with some MS. notes, in the British Museum, and the work is mentioned by several of the bibliographers. The fullest description is in Herbert's Ames's Typographical Antiquities; it will be thence observed that the copy with which the describer was then acquainted was, as is our correspondent's, without a title-page. This is a peculiarity of the book common to all known copies. The date is 1514; Pynson, however, printed an edition in 1508 (edited afresh by Fitzherbert in 1519), of which Ames and Herbert do not seem to have been aware. It commenced 'Folio Prima. Magna Charta. Edwardus dei gratia rex...'; ended Ad laudem...beate virginis Marie... Parv.codex qui Antiqua Statuta vocatur explicit,' &c., and was in Latin and French. The description of the volume of 1514 referred to is this: Magna Charta, with other statutes, placed irregularly, however, with regard to time. It has no title-page, but begins with a calendar in red and black; then a table of the heads of the chapters of such statutes as are divided into chapters, called, it seems, the old statutes. At the end of this table: Ad laudem et gloriam cuncti potentis ac beate virginis marie toteq; celestis curie Paruus Codex qui Antiqua Statuta vocatur Explicit London cum solerti curia ac diligentia per- Anno Incarnationis dñice. Millesimo quingentessimo xiiij decimo sexto Idibus Marcii.' Then his small device, No. 1, at the bottom of the page. Magna Charta begins on a fresh set of signatures; the whole contains N 12. At the end of the statutes: Sequnt' patent no'ia Regum Angl'. A sancto Edwardo. Ac inceptiones regnorum. Tpa coronationum Tempora obitus Regum a willo' Conquestore. Et per quantum tempus regnauerunt. Et loca sepultuarum iporum Regum. After this is a table of the contents, and then this colophon: Jmpresse in ciuitate London per-Regis impressorum.' This is the first edition I have met with of this book. In the collection of Mr. Alchorne. Narrow Twelves. The small device No. 1 is described on a previous page; it contains the nude boy and girl."

CELER ET AUdax.

DIARY OF DR. JOHN FORBES, OF CORSE (6th S. vii. 347).—MR. J. P. EDMONDS will find the diary of Forbes, of Corse, in the edition of his works in two volumes, folio, printed at Amsterdam in 1703. It appears there in the Latin language.

J. T. B. NEWBERY THE PUBLISHER (6th S. vii. 124, 232). -By way of addition to the list of little books given by R. R., perhaps the following may be acceptable :

(a) The Village Maid | or, | Dame Burton's | Moral Stories for the Instruction and Amusement of Youth. By Elizabeth Somerville, | Author of James Manners, Little John, and their Dog Bluff; | Flora, or the Deserted Child, &c., &c. | London: Printed by J. Bonsor, Salisbury Square, for Vernor and Hood, Poultry; | and sold by E. Newbery, St. Paul's Church Yard, | 1801.

Sq. 12mo. pp. viii-148.

(b) Tales of The Cottage; | or, | Stories, | Moral and Amusing, for young Persons. Written on the Plan of that celebrated Work | Les Veillees du Chateau, by Madam Genlis. | By Mrs. Pilkington. | London : | Printed by J. Bonsor, Salisbury Square: For Vernor and Hood in the Poultry; and sold by E. Newbery, Corner of St. Paul's Church | Yard. | 1800. Sq. 12mo. pp. viii-218. Frontispiece, after Thurston, dated "May, 1798."

1802."

(e) The Crested Wren. | By | Edward Augustus Kendall. [quot, and cut, by Bewick] London: Printed for E. Newbery, | At the Corner of St. Paul's Church-Yard, | 1799. 12mo. pp. vi-152. Frontispiece, "Taylor, sculp," dated May 20, 1799.

The Holy Bible | abridged: or, the | History! of the | Old and New Testament | illustrated with Notes and adorned with Cuts. | For the Use of Children. Quot. | London | Printed for Carnan and Newbery, No. 65, in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1770. [Price Sixpence bound.]

16mo. pp. xvi—176.

