The second volume of _Murray's British Classics_, which is also the second
of Mr. Cunningham's edition of _The Works of Oliver Goldsmith_, fully
justifies all we said in commendation of its predecessor. It contains
Goldsmith's _Enquiry into the State of Polite Literature in Europe_, and
his admirable series of letters, entitled _The Citizen of the World_. Mr.
Cunningham tells us that "he has been careful to mark all Goldsmith's own
notes with his name;" his predecessors having in some instances adopted
them as their own, and in others omitted them altogether, although they are
at times curiously illustrative of the text. We are glad to see that Mr.
Murray announces a new edition, revised and greatly enlarged, of Mr.
Foster's valuable _Life of Goldsmith_, uniform with the present collection
of Goldsmith's writings.
_Memorials of the Canynges Family and their Times; Westbury College,
Redcliffe Church, and Chatterton_, by George Pryce, is the somewhat
abbreviated title of a goodly octavo volume, on which Mr. Pryce has
bestowed great industry and research, and by which he hopes to clear away
the mists of error which have overshadowed the story of the Canynges family
during the Middle Ages, and to show their connexion with the erection or
restoration of Westbury College and Redcliff Church. As Mr. Pryce has some
few inedited memoranda relating to Chatterton, he has done well to
incorporate them in a volume dedicated in some measure to the history of
Bristol's "Merchant Prince."
_Poetical Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Minor Contemporaneous
Poets, and Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst_, edited by Robert Bell, forms
the second volume of Parker's _Annotated Edition of the British Poets_.
Availing himself, very properly, of the labours of his predecessors, Mr.
Bell has given us very agreeable and valuable memoirs of Surrey and
Buckhurst; and we have no doubt that this cheap edition of their works will
be the means of putting them into the hands of many readers to whom they
were before almost entirely unknown.
The Library Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, having had under their
consideration the state of the engraved portraits in the possession of the
Society, consulted one of the Fellows, Mr. W. Smith, as to the best mode of
arrangement. That gentleman, having gone through the collection, advised
that in future the Society should chiefly direct its attention to the
formation of a series of _engraved Portraits of the Fellows_, and with
great liberality presented about one hundred and fifty such portraits as
his contribution towards such collection. Mr. Smith's notion is certainly a
very happy one: and we mention that and his very handsome donation, in
hopes of thereby rendering as good service to the Society's Collection of
Portraits, as we are glad to learn has been rendered to their matchless
Series of Proclamations by our occasional notices of them.
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