Of the value of broadsides, flying sheets, political squibs, popular
ballads, &c. few can doubt; while the advantage of having these snatches
of popular literature, when collected, deposited in some public and
easily accessible library, will be readily admitted by all who may have
had occasion to trespass on the time and attention (readily as they may
be afforded to parties entitled to claim them), of the Master and
Fellows of Magdalene, when requiring to consult the matchless collection
of ballads, penny merriments, and chap books, deposited in their library
by Samuel Pepys. These remarks have been suggested to us by a very
handsome quarto volume entitled _Catalogue of Proclamations, Broadsides,
Ballads, and Poems presented to the Chetham Library_, by J. O.
Halliwell, Esq. As this catalogue is limited to one hundred copies, and
has been printed for private circulation only, we must confine ourselves
to announcing that it contains an enumeration of upwards of three
thousand documents of the classes specified, many of them of very
considerable interest, which the zeal of Mr. Halliwell has enabled him
to gather together, and which his liberality has led him to deposit in
the Chetham Library. We have marked several articles to which we propose
to call the attention of our readers at some future moment; and we have
no doubt that the Halliwell Collection in the Chetham Library, is one
which will hereafter be frequently referred to, and consulted by,
literary men.
If the Popular Mythology of these islands is ever to be fitly recorded,
its most important illustration will be found in the writings of Grimm
and his fellow-labourers. How zealously they are pursuing their search
after the scattered fragments of the great mythological system which
once prevailed in Germany is shown by a new contribution to its history,
which has just been published by J. W. Wolf, under the title of
_Beitraege zur Deutschen Mythologie_: I. _Goetter und Goettinnen_. In this
volume the reader will find not only much that is new and interesting in
connection with the history of the great mythic heroes and heroines, but
very valuable supplements on the subject of Superstitions and Popular
Charms.
Mr. D'Alton, the author of _The History of Drogheda_, is about to
dispose of his Historical, Topographical, and Genealogical MS.
Collections. They occupy upwards of 200 volumes, and comprise, on the
plan of Watt's _Bibliotheca_, copious references to, and extracts from
Records, Registries, Pleadings, Wills, Funeral Monuments, and Manuscript
Pedigrees. They are to be sold wholly, or in lots, as classified at the
commencement of Mr. D'Alton's _Annals of Boyle_.
Messrs. Ellis and Son, watchmakers, of Exeter, have published a very
interesting _Map showing the Time kept by Public Clocks in various Towns
in Great Britain_. Among many other curious notes which may be made on
this subject, we may mention that it is Sunday in Inverness and Glasgow
nearly seventeen minutes earlier than at Plymouth; and it will be 1852
in Liverpool eleven minutes before it will be so in Bristol.
Messrs. Cook and Hockin, of 289. Strand, have prepared a cheap, but very
complete Chemical Chest, to accompany _Stockhardt's Principles of
Chemistry illustrated by Simple Experiments_, recently published by Bohn
in his _Scientific Library_.