BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES.-JANUARY. MR. RICHARD CAMERON'S Edinburgh Catalogue 228 contains, as usual, a number of works of Scottish interest. Other items include the Coleridge and Prothero edition of Byron, 1898-1904, 13 vols., cloth, as new, 11. 15s.; Kinglake's Crimea,' 9 vols., 11. 68. ; Fine Art Illustrations of Scott,' 13 vols., folio, 11. 5s.; and the Works of Christopher North," 12 vols.,, half-calf, 158. Under Napoleon is Bell's Weekly Messenger, Sunday, 3 Jan., to 26 Dec., 1813, folio, boards, 9s. 6d. The numbers contain full details of Napoleon's campaigns, with accounts of the disastrous retreat from Russia and of Wellington's Peninsular campaign.

17.

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Mr. Bertram Dobell's Catalogue 179 contains books from the library of the late Frederick Hendriks, most of them with prints, autograph letters, and notes. Byron, complete edition in one volume, extra-illustrated with Finden's engravings and a series of female portraits, green morocco extra, a fine copy, 1850, 158. Under Dickens is Ward's Memoir,' illustrated with 50 portraits of Dickens and his contemporaries, and six autograph letters from Albert Smith, Forster, and others, calf extra, 1882, 31. 38. Under Heraldry is Sylvanus Morgan's Treatise of Honor and Honorable Men,' the Author's unpublished manuscript, 170 pages, with drawings of coats of arms (inserted is the title-page of The Sphere of Gentry,' containing the Author's portrait), 1642, 77. 108. Under Roxburghe Club is a volume containing Dibdin's Song to be sung at Roxburger's Hall,' Diary of Roger Payne,' &c., with a collection of 200 illustrations, royal 8vo, half-russia, 27. 12s. Among miscellaneous books are works under Ballads and Bibliography. Under Calderon is MacCarthy's - translation of three dramas of Calderon, 1870, 11. 18. There is a rare and curious book under Drinking: A Warning-Piece to all Drunkards and Health-drinkers,' full of accounts of the untimely end of persons alleged to have been killed by drink, 1682, 21. 2s. A fine large copy of Fletcher's Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,' first edition, small 4to, half-morocco, Oxford, Leonard Lichfield, 1640, is 8l. 10s.; the first edition of The Egoist,' 3 vols., original cloth, library ticket removed from covers, 1879, 27. 108.; and a rare copy of Boccaccio's De Præclaris Mulieribus,' 1475, crimson morocco, 221.

Mr. John Hitchman's Birmingham Christmas Catalogue contains the Autograph Edition of Ruskin, 8 vols., full morocco extra, 91. 98. ; Lucas's edition of Charles Lamb, 8 vols., halflevant, 41. 12s. 6d.; J. M. Barrie's Novels, Author's Edition, 10 vols., 21. 58.; Catlin's 'North American Indians,' 2 vols., 21. 108.; Scharf and Cust's Mary, Queen of Scots,' 11. 58. ; Wyon's Great Seals of England,' folio, 21. 88. ; Thackeray's Novels, 7 vols., first editions (except Vanity Fair,' which is the second issue of the first), half-levant, 5l. 58. ; and the first edition, in the original wrapper, of Swinburne's Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic,' 1870, 158. Mr. Hitchman has also a short list (No. 500) of a few interesting books at reduced prices, including Burton's Arabian Nights,' the Centenary Edition of Carlyle, Bradshaw Society Publications, St. John Hope's Order of the Garter,' &c.

Mr. Sutton's Manchester Catalogue 173 contains Ainsworth's Windsor Castle,' Old St. Paul's,' and The Miser's Daughter,' the 3 vols. as new, 1844-8, 15l. 158.; black-letter cditions of Foxe's works; the Library Edition of Froude's 'History,' 12 vols., cloth, uncut, 1856-70, 41. 48. ; a set of Lever's novels, original illustrations, 16 vols., half-calf, 81. 88.; Staunton's edition of Shakespeare with Gilbert's illustrations, 3 vols., 1858, Il. 18.; and Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography,' 3 vols., 1850, 128. Under Cruikshankiana is a collection of 81 plates, folio, original boards, McLean, 1. 108. There are nearly 300 items devoted to Irish Topography and Literature.

