* * * * *

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.

In days like these, when so many of our new books are but old ones newly
dressed up, a work of original research, and for which the materials have
been accumulated by the writer with great labour and diligence, deserves
especial commendation. Of such a character is the _Catholic History of
England; its Rulers, Clergy, and Poor, before the Reformation, as described
by the Monkish Historians_, by Bernard William MacCabe, of which the third
volume, extending from the reign of Edward Martyr to the Norman Conquest,
has just been published. The volumes bear evidence in every page that they
are, as the author describes them, "the results of the writing and research
of many hours--the only hours for many years that I had to spare from other
and harder toils." Himself a zealous and sincere follower of the "ancient
faith," Mr. MacCabe's views of the characters and events of which he is
treating, naturally assume the colouring of his own mind: many, therefore,
will dissent from them. None of his readers will, however, dissent from
bestowing upon his work the praise of being carefully compiled and most
originally written. None will deny the charm with which Mr. MacCabe has
invested his History, by his admirable mode of making the old Monkish
writers tell their own story. {505}

We some time since called the attention of our readers to a new periodical
which had been commenced at Goettingen, under the title of _Zeitschrift
fuer Deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, under the editorship of T. W.
Wolf. We have since received the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Parts of it from Messrs.
Williams and Norgate, and hope shortly to transfer from its pages to our
columns a few of the many curious illustrations of our own Folk Lore, with
which it abounds.

BOOKS RECEIVED.--_The Works of John Locke_, vol. i., _Philosophical Works,
with a preliminary Essay and Notes_, by J. A. St. John, is the first volume
of a collected edition of the writings of this distinguished English
philosopher, intended to form a portion of Bohn's _Standard Library_.--_The
Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_, vol. iv., 1788-89. Worth more than
its cost for its pictures of Fox, Burke, Wyndham, &c., and Hastings'
Impeachment.--_A Poet's Children_, by Patrick Scott. A shilling's worth of
miscellaneous poems from the pen of this imaginative but somewhat eccentric
bard.--_Points of War, I. II. III. IV._,