NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
The Athenæum of Saturday the 21st February announces that Sir F. Madden has secured for the British Museum the celebrated "Bedford Missal," and several other beautiful MSS., by the wise expenditure of three thousand pounds. The other MSS., not described by The Athenæum, are, we believe, the Breviary of Isabella of Spain, presented to her by Francisco de Rojas in 1497, on the occasion of the double marriage of her children, Don Juan and Doña Juana, to Margaret of Austria and Philip the Fair, which sold at Mr. Hurd's sale in 1832 for 520l.; the Hours of Juana of Castile, wife of Philip the Fair, formerly in Hanrott's library; the Hours of Francis I., which sold in Sir Mark Masterman Sykes's sale, 1824, for 163l. 16s.; the Hours of François d'Inteville, Bishop of Auxerre, executed in 1525, formerly in Beckford's collection; another volume of Hours of the sixteenth century, and a fine copy, in two large vols. folio, of the French translation of Petrus Comestor's Historia Scholastica, by Guiart des Molins, completed in 1294. While we agree with our contemporary in our approval of this purchase, we cannot help adding to that approval a hope that neither the trustees nor the treasury will make this expenditure an excuse for not enabling the keeper of the MSS. to make extensive purchases at the sales of valuable historical collections which are expected to take place in the course of the present year.
At a general meeting of the Percy Society held last Thursday week, the dissolution of the Society was determined on; and the meeting came to the very proper resolution of not selling the stock of books in hand, which would have had the effect of depreciating the market-value of the Society's publications, but of distributing them among the existing members. It is proposed, we believe, to form a new Society on a somewhat similar plan; but which is to have for its object the reprinting, without abridgment or omission, of such rare but well chosen tracts by Greene, Nash Breton, Taylor the Water Poet, &c. as afford valuable illustration of manners, or are interesting in any other point of view.
We have received from Messrs. Rivington a new volume containing Eight Essays on Various Subjects, by the Rev. S. R. Maitland, D.D. The pages of "N. & Q." have been so frequently enriched by contributions from the able pen of the writer of these Essays, and he has in the work in question spoken so kindly of this journal, that we feel it will be more respectful to one who does not need our praise—which might under these circumstances be attributed to interested motives—if we limit our notice of the subject of the volume to an enumeration of the titles of the essays. They are as follows:—I. On the Mystical Interpretation of Scripture; II. Sacred Art—No. 1. Music; III. Sacred Art—No. 2. Painting; IV. Matter of Fact; V. The Fulness of the Gentiles; VI. The Waldenses and Albigenses; VII. Perrin's History of the Vaudois; VIII. The Lollards. When we add that to these are appended the following notes:—A. Cowper's Nightcap; B. Vauxhall; C. The School of Declamation; D. On Political Prophecies; E. The "Mirabilis Liber" and "Petrus de Bardis"; F. Extracts from Lollard Prophecies: we think we have shown all who know the learning, honesty of purpose, strong common sense, and racy humour of the Essayist, that the book is one to be looked after, and to be looked at.
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.
BELL'S FUGITIVE POETRY COLLECTION. Vols. X. and XVI. 12mo. 1790.
THE CRITIC, London Literary Journal. First 6 Nos. for 1851.
VOLTAIRE, ŒUVRES COMPLETES DE. Aux Deux-Ponts. Chez Sanson et Compagnie. Vols. I. & II. 1791-2.
SCOTT'S CONTINUATION OF MILNER'S CHURCH HISTORY. Part II. of Vol. II. 8vo.
SPECTATOR. No. 1223. Dec. 6, 1851.