I am very glad to see that interest in these old "toy-books" is reviving. Many of them contain a far better sort of instruction than the pseudoscientific stuff that is offered to children, by way of amusement, in these Board School days; and could be done without the help of the "editor." some might be profitably reprinted, if the work The sad fate that befel Original Poems is fresh in recollection as I write these lines. It may not be amiss to add that the fourth edition of these capital rhymes appeared in 1808, and the eleventh in 1811. ALFRED WALLIS.

my

Colonel Stanley, 1813. Sale occupied eight days.
Ralph Willett, 1813. Seventeen days.
Rev. F. Winstanley, 1831. Three days.
William Frost, 1831. Three days.
Rev. G. R. Leathes, 1831. Five days.
Rev. M. Beecher, 1830. Two days.
H. N. Garrett, 1830. Five days.
Rev. H. C. Manning, 1829. Two days.
Capt. W. Bullock, 1829. Two days.
W. Boyfield, 1829. Five days.

At Townley's sale in 1814, six book, printed by
Caxton, realized 1,2191. 10s. I have a sale cata-
logue with the prices affixed. WM. FREELOVE.
Bury St. Edmunds.

Catalogues: Rev. Dr. Bliss, 1858, useful for books printed at Oxford; works on Oxford and Oxfordshire; works on the Psalms of David; books printed in London for three years before

the fire; books relating to the fire; to the plague; and to the Quakers; and on characters. J. C.| Hotten's Topographical Catalogues, sale catalogue, 1873. ED. MARSHALL.

Sandford St. Martin.

PLURALITY OF WORLDS (6th S. vii. 488).Reference should be made to the bibliography of this subject in 6th S. v. 229, 392, 498 ; vi. 197, to which the following are additions:

'Ovρavooкorla. Or, a Survey of the Heavens......III. The probability of more inhabited worlds...... By Robert Wittie. 12mo. London, 1681.

Celestial Worlds Discovered, or Conjectures concern. ing the Inhabitants, &c., of the Worlds in the Planets. By Chr. Huygens. 8vo. 1698.

Fontenelle. By Behn, 1688; by Gardiner, 1715, and (with Addison's Defence) 1737; also an ed. 1753.

A New Journey to the World in the Moon, and reasons why former lunarian travellers could not find their way. 8vo. 1741.

Toplady writes: "A plurality of worlds is more than intimated by the apostle Paul" (Works, 1841, p. 534).

Plurality of Worlds, or Letters, &c., in answer to Chalmers, 12mo. 1817.

Essay on Planetary Population. By T. Ody.
Margate, 1817.

Sir D. Brewster, More Worlds than One. 1854.
Prof. Whewell, Of Plurality of Worlds. 1854.
B. Powell, Unity of Worlds. 1856.

8vo.

Plurality of Worlds argued from Scripture. 1858. The Heavenly Bodies, their Nature and Habitability. By William Miller. 8vo. 1883.

W. C. B.

The literature of the plurality of worlds was discussed in "N. & Q.," 5th S. v. 229, 392, 498; vi. 197. But the works noticed were chiefly of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, with the exception of the Spectator, No. 519, by Addison in 1712, and F. Xavier de Feller, Observations Philosophiques sur le Système de Newton, le Mouvement de la Terre, et la Pluralité des Mondes, 1771 and 1788. But there is another French work, Systême du Monde, Bouillon, 1770, which is of about the date required by MR. C.W. MARTINDALE. It consists of a reprint of the Lettres Cosmologiques of M. Lambert from the Journal Encyclopédique, 1765. The third chapter of the first part is on the * Population de l'Univers," pp. 24-28, and the fourth on the question "Si les Comètes sont Habitables," pp. 29-39. He remarks on the general question:

"Si nous sommes bien convaincus que tout est fait ivec dessein, que tout est lié, que le monde est l'expression des attributs de Dieu, nous serons portés à croire que tous les globes sont habités."-P. 24.

But in respect of the comets it is different:—

"Nous voulons que tous les globes soient habités, mais ont-ils tous habitables? Les comètes semblent ici faire ine exception."-P. 29.