Mr. T. Thorp's Catalogue 41 contains a collection of Mrs. Inchbald's Manuscript Diaries, 101. 108. Under Hogarth is a set of original drawings inserted in a copy of Tristram Shandy,' Vols. I.-III., bound in one thick small 8vo volume, rough half-calf (date cut from title), about 1765. These seven drawings are executed, Mr. Thorp states, "in Hogarth's best style,' price 1057. Among the Addenda will be found under Hogarth an atlas folio, half-calf, containing 79 plates, fine early impressions, 1738-90, 8l. 108. Under America are some early maps. There are many juvenile books, ranging from 1760; and there is a list of book-plates recently purchased. Works under London include an extra-illustrated copy of Brayley, the 4 vols. extended to 10, 1816, 77. 108.; and a Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn,' 1521-1889, with Register of Marriages 1695-1754,' by Joseph Foster, privately printed, 1889, 12s. 6d. Among speeches are those of Sir Robert Peel, with explanatory index, 4 vols., 1853, 21. 10s. Under Wordsworth is Moxon's edition, 6 vols., original cloth, uncut, 1841, 17. 168. Mr. Thorp issues from Guildford Catalogue 20, which contains works on Zoology, Botany, Astronomy, and Physics.

[Reviews of other Catalogues held over.]

THE REV. JOHN PICKFORD.-We are sorry to notice the death on December 30th of the Rev. John Pickford, Rector of Newbourne, Suffolk, at the age of 80. He was one of the steadiest correspondents to our columns, and kept up to the last a vivid interest in history, antiquities of all sorts, his Oxford friends, and the classics. He wrote a 'Life of Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore.' At 10 S. xii. 376 he pointed out that his first communication to us appeared as long ago as 19 July, 1856, in the Second Series.

Notices to Correspondents.

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

We cannot undertake to answer queries privately, nor can we advise correspondents as to the value of old books and other objects or as to the means of disposing of them.

CORRIGENDUM.-Ante, p. 16, col. 2, 1. 19, for "gaujah" read ganjah.

R. B-R ("Jookery-parkery").-See 10 S. iv. 87, 166, 232, and the articles on hocus-pocus in the 'N.E.D.'

The squirrel at his morning meal
And morning sports-so lithe and free;
No shadow o'er the grass may steal
With lighter, quicker steps, than he :
Racing along the cocoa leaf,

You see him through its ribs of green;
Anon the little mime and thief
Expanded on the trunk is seen.

These cocoa trees-not fair in woods,
But singly seen, and seen afar—

When sunset pours his [? its] yellow floods,
A column, and its crown a star!

Yet dowered with wealth of uses rare,
Whene'er its plumy branches wave,
Some sorrow seems to haunt the air,
Some vision of a desert grave.

Ceylon Ceylon! 'tis naught to me
How thou wert known or named of old,
As Ophir, or Taprobane,

By Hebrew king, or Grecian bold;
To me, thy spicy wooded vales,
Thy dusky sons, and jewels bright,
But image forth the far-famed tales,
But seem a new Arabian night.

And when engirdled figures crave
Heed to thy bosom's dazzling store,
I see Aladdin in his cave;

I follow Sinbad on the shore.

Yet these, the least of all thy wealth,
Thou heiress of the eastern isles,
Thy mountains boast of northern health,
There Europe amid Asia smiles.

Were India not where I must wend,
And England where I would return,
To thee my steps would soonest tend,
Ev'n now, I feel my spirit yearn,
Not as the stranger of a day,
Who soon forgets where late he dwelt,
But as a friend, who, far away,
Feels ever what at first he felt.

a little north of the port (see the Imp. Gaz. of India,' xiii.). Dāpoli town is about five miles from the sea. In 1818 it "" was constituted the military station of the Southern Konkan. In 1840 the regular troops were withdrawn, but a veteran battalion was retained till 1857 " (ibid., xi.).

Mrs. Fletcher's first impressions of India -both of Bombay, which was left in a native boat on 27 March, and of Suwarndrug -were most unfavourable, according to the extracts from her diary printed by Mr. Espinasse; but after a couple of months she seems to have become more reconciled to her lot, and to have ceased spending her time, as she quaintly puts it, in conjugating the verb I hate India,' in every mood, form, tense, and person.'

