The Camden Society have just issued to the members a highly important
volume, Walter Mapes _De Nugis Curialium_. The best idea of the interesting
character of this work may be formed from the manner in which it is
described by its editor, Mr. Thomas Wright, who speaks of it as "the book
in which this remarkable man seems to have amused himself with putting down
his own sentiments on the passing events of the day, along with the popular
gossip of the courtiers with whom he mixed;" and as being "one mass of
contemporary anecdote, romance, and popular legend, interesting equally by
its curiosity and by its novelty." There can be little doubt that the work
will be welcomed, not only by the members of the Camden Society, but by all
students of our early history and all lovers of our Folk Lore.
Though we do not generally notice the publication of works of fiction, the
handsome manner in which, in the third volume of his _Bertha, a Romance of
the Dark Ages_, Mr. MacCabe has thought right to speak of the information
which he obtained, during the progress of his work, through the medium of
NOTES AND QUERIES, induces us to make an exception in favour of his highly
interesting story. At the same time, that very acknowledgment almost
forbids our speaking in such high terms as we otherwise should of the power
with which Mr. MacCabe has worked up this striking narrative, which take
its name from Bertha, the wife of the profligate Henry IV. of Germany; and
of which the main incidents turn on Henry's deposition of the Pope, and his
consequent excommunication by the inflexible Gregory the Seventh. But we
the less regret this necessity of speaking thus moderately, since it must
be obvious that when an accomplished scholar like the {31} author of the
_Catholic History of England_, to whom old chronicles are as household
words, chooses to weave their most striking passages into a romance, his
work will be of a very different stamp from that of the ordinary novelist,
who has hunted over the same chronicles for the mere purpose of finding
startling incidents. The one will present his readers, as Mr. MacCabe has
done, with a picture uniform in style and consistent in colouring, while
the other will at best only exhibit a few brilliant scenes, which, like the
views in a magic lanthorn, will owe as much of their brilliancy to the
darkness with which they are contrasted as to the skill of the artist.
Messrs. Sotheby and Co. will sell, on Wednesday next and three following
days, the valuable Collection of Coins and Medals of the Rev. Dr. Neligan,
of Cork; and on the following Monday that gentleman's highly interesting
Antiquities, Illuminated MSS., Ancient Glass, Bronzes, Etruscan and Roman
Pottery, Silver Ring Money, &c.
To those who have never studied what Voltaire maliciously designated "the
science of fools with long memories," but yet occasionally wish to know the
families which have borne certain mottoes, the new edition of _The Book of
Mottoes_ will be a very acceptable source of information.
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