It is always a boon to historical literature when a man of learning and
industry devotes himself to a monograph of any particular person or
period. When we saw, therefore, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, the able
and interesting papers by Mr. Cunningham, on the history of one who,
whatever might have been her life, so died, that Tennison did not
hesitate to preach her funeral sermon, we felt sure that those papers
could never be allowed to remain the "sole property" of the readers and
admirers of our good friend Sylvanus Urban; and we have proved right in
our anticipation. _The Story of Nell Gwyn, and the Sayings of Charles
II., related and collected_ by Peter Cunningham, which has just been
issued, consists of a reprint of those papers, greatly enlarged and
increased in value by the information which has reached the author since
they appeared in their original form. We know of no volume of the same
extent calculated to give a more graphic or faithful picture of the
heartlessness and depravity of the age of profligacy in which his
heroine lived, an age which furnishes a striking proof how true it is
that individuals, communities, and even whole nations, will after a time
seek compensation for a state of gloomy and unchristian fanaticism in
one of unbridled licentiousness.
Mr. Cunningham has, in this handsomely illustrated volume, treated a
subject which required very nice handling with great tact; and his book
deserves to be placed on the shelves with Pepys and Evelyn, as a
necessary supplement to them. Can we give it higher praise? Its quaint
and characteristic binding is a clever fac-simile of the morocco binding
which Charles II. so loved.
We are indebted to the publishers of the _National Illustrated Library_
for a new memoir of the great founder of American independence. _The
Life of General Washington, First President of the United States,
written by himself; comprising his Memoirs and Correspondence, as
prepared by him for publication, including several Original Letters now
first printed_, edited by the Rev. C. W. Upham, forms two volumes, which
have been written or compiled on the principle, now we believe first
applied to Washington, of making the subject of the memoir, its far as
possible, his own biographer. This task Mr. Upham has executed with much
ability and excellent judgment; and we know of no work calculated to
give the general reader a better or more correct idea of the personal
character of one of whom the Americans boast, that he was "first in war,
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Some of our readers may be interested to know that the collection of
black-letter ballads, formerly in the Heber collection, and described in
the _Bibliotheca Heberiana_, vol. iv. pp. 28-33., was sold on Monday
last at the auction of Mr. Utterson's library at Messrs. Sotheby's.
After a rather brisk bidding, Mr. Halliwell became the purchaser at the
sum of 104_l._