Albert Way, the eminent archæologist, died last March. He was Director of the Archæological Society; he was a large contributor to the Archæological Journal, and edited Sir Samuel Meyrick's book upon "Ancient Arms and Armour." We are sorry to hear of the death of Mr. William Shergold Browning, on the 4th instant, at an advanced age. Mr. William S. Browning was uncle of Mr. Robert Browning, the poet; and amidst other pressing avocations found time to give some attention to literature. His principal works were, two historical novels, one called "Hoel Morven," and the other the "Provost of Paris." Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods sold, on the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th inst., the fourth portion of engravings from the works of Turner, comprising nearly 900 lots, of which the following were the more important, with the prices realized for them : Ancient Carthage, engraved by D. Wilson, artist's proof, 127; another, 12/.; proof before letters, India, 107; another, 117.-Ancient Italy, by Willmore, artist's trial proof, 137.; another, 137.-Modern Italy, by W. Miller, artist's proof, with etched title, 107; artist's proof, 10 guineas.—Heidelburg, by T. A. Prior, unfinished proof and etching, 117.; proof nearly finished, 127.; another, 10.-Mercury and Argus, by Willmore, touched proof, with MS. notes, 117; trial proof, 12/.; proof before letters, India, 10l.; proof before letters, India, 137. The prints of which the remainders were sold on these days were, Ancient Carthage, Ancient Italy, Modern Italy, Heidelburg, Oxford, Venice, by W. Miller, Mercury and Argus, The Field of Waterloo, The Deluge, Fishing Boats off Calais, and Boccaccio. The large old house on Chiswick Mall, sometimes called the Manor House, and known as the original seat of the Chiswick Press, so famous in typographical history, has been pulled down, and its materials sold. This building, says the Athenæum, was formerly an appanage to Westminster School, and was used as a sanitarium-as it was sometimes called, a "Pest-House." It is, or was, the property of Westminster School. The most notable Welsh book that has been pub. lished here in many years is the "History of the Welsh in America" (12mo, 527 pp.), by Rev. R. D. Thomas, better known to his own countrymen as Jorthryn Gwynedd, a gentleman of great industry and an author of considerable repute, whose writings, however, display more vigor than elegance. Barring some faults of style, and occasional bias as to some events in which he himself was a participant, this book is a most valuable contribution to Welsh literature, methodically arranged and full of facts to be found in no other accessible form. The need of such a work has been long felt, and we know of no person so well qualified for the task as Mr. Thom is. He has given a complete digest of Welsh-American history, secular and ecclesiastical, from the earliest times to the present. Beginning with a short sketch of the ancient Britons in Wales, he discusses the question as to whether Madoc came to America, and arrives at the conclusion that the known facts do not warrant the assumption that Madoc landed on this continent. An interesting account is given of the early Welsh immigration to Pennsylvania in the time of William Penn. Mr. Thomas refers with pride to the fact that Roger Williams was a native of Wales, and mentions several of his countrymen who participated in the Revolutionary War. The first considerable immigration was that to Pennsylvania, from 1682 to 1730; but from 1795 to 1805 a large number of Welsh Dissenters came here-Congregationalists, Baptists, and Calvinistic Methodists. The oldest Welsh settlements are those of Ebensburg, Pa., 1796, and Oneida County, N. Y., 1776. Mr. Thomas gives a detailed history of each settlement, with other information of a general character, religious statistics, a list of books and periodicals that have been and are now being published, and the names of authors and writers for magazines. One fault of the book is its too personal character, which detracts from its value as a book of reference.-Nation. Miss Louisa Washington.-The question was asked some time since in the BIBLIOPOLIST, whose daughter the Miss Louisa Washington was who married Mr. Fairfax. I answer. Louisa Washington was the daughter of Warner Washington, of Fairfield, who was the son of John Washington, uncle to General George Washington. Warner Washington, of Fairfield, was married first to Miss Macon, second to Miss Fairfax, sister to Lord Fairfax. He was first cousin and his daughter Louisa second cousin to George Washington. Warner Washington, of Fairfield, had one son, Warner Washington, of Audley Court, Clark county, Va., who was the grandfather of Captain Edward Crawford Washington, who was killed in the attack on Vicksburg, May, 1863. Captain Washington's maternal grandfather was Edward Crawford, an officer of the Revolution wounded at Bunker Hill. Charles Fairfax, who died in Baltimore two years ago, was a descendant of Louisa Washington and William Fairfax, the last one of the name who might have been styled "Lord.” Kuklux. This word is probably derived from the Romani word Kukalos, goblins, spectres. E. R. Travelling in Italy Forty Years Since.The names in the following letter, no less than the information it contains, may give it interest to some readers. It was written by a lady in August, 1832, from Mola di Gaeta : "I am very fond of this place, where the seabreezes