founde a booke, having in it little above xx leaves, (as they
sayde) of verye thicke velume, wherein was some thing written. But
when it was shewed to priestes and chanons, which were there, they
would not read it. Wherefore after they had tossed it from one to
another (by the meanes whereof it was torne) they did neglect and
cast it aside. Long after, a piece thereof happened to come to my
handes; which notwithstanding it was al to rent and defaced, I
shewed to mayster Richarde Pace, then chiefe Secretarie to the
kinges most Royall maiestie, whereof he exceedingly reioysed. But
because it was partly rent, partly defaced and bloured with weate
which had fallen on it, he could not find any one sentence perfite.
Notwithstanding after long beholding, hee showed mee, it seemed
that the sayde booke contayned some auncient monument of this Ile,
and that he perceyved this word _Prytania_ to bee put for
_Brytannia_. But at that time he said no more to me."

Cooper's conjecture founded on this is that Britain is derived from the
Greek word Prytania, which, according to Suidas, "doth," with a
circumflexed aspiration, "signifie metalles, fayres, and markets."
"Calling the place by that which came out of it, as one would say, _hee
went to market_, when he goeth to Antwarpe," &c. Has this been noticed
elsewhere?

J.G.

* * * * *

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

The announcement recently made in _The Athenaeum_ of the intention of the
Government to print in a neat and inexpensive form, a series of
Calendars or Indices of the valuable historical documents in the State
Paper Office, cannot but be very gratifying to all students of our
national history--in the first place, as showing an intention of opening
those documents to the use of historical inquirers, on a plan very
different from that hitherto pursued; and, in the next, it is to be
hoped, as indicating that the intention formerly announced of placing
the State Paper Office under the same regulation as the _Record
Offices_, with the drawback of fees for searches, is not to be
persevered in.

To the citizens of London, to its occasional visitants, as well as to
the absent friends and relatives of those who dwell within its walls,
Mr. Archer's projected work, entitled _Vestiges of Old London, a series
of finished Etchings from original Drawings, with Descriptio