Sandford St. Martin,

ED. MARSHALL.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (5th S. ix.

69).—

"I give him joy who stammers at a lie," should be

"I give him joy that's awkward at a lie ;
Whose feeble nature truth keeps still in awe;
His incapacity is his renown.'

Young, Night Thoughts, Night viii. 361. C. A. WARD. (6th S. vii. 109.) "Would that I were a painter! to be grouping All that a poet drags into detail!"

Byron, Don Juan, c. vi. s. 109. OLIVE BRIDGE. (6th S. viii. 8.)

The proper rendering of the lines quoted by CELER ET
AUDAX is :-

"Straight is the line of duty;
Curved is the line of beauty;

Follow the straight line, thou shalt see
The curved line ever follow thee."

They were written by William Maccall, author of Ele-
ments of Individuality, &c., and a personal friend of
Thomas Carlyle.
EUGENE TEESDALE,

Miscellaneous;

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

English Towns and Districts. By Edward A. Freeman, M.A. (Macmillan & Co.)

UNDER the title of English Towns and Districts Mr. Freeman has collected a series of inaugural lectures delivered at various meetings of the Archæological Institute and essays which first saw the light in the Saturday Review. With most of the papers of both classes the historical student is assumably familiar. His gratitude at finding them brought together in an accessible and a collective form is likely to be the greater on under similar conditions have so much cohesion as this. account of his previous knowledge. Few books produced Whatever may be the truth of the views Mr. Freeman enunciates, or the value of his mode of expression, the writer at least knows what he means. His trumpet gives forth no uncertain sound. The views of history nothing to be desired, and assert themselves in every he holds are expounded with a clearness that leaves page of his volume. As minute and conscientious in some respects as Drayton, with whose Polyolbion, unlike as are necessarily the two books, it seems natural to compare his work, Mr. Freeman has a breadth of knowledge ton's days, and an earnestness of conviction that is purely and an insight which were, of course, impossible in Drayindividual. Few men who visit a city see so much as Mr. Freeman. He is the very reverse of Mr. Bayard Taylor, of whom it was unkindly said that "few men who had travelled so much had seen so little." His analysis of the features of a city reminds one of the long, patient studies with which Balzac prefaces the narrative portion of his novels. The favour with which Mr. Freeman is received as chairman of the Historical Section of the Archæological Institute is explained when it is seen how much concerning a town he is able to tell which the best instructed inhabitant cannot have received from tradition and the acutest local antiquary is not likely to have divined.

Among the views that are likely to command most sympathy one or two stand prominent. One is the assertion which finds repeated utterance that the great English cities are inferior to the great cities of the Con

tinent, for the reason that English history as a whole is superior to that of foreign countries. The history of Nürnberg is greater than the history of Exeter because the history of England is greater than that of Germany. English cities lack the stately buildings and historic associations of Italian and Teutonic cities because England became too soon united to allow of the great nobles and prelates developing into sovereign princes or the great cities and boroughs establishing themselves as BOvereign commonwealths.

To Northamptonshire and a portion of Lincolnshire Mr. Freeman assigns, as a result of their central position, the origin of the polite and literary speech of England. If with these counties Leicestershire is included, this view is accurate. Another view that finds clear enunciation is that Englishmen had an independent Romanesque style in architecture before the arrival of the Norman, and continued building in a national style while the work, ecclesiastical and military, of the Norman was growing up around them. In his notice of Glastonbury Mr. Freeman deals philosophically yet tenderly with the Arthurian legends. Preacademic Cambridge and preacademic Oxford are the subjects of edifying papers. Lincoln and Exeter, the former especially, are treated with special tenderness by Mr. Freeman. What is said about Kirkstall and Selby has signal interest, and the comparison between the minsters of York and Lincoln is well maintained. From the ruins of which Mr. Freeman treats we are sorry to miss Furness. So eminently to the taste of the majority of readers of " N. & Q." are these papers, our sole reason for abstaining from recommending their perusal is that the task is probably superfluous, the familiarity we counsel being already obtained.

