The attempt to establish a _Surrey Archaeological Society_ has at length
proved successful. Upwards of one hundred and seventy Members have already
joined the Society. The Duke of Norfolk has accepted its Presidency, and
the Earl of Ellesmere, the Bishop of Winchester, and Lord Viscount Downe,
are among the number of its Vice-Presidents. The Society has good work
before it, and we trust will set about it in a way to {553} secure the
success which we wish it. The Honorary Secretary and Treasurer is George
Bish Webb, Esq., of 46. Addison Road North, Notting Hill; from whom
gentlemen desirous of enrolling themselves as Members may obtain copies of
the Prospectus, Rules, &c. of the Society.
The mention of one county Society seems to call attention to another,
namely, the _Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society_, the
volume of whose Proceedings for 1852 is now before us, and affords
satisfactory proof that the zeal and energy of its members, of which it
numbers nearly five hundred, are by no means diminished. The papers and the
illustrations of the volume are highly creditable to all concerned.
The want of a collection of the early antiquities of this country has long
been the greatest reproach which foreigners have been able to make against
the British Museum. An opportunity of removing this has lately presented
itself by an offer to the trustees of the well-known and probably unique
collection, _The Faussett Museum_. Strange to say, that offer was declined:
but, as a communication from the Society of Antiquaries strongly urging the
propriety of a reconsideration of this decision--so that an opportunity
which may never recur may not be lost--has been addressed to the trustees,
we still hope that _the Faussett Museum_ will yet fill the empty cases at
Great Russell Street, and form, as it is well calculated to do, the nucleus
of a national collection of our own national antiquities. We understand Mr.
Wylie has most liberally offered to present his valuable Fairford
Collections to the Museum, if the Faussett Collection is secured for it.
BOOKS RECEIVED.--_The Life and Works of William Cowper_, by Robert Southey,
Vol. I. This, the first volume of a new edition, which will be comprised in
eight instead of fifteen volumes--cost twenty-eight instead of seventy-five
shillings, and yet contain additional plates and matter,--is the new issue
of Bohn's _Standard Library_.--_The Laws of Artistic Copyright and their
Defects_, by D. R. Blaine, Esq. A little volume well calculated to instruct
artists, sculptors, engravers, printsellers, &c., so that they may clearly
understand their rights, their remedies for the infringement of those
rights, and the proper mode of transferring their property.--_The Attic
Philosopher in Paris, being the Journal of a Happy Man_, forms No. LI. of
Longman's _Traveller's Library_, and is a fit companion to the _Confessions
of a Working Man_, by the same author, Emile Souvestre, published in the
same series a few months since.--_Apuleius: Metamorphoses, or Golden Ass,
and other Works._ A new translation, to which are added a metrical version
of Cupid and Psyche, and Mrs. Tighe's Psyche, is the new volume of Bohn's
_Classical Library_.--_Handbook to the Library of the British Museum, &c._,
by Richard Sims. After the notice of this useful little volume taken by MR.
BOLTON CORNEY in our last Number, we may content ourselves with expressing
our hope that the trustees, whose desire it must be to facilitate in every
way the use of the Museum library, will avail themselves of the earliest
opportunity of marking their approval of this able attempt on the part of
one of their officers--a junior though he be--to promote so important an
object.
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