Blavatsky, H. P.-ISIS UNVEILED: a Master-Key to the Mysteries [280] of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. Second Edition. New York: J. W. Bouton. 1877. 2 vols. 8vo. Half morocco, top edges gilt. Index, 2 col. Vol. II. 643– 692. ... Vol. I. treats of the "Infallibility" of Modern Science. In the preliminary Chapter (pp. xxiii.-xliv.) are explained some of the terms in frequent use through the Book. Vol. II. treats of "Religion." An elaborate work, much of the Jacolliot School, to discredit Christianity and to prove (inter alia) that The Saviour in His "despairing" cry, "But Thy Will not Mine be “done,” showed that He died because He could not help it and was unwilling to die, and "hence was no self-sacrificing Saviour." The Author designates the Revision of the Old and New Testaments, recently completed, as "the Revision by the Protestant "Communion of England and America of its Oracles." The writer is a woman, and the word Oracles is italicized by herself. Blémont, Émile.—LE LIVRE D'OR de Victor Hugo par l'Elite [281] des Artistes et des Ecrivains Contemporains. Direction de Emile Blémont. Paris: H. Launette. 1883. Impl. 8vo. Half yellow morocco, silk sides and linings, top edges gilt, slip cover. Illustrations (hors texte) 321-324. ... A List of the contributing Artists is given after the Title. This is No. 51 of an Edition of 1025 copies. Copies 1-200 have the text and engravings on Japan paper, the latter, proofs before letters. The work has a facsimile autograph letter (p. 254) and upwards of 100 engravings illustrating Hugo's principal Works. The photogravures include eight portraits and busts of Hugo himself, and the remainder are scheduled under the titles of the books they illustrate. This voluminous Author (1802-1885) has written twenty volumes of poetry, some of which is the best in the literature of France; nine Romances, several of which have been translated into every civilized language of the earth; ten Plays, of which five or six made great successes; and nearly twenty volumes, large and small, of Prose," much of it admi❝rable and all of it breathing the noblest love of human kind.” His Secretary, Richard Lesclide, writes: "Let it be remarked that Victor Hugo had several styles of hand"writing—a fact which will later on give rise to interesting discussions on chirography. "Before his exile in 1851 his MSS. were in very small hand. The Alexandrine verses "flowed in slender columns and could only be read with difficulty by the naked eye. "At the time he wrote 'La Légende des Siècles,' and especially the second part of "it, his handwriting assumed a magnificent amplitude. His 'copy' had a ferocious "and tempestuous look. Erasures furrowed it like lightning and flashed in violent "strokes. These tempests issued from quill pens, matches, or reeds-for the Master "wrote with almost anything except metallic pens, which he abhorred. The carelessness with which he seized a weapon to fix down his thought was so great that Victor 66 66 'Hugo used indifferently the nib or the back of his pen so only that he did not soil his "hands, of which he took much care." Bloomfield, Georgiana, Baroness (1822- ).—REMINISCENCES [282] of Court and Diplomatic Life. (With Portraits.) New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1883. 2 vols. 8vo. Half morocco, top edges gilt. 9 Illust. (see each vol.) a. c. 66 ... A charming story of Court Life, kindly told, but unfortunately without an Index. When singing once before the Queen in private, Lady Bloomfield "in fear and trembling sang one of Grisi's famous airs, but omitted a shake at the end." The Queen detected the omission and asked the Baroness's sister, "Does not your sister shake, "Lady Normanby?" 'Oh, yes, Ma'am," her sister immediately answered, "she is "shaking all over." 66 Blumler, Martin Frederick.-HISTORY OF AMULETS. See Collectanea Adamantæa (Vol. XI.).(c). Blunt, Rev. John Henry.-SECTS, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, [283] and Schools of Religious Thought, Dictionary of. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1874. Impl. 8vo. Cloth, top edges gilt. Index, 3 col. 629–648. ... The Work opens with a " Classified Table of the Principal Contents" and a " Gene“alogy of English Church Parties," and besides giving an account of all the Sects, etc., in alphabetical order, has a voluminous Index which enables the reader to find all the information given (e. g.) on the Councils, from that of Alexandria to that of Trent. Blyden, Edward W.