Although we do not usually record in our columns the losses which
literature sustains from time to time, we cannot permit the death of
Thomas Amyot, the learned Director of the Camden Society, and for so
many years the Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries, to pass without
rendering our grateful tribute to the memory of one of the most
intelligent and kindest-hearted men that ever breathed; from whom we, in
common with so many others, when entering on our literary career,
received the most friendly assistance, and the most encouraging
sympathy.
Every fifty years commences a discussion of the great question when the
current century, or half century, properly begins. We have just seen
this in the numerous Queries, Answers, Replies, and Rejoinders upon the
subject which have appeared in the columns of the daily and weekly
press; the only regular treatise being the essay upon _Ancient and
Modern Usage in Reckoning_, by professor De Morgan, in the _Companion to
the Almanack_ for the present year. This Essay is opposed to the idea of
a "zero year," and one of the advocates of that system of computation
has, therefore, undertaken a defence of the zero principle, which he
pronounces, "when properly understood, is undoubtedly the most correct
basis of reckoning," in a small volume entitled, _An Examination of the
Century Question_, and in which he maintains the point for which he is
contending with considerable learning and ingenuity. All who are
interested in the question at issue, will be at once amused and
instructed by it.
Mr. Charles Knight announces a new edition of his _Pictorial
Shakespeare_ under the title of the National Edition; to contain the
whole of the Notes, Illustrations, &c., thoroughly revised; and which,
while it will be printed in a clear and beautiful type across the page,
and not in double columns, will have the advantage of being much cheaper
than the edition which he originally put forth.
_The Declaration of the Fathers of the Councell of Trent concerning the
going into Churches at such Times as Hereticall Service is said or
Heresy preached, &c._, is a reprint of a very rare tract, which
possesses some present interest, as it bears upon the statement which
has been of late years much insisted on by Mr. Perceval and other
Anglican controversialists, that for the first twelve years of
Elizabeth's reign, and until Pius V.'s celebrated Bull, _Regnans in
Excelsis_, the Roman Catholics of England were in the habit of
frequenting the Reformed worship.
We have received the following Catalogues:--W.S. Lincoln's (Cheltenham
House, Westminster Road) Sixty-first Catalogue of English and Foreign
Second-hand Books; W.D. Reeve's (98. Chancery Lane) Catalogue No. 13. of
Cheap Books, many Rare and Curious; R. Kimpton's (31. Wardour Street,
Soho) Catalogue No. 29. of Second-hand Books in good Condition at very
reduced Prices.
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