100 NOTES AND QUERIES. [IO-B.IV. JULY 39,iocs. referring to his works. Prohibitions against holding tournaments appear in the Patent Rolls temp. Edward II. The suppression of stall-boats is said to be the cause why the inhabitants of Orford suffer in the fishing trade. They are willing to contribute for the suppression of pirates. No reasonable •amount of extracts will convey an idea of the value of the contents of books which are intended to •be consulted, not read. Prof. Copinger's work approaches completion. It will constitute an indis- pensable addition to every library of reference. vVe know not how to overestimate or overpraise the service the Professor has rendered. The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon. Edited, with an Introduction, by John M. Robertson. (Routledge &. Sons.) To the man of few books this work is a treasure. It may, indeed, be called an inestimable boon. In a volume ofover nine hundred pag es we have all the works of Francis Bacon with w hich the average student is likely to concern himself ; have them, too, in the best of existing shapes, as given to the world by those incomparable editors, Spedding and Ellis, all of whose prefaces are retained. The text ia that of the authoritative seven-volume edition. tiarum,' 'The New Atlantis/ the 'Essays,' 'The Wisdom of the Ancients,' the 'Apophthegms,' with many others. We have also Rawley's 'Life of Bacon,' a general preface by Robert Leslie Ellis to the philosophical works, and a useful index. Mr. Robertson adds an erudite and instructive in- troduction, which is naturally an apology for Bacon. The thoughtful and studious possessor of the work may plume himself on having material for months, and even years, of profitable perusal and meditation. ' The question has often been discussed, if a man were to own one book only, what it would have to be. In a competition of the kind the new Bacon would put in a claim, and we should deem the man who selected it, in Miltonic phrase, " not unwise." Tale* and Fantasies ; Essays of Travel. By Robert Louis Stevenson. (Chatto & Windus.) WE have here two out of three volumes constitut- ing a welcome and an important addition to such -portion of Stevenson literature as is accessible to a general public, for which we are indebted to Messrs. •Chatto & Windus. A third volume, completing the series, will be issued in the course of next month. In a sense none of the contents of these volumes is quite new. Most, though not all, have appeared in the costly and generally inaccessible Edinburgh edition, some may be traced in perio- dicals, and one or two have been surreptitiously or piratically issued. All are mentioned in Col. Prideaux's exemplary bibliography. For practical purposes much is now brought for the first time within general reach. ' The Body-Snatcher,' indeed, can virtually be seen in no other edition. For the conditions under which this work appeared we must refer the reader to the before - mentioned bibliography. Grim and gruesome as it is—and Stevenson himself seems anxious to repudiate it—it reflects, as we know, conditions which, jf not pre- valent, were at one time supposed to exist, and we can recall night fears, and fears not wholly of the nifht by which we were personally animated, the justification for which was found in the belief in murders committed for the purpose of providing for the " faculty " bodies to be dissected. Interest- ing and curious is the volume in which, with two other stories, this work appears. Wholly superior Sandy Hook,' is to the general reader accessible only in a mutilated or imperfect form. In this, however, and in some of the short essays by which it is accompanied, we lind Stevenson at his very best, and the book is one that his admirer will peruse and reperuee. Without classing ourselves among the enthusiasts who place Stevenson above, with, or near Scott, we find him a source of peren- nial delight, and we reap from him a harvest of gratification such as few moderns are capable of affording. Were it permitted us to quote, we could extract from the pages before us passages of obser- vation and description as fine in their way as any- thing in Ruskin. Kvery lover of books must rejoice in the possession of these volumes. THE Rev. the Hon. Gilbert Holies Farrer Vane, rector of Wem, Salop, younger brother of Lord Barnard, Rural Dean and Proctor in Convocation, died 27 June, aged forty-nine. He was F.S A., and a member of the Councils of the Shropshire Archfeo- Ipgical Society and the Shropshire Parish Register Society. He was a frequent correspondent of ' N. & Q.' There is an obituary notice of him in The Guardian, 5 July. s ia Comspoubmts. We mu.it call special attention to the following notices:— UN all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith. WE cannot undertake to answerqueries privately. To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication "Duplicate." M. A. HUGHES (" Patrick Bronte ").—For refer- ences to Mr. Prunty's adoption of the name Brontv see 8"' S. vii. 24. Lccis ("Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears ).—Last line of Wordsworth's ode ' Inti- mations of Immortality.' NOTICE. Editorial communication! should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries'"—Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lisher"—at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G. We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rale we can make no exception.
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