-CHRISTIANITY, Islam, and the Negro Race. [284] With an Introduction by the Hon. Samuel Lewis. London: W. B. Whittingham & Co. 1887. 8vo. Cloth. .. Mr. Lewis is "a Negro of unadulterated African blood" and a Member of the Legislative Council of Sierra Leone. Mr. Blyden was born in the West Indies and is "of the purest Negro parentage." In his seventeenth year he emigrated to Liberia, became Professor in the "newly-founded College of Liberia," and later was Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Liberia to England, and has travelled very considerably. The book consists mainly of collected Articles all bearing on the question of how best to civilize Africa. He starts on the assumption that climatic reasons, if nothing else, will require that Africa shall be for the Africans, and that by the return of the freed Slaves of America and the confrontation of native Christians with native Mahommedans the great question of civilizing the vast continent of Africa and bringing it ultimately within the rank of Christian nations will have to be worked out. Boccaccio di Certaldo, Giovanni (1313-1375).— Decameron, [285] THE, or Ten Days' Entertainment. A revised Translation by W. K. Kelly. (With Portrait.) London: Henry G. Bohn. 1855. 8vo. Calf, top edges gilt. Binding by Tout. Mr. Kelly claims this to be the first Translation " which at least does not mis"represent the original features" of the Decameron. That work was largely reproduced in Paynter's Palace of Pleasure, and some of the stories were used by Chaucer, e. g., The Knight's Tale in the Canterbury Tales. The Decameron was not translated as a whole into English till 1620. It was again translated in 1741 and 1804, but "now," only, with care and accuracy. There are useful succinct Notes to the majority of the 100 Tales, recounting the sources from which Boccaccio borrowed his Tales and the liberal use that has been made of a large number of them by later novelists and dramatists. Not less than fifteen to twenty have been used by La Fontaine, and the ninth tale of the Second Day and ninth tale of the Third Day furnished Shakespeare with the stories of Cymbeline and All's Well that Ends Well. Hazlitt remarks on the last that Shakespeare dramatized Boccaccio's story without improving upon it, which was impossible. The tenth story of the Sixth Day ridiculing holy relics was censured by the Council of Trent, and the tenth story of the Tenth Day is the famous Griselda, “the most "popular of all the stories of the Decameron." Boccaccio di Certaldo, Giovanni.-DECAMERON, THE, or Ten [286] Days' Entertainment. With Introduction by Thomas Wright. London: Chatto & Windus. [n. d.] 8vo. Half russia, top edges gilt. ... Some "Account of the Life and Writings of Boccaccio" is given pp. 13-27. Boccaccio di Certaldo, Giovanni.-THE TRAGE | DIES, gathered [287] by Jhon | Bochas, of all such Princes as | fell from theyr estates throughe | the mutability of Fortune since | the creacion of Adam, vntil his | time: wherin may be seen. what | vices bring menne to destrucci | on, wyth notable warninges | howe the like may be auoyded. | Translated into Englysh by | John Lidgate, Monke | of Burye. | Imprinted at London, by | John Wayland, at the signe | of the Sunne ouer against | the Conduite in Flete- | strete. | Cum priuilegio per Sep | tennium. | n. d. [1558.] Folio, black letter. Olive morocco, super extra, edges gilt. Binding by Rivière. With Book plate of Alexr. Bannatyne Stewart. ... The title is printed in an elaborate bordered compartment with the Royal Arms of England at the top and a tablet with a rising sun and one boy awaking another, together with the motto " Arise, for it is day" at the bottom. Then follow five folios containing the Table of Contents, and three folios containing the Prologue of John Lydgate to the first book. The first Book is headed by an old engraving of the birth of Eve out of Adam's side, with the Fall, and Expulsion from Eden, in the two upper corners. The whole work is divided into nine books and is written in decasyllabic seven lined stanzas in which lines I and 3, lines 2, 4, and 5, and lines 6 and 7 rhyme together, making three rhymes to each stanza. There are Prologues by