and bathing are so refreshing in summer time. The remains of antiquity in this neighborhood are wonderfully little known, considering they lie near the road to Naples. Mme. and Mlle. Vernet, the wife and daughter of M. Horace Vernet, a famous French painter, and Director of the French Academy at Rome, are here. We mess together, and drive and walk out, &c. They are very pleas ant people, Mlle. is a beautiful girl, about eighteen, and highly accomplished. She speaks and writes English like a native, and is very well acquainted with that part of our literature which is usually read by foreigners; but it is rare at her age to find such a correct judgment both as to books and persons. Madame V. was making a calculation the other day of the expenses of living in this country, which I will tell you. She and her daughter travel in their own carriage with a pair of horses, coachman, footman and maid. They are not economical people, and like to live well. She tells me the whole expense of their traveling, living, &c., comes to about £300 a year, so that she thinks two ladies living together would find £500 sufficient for everything, including dress and any other little items. But, of course, it requires some experience as to treating with inn-keepers, and new comers could not easily manage so well, particularly English people." The young lady here referred to afterwards became the wife of Paul Delaroche, and died childless, in 1845. If the union had been crowned with a son, the issue was to have perpetuated the two great artist names as Vernet-Delaroche. But, alas! from the time of Sheakespeare, and earlier, such anticipated hereditary glories have been denied to the descendants of men of great genius. The makers or inventors rarely become founders of families. C. Our Clever Things.—“ N. & Q." has frequently pointed out parallel passages and apparent plagiarisms, but I have never seen a collection of the excuses made by the perpetrators thereof. Molière said, “Je reprends mon bien où je le trouve." Mr. Charles Reade recently claimed the right of the literary artist to "set jewels" even though the gems were the property of another. In the preface to the "Heiress by Burgoyne (who was not a plagiarist) is quoted this paragraph from the preface to the "Rivals" of Sheridan (who was a plagialist)— "Faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten dreams, and the imagination in its fullest enjoyments becomes suspicious of its offspring, and doubts whether it has created or adopted. In Lloyd's prologue to Colman's "Jealous Wife," it is said of the author of the comedy "Books too he read, nor blushed to use their store; He does but what his betters did before. Shakspere has done it, and the Grecian stage Caught truth of character from Homer's page." Colman, however, honestly acknowledges in the preface his indebtedness to "Tom Jones" and the " Spectator." Ben Jonson, copied by Dumas père, declared that he did not steal, he conquered. It is perhaps curious to note that the younger Dumas relies solely upon himself. and his own experience, while his father plundered right 1oyally. J. BRANDER MATTHEWS. Among the signs of the revival of letters in Enggland in the sixteenth century may be counted the first appearance of miscellanies in which the fugitive poetry of the day found refuge. Poetry in the reign of the Tudor monarchs commenced to be a courtly accomplishment. The list of sixteenth-century poets includes Queen Elizabeth, King Edward, and a host of people of rank, among whom are the Earls of Oxford, Dorset and Essex, Lords Surrey, Rochford, Sheffield, Walden, and Vaux of Harrowden, the Lord High Admiral of England, with knights and gentlemen innumerable. Tottel's " Miscellany," published in 1557, was the first attempt to collect scattered works of minor poets of which any record survives. It was followed, in 1559, by the now famous "Myrrour for Magistrates," and in succeeding years by the "Paradise of Dainty Devises," "A Gorgious Gallery of Gallant Inventions," "A Handeful of Pleasant Delites," "The Phoenix Nest," "England's Helicon," "A Poetical Rapsody," and one or two other collections, with titles equally full of pleasant promise. To these compilations we owe the preservation of many poems of high merit and interest. By the close of the century, however, poetry had become a vocation. Authors took care of their productions, reaping the honor, and it might be the profit, of their sale, and the only scattered poems which remained to be included in an anthology were the commendatory verses which, at the commencement of a seventeenth-century volume, stand like so many lords in waiting to bow in his majesty the poet. The reigns of the Stuarts include few collections earlier than that storehou e of the wit and filth of seventeenth-century literature, the State Poems, the miscellanies to which Dryden lent his name, and those which were announced as by the most eminent hands. A few attempts were made during the reign of Charles the First and the commonwealth to bring together the verses which commended themselves to the taste of some enthusiastic admirer of poetry. The times were little favorable to such pursuits, however, and the collections, as such, have but moderate interest. In 1817 a few rare works of this class were comprised in two volumes, and published, with some preliminary matter, by Messrs. Lo mans. This edition, scarcely less rare at the present day than the originals of the separate works of