J. MT.
Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
On Wednesday the curtain fell on the most gorgeous and successful Pageant ever enacted—a Pageant in which all the nations of the earth played a part, with the Crystal Palace for their "tyring house." Honour then to all who had hand or heart in this Triumph of Peace! Honour to our Queen for her most judicious patronage! Honour to Prince Albert for the admirable tact with which he fulfilled the duties of his important office! Honour to our countrymen for the manner in which they have maintained the dignity of a free people! Honour to our foreign visitors for the friendly spirit in which they responded to our invitation and received our welcome! Honour to that efficient corps the Sappers and Miners, (and happily we have only to mention the military to recognise their services as civilians), and to our Police for their good-humoured firmness! Honour to Paxton, for his design—to Fox and Henderson for their execution of it! and, though last not least, honour to that band of zealous and indefatigable spirits, the Digby Wyatts, Dilkes, Coles, Scott Russells, &c., to whose prevision and supervision, at all times and in all places, the success of the World's Fair and the comfort of its visitors, owe so much! If ever there was a fitting time for instituting an ORDER OF CIVIL MERIT, it is now; if ever there were men who deserved to wear such an order, they who planned, and they who carried out the GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS, they are the men.
We could not allow the Great Exhibition to close without making a Note of it: we have therefore little room this week for Notes on Books. We must, however, take notice of six additional volumes of the National Illustrated Library, which we have received. Of three of these we may well speak briefly, as they form the Second, Third, and Fourth Volumes of Boswell's Life of Johnson, to which we formerly directed the attention of our readers. The Book of English Songs from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century is a very well selected volume. The Editor's endeavour to present a fair view of this branch of our National Literature has been attended with success, and the book will, we have no doubt, be a popular one. The Orbs of Heaven, by Mr. Mitchel, the director of the Cincinnati Observatory, is intended to furnish a popular exposition of the great Discoveries and Theories of Modern Astronomy, and to exhibit the structure of the universe so far as revealed by the mind of man. The book is a reprint of a series of lectures delivered in the hall of Cincinnati College, with such success as to have led to the establishment of the Cincinnati Observatory—need we say more? The sixth volume is a very interesting but painful one, The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, with Memoirs of the Life and Death of Joseph Smith, the American Mahomet. How startling is the contrast in the subject-matter of these two books—the one rich in a display of the infinite wisdom of the Creator, the other depicting most vividly the foolishness of man.
The new volume of Bohn's Standard Library is the second of Dr. Neander's History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles, with the Author's Final Additions; and his Antignostikus, or Spirit of Tertullian, which completes, we believe, the series of translations from the writing of this learned German divine. The metamorphoses of Ovid, literally translated into English Prose, forms the new volume of Bohn's Classical Library, and the Translator, Mr. Riley, has endeavoured to render the work more inviting to the scholar, and more intelligible to those who are unversed in classical literature, by numerous explanatory notes calculated to throw considerable light upon the origin and meaning of some of the traditions of heathen mythology.
It will be seen by our advertising columns that Messrs. Puttick and Simpson exhibit a numerous List of important Sales of Books, Manuscripts, Autographs, &c., which they have in preparation for the ensuing season.
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.
JOURNAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. Vol. I. Part I. (One or more copies.)
THE ANTIQUARY. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1816. Vols. I. and II.