But just as Mrs. Fletcher had become accustomed to barren and desolate Karnai (she had never visited Dapoli), her husband was ordered to Sholapur; and off the couple set, climbing the steep ascent to Mahābleshwar, where they were at the beginning of May, and descending on the other side of the ghat to Sātāra, which was reached on the 6th of the same month. Here the Fletchers rested a month, and then resumed their journey, along the road that runs almost due west and east between Sātāra and Sholapur. 'On the 10th of June," says Mr. Espinasse, "the travellers were at Mussoor-Pelonne' (?) where the Journal contains the ominous jotting:-'I had an attack of semi-semi-cholera, only demi-semi.'” Mussoor-Pelonne looks like a combination of the names of the two towns Mhaswad and Piliw (or perhaps Bhalawani), which would be traversed on the way to Sholapur.

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The Fletchers reached their destination on 17 June, to find drought-famine sweeping off the natives"; and after a terrible period of three months the unfortunate couple were once more on the march, Mr. Fletcher having broken down in health, and been allowed, under medical But Mrs. certificate, to return to Karnai. Fletcher, at any rate, was fated never again to see that place of tombs.

reaching which town the travellers appear to have struck off to join the direct road from Sholapur to Poona. Mrs. Fletcher records that they had left Sholapur at 1 o'clock that morning, and that they had 40 miles more to do before 10 that night; so that, apparently, the town where they were to make their next halt was Indāpur, which is about the distance named from Ahirbabulgaon, and about 80 miles by that road from Sholapur. From Indapur to Poona the distance is 84 miles; and as Mrs. Fletcher says we go Dak (having Hamals posted, so as to proceed without stopping)," it is probable that the travellers reached Poona late at night on 27 September. Mrs. Fletcher had noted in her diary "I enjoy this rough marching"; but the fatigue of the forced march was evidently too great for her enfeebled body, and within a few days-on 4 Oct., 1833 she died, of cholera, at Poona, and there was buried.

I have searched the pages of The Colombo Journal in vain for any reference to the death of the gifted woman whose glowing lines recording the impressions of her too brief sojourn in Ceylon had appeared only a few weeks earlier in the columns of that paper; not even among the extracts of Indian news is the sad event recorded. As The Colombo Journal was almost as much a magazine of literature as a newspaper, this silence is to me incomprehensible.

DONALD FERGUSON.

"YON": ITS USE BY SCOTSMEN. AMONG English men of letters there seems to be a persistent impression that Scotsmen say "yon" when they would more accurately express their meaning by using "this" or "that." In the sixth chapter of Lavengro Borrow is prompted to illustrate what is supposed to be the national practice the moment he is able to look over the Tweed into Scotland. He assumes that a Northumberland fisherman will speak after the manner of his neighbours in Berwickshire, and in reporting an interview with such an eidolon for interlocutor he manages the Lowland Scotch fairly well. He describes himself as being "extended on the bank of a river," to which he pays a graceful and eloquent tribute, and he adds that several robust fellows were near him, some knee-deep in water, employed in hauling the seine upon the strand." Everything shows that the river was at hand, and to be alluded to, therefore, in terms of its close proximity, and yet the

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writer makes his fisherman say, when telling him its name, “Yon river is called the Tweed; and yonder, over the brig, is Scotland."

A second standard example of the same curious notion regarding Scottish phraseology occurs in a familiar story of the late Alexander Baird, a member of a famous stock of Glasgow ironmasters. According to the legend, Mr. Baird once visited Egypt with some friends, and was characteristically amazed at the wasteful extravagance that must have gone towards the making of the Pyramids. The popular version of the story may be inaccurate, but it is not without point and a measure of verisimilitude. In presence of one of the portentous monuments, the ironmaster, with his keen sense of values, is said to have summarized his view of an ancient speculator in the withering exclamation, "Whatna fule sank his money in yon?" So far as one's recollection of the narrative goes, this appeal was made while the practical critic and his friends were at the base of the venerable structure, and not after they were holding a discussion over their experiences in their hotel or in the course of their homeward journey.

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Wha's yon? Wha's yon?" The three, we may presume, were close together, Morris perhaps being a few steps in front and just beyond earshot, when the ardent Scotsman thus darted gratuitous queries at his ecclesiastical superior. We are, indeed, explicitly informed that the alert official started the cry just "as Morris entered his church." Thus no room is left for doubting as to the significance intended to be attached to the man's use of the pronominal term. Plainly he said "yon," and not "that," because he was a Scotsman regarding whom an Englishman was able to tell a diverting story.