Oliver Madox Brown: a Biographical Sketch, 1855-1874. By John H. Ingram. (Elliot Stock.) SLIGHT as are the records Mr. Ingram has collected of the life of Oliver Madox Brown, they are sufficient to present a vivid picture of the dawn of genius. Nineteen years and a few months constitute a brief period for work, and the destruction of all the literary accomplishment that has been given to the world before that age would make a gap in the world's possessions much smaller than is generally supposed. Brief, however, as seems the period from the standpoint of effort, it is even briefer from that of the formation of character. A retrospective glance at an individual career leaves a sense that at the age of twenty nothing had practically happened. "Calf love" had exercised an influence elevating in the main, and the study of high models had begot an emulation which stirred the mind to more or less direct and conscious imitation. The memoir before us shows a youth with a character distinctly formed, and furnishes the record of high accomplishment in different lines. That the world lost in Oliver Madox Brown one who would have added brightest reputation to a name honoured through successive generations is conceded. Not much of a memoir of the painter-poet is to be ob. tained, but a record of some of his thoughts and ambitions, an analysis of his work, a few traits of a highly individual character, and a few extracts from letters are preserved. To many in the present generation these will have high value, and to posterity they will convey some idea of the life of one whose memory men "will not willingly let die."

THE Harvard University Bulletin for April contains a goodly instalment of matter of interest to the students of early American cartography. In view of the Congress of Americanists, which is to be held next year at Turin, during the period of the International Exhibition, it is to be hoped that the list of early maps showing parts of America will be continued and completed in subsequent

parts. We always regret the very trying fashion of leaving off in the middle of a sentence, or it may be even of a word, which is the practice of the Bulletin. The account of the early maps in the April number, the last which is before us, ends with the instructive words "which could." If we could only have read "which nobody," we might have supplied the conclusion for ourselves.

THE New York Publishers' Weekly (F. Leypoldt) continues, we are glad to see, its long sustained interest in the important subject of international copyright. It gives, in the course of its August issues, fair scope to two sides in the letters of "Quida ” and Mr. T. A. Romer, from the English Publishers' Circular, and it notes the unsatisfactory state of the negotiations for a convention between Great Britain and the United States shown by the reply made to Mr. Bryce's question in the House of Commons. We hope that the Berne and Amsterdam International Conferences, to be held in the course of this month, may result in impressing upon governments a clear sense of the necessity for arriving at some common understanding for the protection of intellectual property.

No. 5 of the Midland Antiquary, edited by Mr. W. F. Carter, B.A., has reached us. Among miscellaneous contents of genuine if varied interest appears an important series of additions to the Worcestershire Visitation of 1682-3.

MR. RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD has issued, in a limited edition of 250 copies, The Bibliography of Swin burne, containing a bibliographical list, in chronological order, of the published writings in verse and prose of the author of Atalanta in Calydon. So complete is this, no published letter of Mr. Swinburne is apparently omitted.

Notices to Correspondents.

We must call special attention to the following notices: address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but ON all communications must be written the name and as a guarantee of good faith.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately. ALFRED TARBOLTON (" Choice Notes from N. & Q.'"). -Two volumes were published by Messrs. Bell & Daldy, the first dealing with history, the second folk-lore. The series was then discontinued. It is out of print, and can only be obtained second-hand.

FREDK, RULE writes:-"In my edition of Boswell the "WHO DRIVES FAT OXEN," &c. (ante, p. 120).-MR. parody is given under the year 1784, not 1754."

J. S. MACGREGOR ("Non-inflammable Gas ").-We do not answer scientific questions. Apply to Hardwicke's Science Notes.

JAMES FREEMAN ("Prince Bismarck and Chaucer ") The lines from Chaucer you quote appear 6th S. viii. 14. RUPERT SIMMS.-Your communication shall appear next week.

WILL W. J., who offered a copy of Retzsch's "Chess Players" to P. P., communicate his address? SIR JOHN MACLEAN.-Will appear in a week or two.