which it is composed, has now been reprinted with all its curious contents, both literary and pictorial. Of the three separate compositions contained in the two volumes before us, one only is entitled to rank with the poetical miscellanies of the preceding century. "Musarum Delicia; or, the Muses Recreation,' containing severall pieces of poetique wit, by Sr. J. M. and Ja. Smith," and "Wit Restor'd,' in severall select poems not formerly publisht," con 2 vols. fcap, 8vo, uncut edges. $7.50. sist principally of original poems by Sir John Mennis, Vice-Admiral of the fleet to Charles the First, and chief comptroller of the Navy under his son, and Dr. James Smith, Archdeacon of Barnstaple, chaplain to the Earl of Clarendon, and rector of Alphynton in Devonshire. It is a difficult and not particularly important task to assign to the respective authors their rightful share in these productions, or to know how much foreign aid was contributed. Sir John Mennis, according to Anthony Wood, "assisted Sir John Suckling in some of his poetry." One may imagine, accordingly, Suckling to have had a hand in some of the wittier poems in the "Musarum Delicia." "A Journey into France," which is one of the sprightliest of the compositions, is included in the works of Bishop Corbet, on what authority it is now impossible to say. "The Lover's Melancholy" is taken from "The Nice Valour; or, the Passionate Madman," of Beaumont and Fletcher; and other poems come like echoes of Herrick, Carew, and other cavalier poets. Nothing in the fairy poety of Herrick or Drayton is quainter in fancy than some of the verses in "King Oberon's Apparel." After describing the doublet "made of the four-leaved true love grasse," the cloak of " tinsel gossamere" and other garments, Dy'd crimson with a maidens blush, the author, who is assumed to be Sir John Mennis, says: The sword they girded on his thigh, A paire of buskins they did bring His belt was made of mirtle leaves, He windes and then his faeries skip. The phrase "moon-burn'd lip" is bold and original. In some editions of this work, but not in all, appeared, are told, the well-known lines subsequently imitated by Butler in "Hudibras": we Banbury veni o profanum, &c. In some verses "Upon Lute-strings Cat-eaten " are the lines: Or else, profane, be hang'd on Monday, The first edition of " Musarum Deliciæ was published in 1640; that of "Drunken Barnabee" circa 1648. The question of indebtedness rests, apparently upon the point whether this poem appeared in the first edition of Sir John Mennis' works. In "Wit Restor'd" the most notable poems are "Phillida flouts me," the epitaphs on Hobson, the carrier, some verses entitled "The Reply," and the ballad of "Little Musgrave," barefaced plagiarisms most of them, original poems of well-known authors being taken and slightly altered. "Wit's Recreations, Augmented with Ingenious Conceits for the Wittie and Merrie, Medecines for the Melancholie," is a collection of epigrams, epitaphs, puzzles, poems in the shape of objects, and other quaint and fantastic fripperies of the early muse. For these Quarles, Donne, Herrick, Waller, and poets so remote even as Lydgate have been laid under contribution, though the names of the writers are never subscribed to their works. At the close are a number of proverbs collected by George Herbert The works thus brought together are equally curious, valuable, and interesting, the collection of epigrams being the largest, so far as we are aware, that had been given to the world at the time of its appearance. In works like these the limits of decency are frequently overstepped. The seventeenth century was tolerant of language which now has gone out of usage among peop e of education; and ladies of birth and breeding like the Duchess of Newcastle, in her time a model of propriety, used words and discussed matters that now are tabooed in literature and in society. Our epigrammatists especially took Martial for their model, and came up to their classical predecessors in obscenity, if in nothing else. A regrettable proportion of the contents of the three works before us is, in subject and language, unsuited to the present day. The poems or epigrams are coarse, however, in the sense in which Rabelais and Swift, Pope in his imitations, and other kindred writers, are coarse. To works subsequently written they are wholly superior in this respect, however, and there is not one line that is likely to do harm to any human being, or cause any feeling more dangerous than a shudder of dislike or repulsion. Are then, it may be asked, works of this class proper subjects for reprinting? We an-wer, unquestionably. Something might be advanced against their appearance in a cheap form, intended to attract a general public. Half a-guinea a volume, which, however, is the price at which this book and the companion volumes, containing the "Pills to Purge Melancholy" of Durfey, are published, is a price which few but scholars will pay. The idea that any human being will read through the songs of Durfey, or the poems of Mennis, for the sake of the indecency, is wholly unreasonable. The volumes with which we deal, and the Durfey to which we have referred, have been the subject of an essay in a contemporary journal, in which the interference of a private society is invited in order to stop what is treated as an immoral traffic. It is no duty of ours to comment upon the circumstance of a periodical, which should resent any attempt to interfere with