Lydgate to Books I., II., III., IV., and VIII. The book has been printed at two presses, or at two separate times. The pagination of Books I. to VII. is consecutive. At Book VIII., however, a new pagination commences. The first series of folios runs from i. to clxiii. both inclusive, with, however, several clerical errors. The second series of folios (to Books VIII. and IX.) runs from folio i. to folio xxxix., (erroneously marked xxxvii.,) though some inaccuracies of numeration occur. There is no second title-page indicating that the second series formed a second Volume, nor any explanation of the new numeration. The work is a translation of Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illustrium Libri IX. Lydgate made the translation by "command" of the "Good Duke Humphrey" of Gloucester and attracted a good deal of attention by this "Fall of Princes," which was reprinted four times before the accession of Elizabeth. Ritson attributes 251 poems to Lydgate, but he seems to have been more voluminous than appreciated, for it is reported that the Abbot of St. Alban's, having employed him to translate a legend of a Saint in verse, paid him a hundred shillings for the whole, "verse, writing, and illumi"nations," placing the three operations on a level. On folio A ii. of the Prologue of the translator (col. ii. stanza iii.) Lydgate writes :"My master Chaucer w his fresh comedies "Is deade alas, chiefe Poete of Brytayne, "That sumtime made ful piteous tragedies, "The fall of Prynces he did also complayne, "As he that was of makyng souerayne: "Whō al this lande of ryght ought prefarre, "Sith of our langage he was ye lode starre." Lydgate's judgment of Chaucer is interesting and his description of him as " of "making, sovereign" or, in other words, as “ King of Poetry," shows that the original sense of the word poet was not forgotten in its English equivalent. The first impression (1494) had some curious wood engravings, two of which are reproduced in Dibdin's Bibliotheca Spenceriana, Vol. IV. 419. Bochius, Ioannes.-DESCRIPTIO | Pvblicæ Gratvlationis, | Spec[288] tacvlorvm et Lvdorvm, | in Adventv Sereniss. Principis Ernesti | Archidvcis Avstriæ, Dvcis Bvrgvndiæ, | Comitis Mate Catholica Belgicarum | ditionum imperio, in easdem Prouincias aduentum. | Accessit denique Oratio funebris, in Archiducis | Ernesti obitum ijsdem Prouincijs luctuosissimum. | Antverpiæ | Ex Officina Plantiniana. | M.D.XCV. Folio. Vellum. With Austrian arms in gold on sides. ... This Volume opens with 48 pp. of "short description" of the Belgian Principality to the date of the Work. After which with a separate elaborately bordered title-page (almost in the same words as the foregoing description of the Entry on June 14, 1594, and dated as before Ex Officina Plantiniana 1595) follow pages 49-175, in which are included 4 doublepage and 29 whole-page illustrations of the Floats, Arches, and other principal paraphernalia of the Triumph. The Colossus (p. 108) and the Elephant (p. 113) are worth examining. This was purchased at Earl Crawford's Sale in June, 1887. The colophon reads: Antverpiæ, | Ex Officina Plantiniana, | Apvd Vidvam et Ioannem | Moretvm. | M.D.XCV. On the verso of the last leaf is one of Plantin's multiform devices of the Hand and Compass with his motto Labore et Constantia. There are three other varieties of his device in Dibdin's Decameron, Vol. II. pp. 159–161. Bochius, Ioannes.-HISTORICA NARRATIO | Profectionis | et In[289] avgvrationis | Serenissimorvm Belgii Principvm | Alberti et Isabellæ, Avstriæ Archidvcvm. | Et eorum optatissimi in Belgium Aduentus, | Rerumque gestarum et memorabilium, Gratulationum, Apparatuum, et Spectaculorum | in ipsorum susceptione et Inavgvratione | hactenus editorum accurata Descriptio. | Antverpiæ. | Ex Officina Plantiniana, Apvd Ioannem Moretvm. сlɔ.ɔcп. | [1602.] Folio. Old calf. Index, 2 col. at end, 6 pp. .. The first part consists of the Engraved Title and 170 pp. of letter-press, the last numbered in error 176. Then follows the Second part with an elaborately bordered fresh Title as follows:: Pompæ Trivmphalis | et Spectacvlorvm, | in aduentu et in auguratione | Serenissimorum Principum | Alberti et Isa- ... This Triumph is illustrated with 28 large plates, 15 being double-page and the remainder whole-page size. The 28 plates delineate the Porticoes, Triumphal Arches, |