages. In Two Volumes. Vol. I comprising the History of the Nimbus, the Aureole, and the Glory, the History of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. This first volume contains not only nearly the whole of M. Didron's quarto; but also between 100 and 150 wood-cuts from the original blocks. The subject is one almost new to the English public; and the book therefore will be found of great interest to the general reader, and of especial interest to the artist, the ecclesiologist, the Antiquary, and the student of Church History.

CATALOGUE RECEIVED.—Cole's (15. Great Turnstile) List No. 57 of Very Cheap Books.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.

THE ANTIQUARY. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1816. Vols. I. and II.