the freedom of printing, soliciting such interference. It seems necessary to repeat once more, however, what has been said by Milton, and established in every civilized country, that the literature of past ages belongs to the present day, and that the world is not to be deprived of works from which may derive profit or pleasure because they are, in individual opinion, objectionable or dangerous. There are, unquestionably, a few products of human intellect so perverse and so revolting that no man would be pardonable who should attempt to bring them in any shape before the public. So completely true is it that good books hold their place, and bad ones drop out and are forgotten, that there is, probably, scarcely an individual among those classes even most interested in literature who has ever seen a work of the class denoted, or to whom the few authors who have degraded letters and humanity are more than a name. Society in such matters is thoroughly healthy, and will remain so while the responsibility of looking after its own welfare is left in its hands. If we apply the standard of commonplace respectability and Philistine ignorance to the press and to art, we shall inevitably drop from a place in the van of civilization, if we do not lose our right to be considered civilized. There are signs of a movement in this direction. The half-educated classes, if appealed to, would, of course, be as dangerous in our libraries as ever was Mohammedan conqueror. They would be in favor of the suppression of all that is not in keeping with the morals of the day. It is appalling to think in what a position the world would be had the Greeks and Romans destroyed whatever in early literature was contrary to received theology and morals. Milton's eloquent words remain Why should we then affect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which books freely permitted, are both to the trial of virtue and exercise of truth." ("Areopagitica," Prose Works, vol. ii. page 75, ed. 1848.) The right to reprint the writings of Aristophanes, Lucian, Martial, and Petronius has never been denied, and grave and reverend prelates have founded their claims to distinction upon the editing of uncastrated editions of these works. Is the world, it may be asked, to restrict itself to works in the classical languages, framing for them one law, and another for more modern productions? If the publishers of "Musarum Delicia" and Durfey's "Pills" commit a sin against society, to be punished by fine or imprisonment, Rabelais, Brantôme, Ariosto, Marguerite de Navarre, Clément Marot, Marston the Satirist, Swift, Dryden, and most of the dramatists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with hundreds of other and more recent writers, must be in time for getten, since none will be bold enough to reprint these works. It will not suffice to say that the merits of such writers are so conspicuous as to cover their d:fects. The world is the judge in these matters; and if the books now under notice be nought, they will come to n thing. We want, as Macaulay says, a robust and not a valetudinarian virtue. It comes fairly within the province of criticism to warn from a book those to whom it is likely to prove useless or unpleasant, but not to summon the action of a pri vate society to the discharge of a task that has never been tolerated, except when the world. was overwhelmed with superstition or enslaved in ignorance. We deal with the broad question, rather than with the narrower issue of the individual book. It must surprise a little, however, pious George Herbert, the Bishop of Oxford, and the Archdeacon of Barnstaple, if their ghosts are conscious of human affairs, to find a work in which their joint share amounts to half the entire substance selected as meriting general reprobation, and subjecting its publishers to the risk of a prosecution. GOSSIP ABOUT PORTRAITS. III.-ON (Continued.) ENGRAVED PORTRAITS, AND We smile at the hyperbolic encomia lavished on great men, more frequently on the illustrious obscure, by contemporaries, but the examples we have given are perhaps outdone by the following, which ap pears at the foot of a portrait, dated 1649: "If Rome unto her conqu'ring Cæsars raise Rich obelisks to crown their deathless praise; These be brave words, my masters! Do you ask to what "conqu'ring Cæsar" they apply? They were written in praise of one Richard Elton, who wrote a book on the "Art Military," the "inward part" of which not having read, we can the better perhaps believe in the "extasy'd" condition of those who have. But perhaps you will object to this that it is only the obscurity of the person panegyrized, that makes the wonder! Here then is "higher game!" This is from a monody, pumped from the lowest depths of Bathos, on the death of Queen Elizabeth. The whole is preserved by Camden, and considered by him to be "truly doleful:" "The Queen was brought by water to Whitehall; We are afraid, despite the grief of her subjects, their tears would scarcely have floated the Queen to her haven of rest, unless she could have been as easily accommodated as a personage of whom a poet of the next century thus sings: "An ancient sigh he sits upon Whose memory of sound is long since gone." Portraits in old times very frequently were the means of perpetuating, by the introduction of an emblem or incident in the back-ground, as a battle, a large book with title displayed, an axe and block, &c., some extraordinary event in the life or |