600
NOTES AND QUERIES. do* s. v. JUNE a, im
standpoint. Compiled from the best authorities,
ancient and modern (many of them not universally
accessible, nor, indeed, generally known), and
written with commendable spirit and vivacity, the
letterpress constitutes an animated picture of Lon-
don life, and chronicle of London doings, from
Roman times till to-day, to which further bright-
ness is added by the presence of forty coloured
designs by Mr. John Fulleylove, R.I., the eminent
painter and draughtsman. In a sense the whole
may be regarded as history, the successive chapters
conveying a capital idea of growth and development
of life in the greatest of cities, and being as nappy
in atmosphere as ample in detail. We are, in fact,
astonished at the amount of learning that is brought
to bear. Ordinary sources, from Tacitus downward
to Froissartand Pepys, are laid under contribution;
and of such incidents as the trial and execution of
great offenders the best existing descriptions are
reproduced. In the case, however, of such things
as the rendering penal, in the interests of archery,
of other amusements and pursuits, and like recon-
dite points, knowledge equally exact is displayed.
In every case, indeed, Mr. Davey has gone to the
most trustworthy sources. As an account of life in
mediaeval and Renaissance times we know of no
more instructive or entertaining work, and none,
certainly, the perusal of which is more of a pleasure
and less of a task. The illustrations are unsurpassed
in other productions of the class.
Plutarch's Lives. Translated from the Greek by Aubrey Stewart, M.A., and George Long, M.A. 4vols. (Bell & Sons.)
LONG as this translation of Plutarch has been before the public, and many times as it has been reprinted in a quarter of a century, it has never previously assumed so attractive a guise as now, when it appears in "The York Library," whereto it forms a valuable and fitting addition. It constitutes the best, most trustworthy, and most readable of the translations that have been made of the most popular of classics, and can, as personal experience enables us to testify, be read with constant plea- sure. To Cicero and others of the Latins useful notes are supplied by the translators, and the first volume contains Long's preface to the lives pub- lished by him under the title of 'Civil Wars of Rome.' A full and useful index to the work is given at the end of the fourth volume. A life of Plutarch is prefixed. The type of " The York Library" is admirably legible, and suited to the oldest sight.
John Siberch, the First Cambridge Printer, 1521-2 : Bibliographical Notes, 1886-1905. By Robert Bowes and G. J. Gray. (Cambridge, Macmillan & Bowes.)
ALL that is likely to be known of John Siberch, the first Cambridge printer, is now within reach of the bibliophile. Coming after the late Henry Bradshaw, whose bibliography was prefixed to the facsimile edition of Bullock's 'Oratio' printed in 1886, Mr. Robert Bowes found in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, a copy of Li nacre's ' Galen de Temperamentis,' which stood No. 6 among Siberch's books, differing from other copies that he had seen ; and his account of it is now reprinted from the Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Other discoveries by Mr. Gray, including that of a hitherto unknown work printed by bibereh, are chronicled. Facsimiles of title-pages
and colophons of those books printed by Siberch
which have not previously been reproduced in fac-
simile are given, together with ornamental borders,
woodcuts, and initial letters, the whole supplying
specimens of each of his works, so far as present
knowledge extends. All that has been discovered
concerning Siberch is told in Gray's ' Earlier Cam-
bridge Stationers. From February, 1521, he printed
nine works ; like other printers, he bound books,
and he claims in his aedication of Baldwin to
Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely, to be the first printer
of Greek in England. He was known to Cambridge
scholars, and is mentioned in letters of Erasmus.
Four of the works for which he is responsible have
been reprinted in facsimile by Messrs. Macmillan
& Bowes, who proposed at one time to issue in a
like form the remainder. For want of adequate
encouragement this scheme was not carried out.
The work now issued in a sense completes the
bibliographical aspect of the plan. All that is
known concerning the title-pages and the designs is
given in the shape of comment, and the whole,
besides being a bibliographical treasure, is an im-
portant contribution to the history of the great
university.
to
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