ON BOOKS AND BOOK-BUYERS. By JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. "I say we have despised literature; what do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad—a bibliomaniac. But you never call one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its winecellars? What position would its expenditure on literature take as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body: now, a good book contains such food inexhaustibly: it is provision for life, and for the best part of us; yet, how long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it! Though there have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such a trial, and more the pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading as well as in munching and sparkling; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wiser people forget that if a book is worth reading it is worth buying.”—SESAME and Lilies; or, King's TREASURES. A Catalogue of Books PUBLISHED BY CHATTO & WINDUS 214, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W. IMPORTANT FINE-ART PUBLICATION. Imperial 8vo, with 147 fine Engravings, uniform with "Chatto's History of Wood Engraving," half-morocco, £1 16s. THE EARLY TEUTONIC, ITALIAN, AND FRENCH MASTERS. Translated and Edited from the Dohme Series by A. H. KEANE, M.A.I. With numerous Illustrations. "Cannot fail to be of the utmost use to students of art history."-TIMES. Second Edition, revised, crown 8vo, 1,200 pages, half-Roxburghe, 12s. 6d. THE READER'S HANDBOOK OF ALLUSIONS, REFERENCES, PLOTS, AND STORIES. By the Rev. Dr. BREWER. "Dr. Brewer has produced a wonderfully comprehensive dictionary of references to matters which are always cropping up in conversation and in everyday life, and writers generally will have reason to feel grateful to the author for a most handy volume, supplementing in a hundred ways their own knowledge or ignorance, as the case may be. It is something more than a mere dictionary of quotations, though a most useful companion to any work of that kind, being a dictionary of most of the allusions, references, plots, stories, ana characters which occur in the classical poems, plays, novels, romances, &c., not only of our own country, but of most nations, ancient and modern."-TIMES. The "A welcome addition to the list of what may be termed the really handy refer ence-books, combining as it does a dictionary of literature with a condensed encyclopædia, interspersed with items one usually looks for in commonplace books. appendices contain the dates of celebrated and well-known dramas, operas, poems, and novels, with the names of their authors."-Spectator. Crown 8vo, Coloured Frontispiece and Illustrations, cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. Advertising, A History of, From the Earliest Times. With Anecdotes, Curious Specimens, and Biographical Notes of Successful Advertisers. By HENRY Sampson. "We have here a book to be thankful for. We recommend the present volume, which takes us through antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the present time, illustrating all in turn by advertisements-serious, comic, roguish, or downright rascally. The volume is full of entertainment from the first page to the last."—ATHENÆUM. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with 639 Illustrations, 7s. 6d. Architectural Styles, A Handbook of. Translated from the German of A. RosenGARTEN by W. Collett- Crown 8vo, with Portrait and Facsimile, cloth extra, 7s. 6d. Artemus Ward's Works: The Works of CHARLES FARRER BROWNE, better known as Baker's Clouds in the East: Travels and Adventures on the Perso-Turkoman Frontier. By Balzac.-The Comédie Humaine and its Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7s. 6d. Bankers, A Handbook of London; With some Account of their Predecessors, the Early Goldsmiths; with Lists of Bankers, from 1677 to 1876. By F. G. HILTON PRICE. Bardsley (Rev. C. W.), Works by: English Surnames: Their Sources and Significations. By A New Edition, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7s. 6d. Bartholomew Fair, Memoirs of. By HENRY MORLEY. New Edition, with One Hundred Illustrations. Imperial 4to, cloth extra, gilt and gilt edges, 215. per volume. Beautiful Pictures by British Artists: A Gathering of Favourites from our Picture Galleries. In Two Series. The SECOND SERIES containing Pictures by ARMItage, Faed, All engraved on Steel in the highest style of Art. Edited, with Notices of the Artists, by SYDNEY ARMYTAGE, M.A. "Is well got up, and good engravings by Jeens, Lumb Stocks, and others, bring back to us pictures of Royal Academy Exhibitions of past years." ."-TIMES. Small 4to, green and gold, 6s. 6d. ; gilt edges, 7s. 6d. Bechstein's As Pretty as Seven, And other Popular German Stories. Collected by LUDWIG BECH- Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Map and Illustrations, 125. Beerbohm's Wanderings in Patagonia; Or, Life among the Ostrich-Hunters. By JULIUS BEERBOHM. A ride, which at all times would have had a wild and savage attraction, was destined by the merest chance · to prove unexpectedly perilous and adventurous. These stirring scenes, throughout which Mr. Beerbohm shows no slight degree of bravery and coolness, are described in a manner which is both spirited and modest. readable story, which well fills up a not unmanageable volume? Belgravia One Shilling Monthly, Illustrated. A thoroughly GRAPHIC. For January contained the First Chapters of Two Novels (each to be continued throughout the year) :-I. "THE CONFIDENTIAL AGENT." BY JAMES PAYN, Author of "By Proxy," &c.-II. “THE LEADEN CASKET," By Mrs. A. W. HUNT, Author of "Thornicroft's Model," &c.-This Number contained also the First of a Series of Twelve Articles on "OUR OLD COUNTRY TOWNS," with Five Illustrations by ALFRED RIMMER. *The FORTY-FIRST Volume of BELGRAVIA, elegantly bound in crimson cloth, full gilt side, gilt edges, price 7s. 6d., is now ready.Handsome Cases for binding can be had at 2s. each. An EXTRA HOLIDAY NUMBER of BELGRAVIA is Published in July of each year; and the BELGRAVIA ANNUAL every Christmas. Each Is. B Demy 8vo, Illustrated, Uniform in size for binding. Blackburn's Art Handbooks. Grosvenor Notes, 1880. With 56 Illustrations. IS. Pictures at the Paris Exhibition, 1878. With 80 Illustra- Pictures at South Kensington (The Raphael Cartoons, The English Pictures at the National Gallery. With IS. The Old Masters at the National Gallery. With 128 6s. Academy Notes, 1875-79. Complete in One Volume, The Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts Notes, 1878. The Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts Notes, 1879. The Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts Notes, 1880. With The Walker Art Gallery Notes, Liverpool, 1878. IS. The Walker Art Gallery Notes, Liverpool, 1879. IS. The Royal Manchester Institution Notes, 1878. With 88 Illustrations. Is. The Royal Society of Artists Notes, Birmingham, 1878. With 95 Illustrations. IS. Children of the Great City. By F. W. LAWSON. With |