There is one feature in Murray's _Reading for the Rail_, namely, that of
making the volumes not of one uniform price, but varying from One
Shilling and upwards, the advantages of which are shown very clearly by
the first two of the series which have appeared. For it would have been
a difficulty for the most Procrustean of editors to have compressed _The
Essays from The Times_ within the limits of that capital
shilling's worth, _The Chase_, by Nimrod. Well do we remember, that on
the appearance of that sparkling sketch in the _Quarterly_, in the same
way that many--who like Michael Cassio,
"never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knew,
More than a spinster,"
have watched with the deepest interest the masterly strategy of
Marlborough, Napoleon, or that greater still, The Duke--hundreds who
never set foot in stirrup--who certainly never joined in a view hallo!
followed with the greatest interest and anxiety the adventures of Snob
and his little bay mare in the Quorn Country. If Mr. Murray does not
sell ten or twenty thousand copies of this amusing tractate, we shall be
greatly deceived. May he sell as many of its more important companion,
_The Essays from the Times_: for, as he well observes in his prefatory
notice to the volume in question, these brilliant Papers on Lord Nelson
and Lady Hamilton, Railway Novels, Louis Philippe, Southey, &c. exhibit
"literary merits and a moral tone well calculated to promote the
important national object" advocated by that powerful journal in the
article on the Literature of the Rail to which the present series owes
its origin. How many hundreds, nay thousands, must there be who, having
read these Essays and Reviews in _The Times_, where they were made to
point a moral most effectually, have especially desired to possess them
in a more permanent form; and who, having secured the present admirable
selection, will look anxiously for the period when Mr. Murray will be
enabled to give a second volume of them.
Among the many works illustrative of the history of France--literary,
social, and monumental--for which the French are mainly indebted to the
enlightened administration of M. Guizot, when Minister of Public
Instruction, there is not one of greater value than the handsome quarto
published by M. Didron, the learned Secretary of the Comité des Arts et
Monuments, entitled _Iconographie Chrétienne_. Of the importance and
utility of this volume, with its admirable illustrations, every journal
in this country devoted to art or archæology has exhibited repeated
proofs: and of the many wonderfully cheap books which Mr. Bohn has from
time to time produced, there is not one to compare with the Translation
of this interesting volume, which he has just put forth under the title
of _Christian Iconography; or the History of Christian Art in the Middle
Ages. In Two Volumes. Vol. I comprising the History of the Nimbus, the
Aureole, and the Glory, the History of God the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost_. This first volume contains not only nearly the whole of M.
Didron's quarto; but also between 100 and 150 wood-cuts from the
original blocks. The subject is one almost new to the English public;
and the book therefore will be found of great interest to the general
reader, and of especial interest to the artist, the ecclesiologist, the
Antiquary, and the student of Church History.
CATALOGUE RECEIVED.--Cole's (15. Great Turnstile) List No. 57 of Very
Cheap Books.