A REGISTER OF ALL NEW WORKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND AND AMERICA,

WITH THEIR SIZES AND PUBLISHING PRICES.

TOGETHER WITH

CURRENT NOTES FOR THE MONTH.

ALSO COLLECTIONS OF

VALUABLE SECOND-HAND BOOKS, Aurient and Modern,

ON SALE AT VERY REDUCED PRICES,

BY

CEORGE WILLIS,

BOOKSELLER

GREAT PIAZZA, COVENT GARDEN

LONDON.

G. WILLIS having purchased, on very favourable terms, a large number, and in some instances the whole edition, of the following valuable works, begs to offer them at the annexed low prices. They are all quite perfect, and in every respect as good as when sold at the full published prices.

WILLIS'S CURRENT NOTES

FOR THE MONTH.

"I will make a prief of it in my Note-Book."-SHAKSPERE.

ADDRESS.

FRASER'S MAGAZINE commenced in February, 1830. SIXTEEN years ago G. WILLIS issued his first sheet Mr. James Fraser the publisher is said never to have recovered from the beating so severely inflicted by Catalogue of Second-hand Books, with their prices. Messrs. Grantley and Craven Berkeley, 3rd August, This Catalogue he then intended to publish quar-1836, in consequence of an article which appeared in terly. The demand, however, for his stock, steadily increasing, induced him to print his Catalogue every alternate month; upon which bi-mensial issue, a cele brated wit, now no more, observed to him, "the question is not for me to consider, Mr. Willis, but for you to decide upon the effect of transposition, (G. W. having then recently removed to his present premises), and whether men shall buy more or less, from your bi-mensial Catalogue."

This, though said as a joke, involved to G. WILLIS a serious consideration, for the high rate of postage at that time prevented him from sending his Catalogues but to comparatively few persons. Nor could he presume to send his customers an unpaid communication. This inconvenience lasted until April, 1847, when he thought that there ought to be no difficulty in placing his Catalogues upon the same footing as an ordinary Newspaper, and allowing them to pass free through the post office if charged with the stamp. duty. This, however, could only be effected by the fact of their containing news. He therefore added "the Price Current of Literature," advertising "all new works published in Great Britain, Ireland, and America, with their sizes, publishing prices, and authors' names;" and issued a Stamped Edition at three shillings subscription per annum, paid in advance, to meet the increased of printing and paper. expense Of the manner in which subscribers estimate "Willis's Catalogues and Price Current of Literature," many gratifying proofs have occurred; and in some cases this circumstance has forced upon him a correspondence that has assumed the shape of Literary enquiries which he has been assured, by competent judges, are of sufficient interest to merit preservation.

This

An addition, and he hopes an acceptable one, will therefore in future be made by G. WILLIS (without further charge) to his Price Current of Literature, under the title of "Notes for the Month." addition will not in any way affect the character of his Catalogues as hitherto established, nor the very reasonable prices at which standard works have always been offered for sale.

the Magazine, written by the late Doctor Maginn-the trial consequent upon which violent proceedings took place on the 3rd December following, and is published in "Fraser's Magazine' for January 1837, No. XV. p. 100. A duel was fought by Mr. Grantley Berkeley and Doctor Maginn; three shots were exchanged without effect, and the parties were withdrawn from the ground by their respective seconds. The offensive article was entitled, "Mr. Grantley Berkeley and his Novels," No. XIV. p. 242. Maginn's "defence of Fraser's Magazine in the Berkeley affair," appeared in XIV. p. 137. Doctor Maginn died the 19th August, 1842.

The print entitled " Fraserians" appeared in " Fraser's Magazine" for January, 1835, and is from the hand of D. Maclise, Esq., R.A. The chairman, who is speaking, was intended for Doctor Maginn, and following the round of the table from the chairman's left hand, the party as seated represent

The Rev. Edward Irving-died 6th December, 1834.
The Rev. Francis Mahony (Father Prout).
The Rev. G. R. Gleig.

Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart.-Died 8th Sept. 1837.
Mr. Allan Cunningham.-Died 29th October, 1842.
Mr. Thomas Carlyle.

The Count D'Orsay.

Mr. D. R. Moir (Delta).
Sir David Brewster.

Mr. Theodore E. Hook.-Died 24th August 1841.
Mr. Crofton Croker.

Mr. John Gibson Lockhart.

Mr. James Fraser.-Died 2nd October, 1841.
Mr. William Dunlop.

Mr. William Jerdan.

were contributors to Fraser's Magazine, although it is impossible that many of them could have met in the manner represented.

After the death of Fraser, who had collected around him this host of talent, Mr. Nickisson became the proprietor of "Fraser's Magazine"-but ill health obliged him to decline business, and he parted with his interest in the Magazine to Mr. Parker, West Strand, in June,

1847.

Complete sets of Fraser's Magazine in good condition are not in the market, although there ought to be no difficulty in procuring one.

MERCHANTS' MARKS.-We are not acquainted with any work upon this subject; but an interesting paper respecting Merchants' Marks was read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Hull in November, 1839, by Charles Frost, Esq., F.S.A.

Mr. Frost stated that the subject had received little attention from Antiquaries, but the term Merchants' marks was familiar to mercantile men, who have long been in the habit of adopting certain arbitrary characters or devices to designate the ownership of particular goods, their peculiar manufacture, or the various qualities of their workmanship."

In the "Law Magazine" for August, 1839, it was stated that "some of these vocabularies and characters are so peculiar as to be utterly unintelligible beyond the sphere of their immediate application, and not unfrequently beget a ludicrous association of ideas in uninitiated minds." "In all cases," says the same writer, "the reliance placed upon them is most explicit, and from the foreign and wholesale commerce of the greatest mercantile houses, down to the more humble retail dealer, any violation of good faith in the employment of them cannot but be attended with most prejudicial consequences. Whenever such a violation occurs, it may be very properly regarded in the twofold light of an invasion of a private right, and a fraud upon the public."

The Society of Antiquaries, from its usual tardiness, have deprived the public of the benefit of Mr. Woodward's knowledge, and to Mr. Dawson Turner must we look for the production of 53 of these interesting marks, extending from 1409 to 1599, with Mr. Woodward's elucidations of them.

That the history of English Merchants should remain to be written is certainly a subject of surprise to us.

Lady Bulwer Lytton, Miss Landon, Miss Roberts, and now Mrs. S. C. Hall. Perhaps in the wide range of the British metropolis no house can be named from which so much female talent has emanated.

Mr. Frost stated that "the Law of England, which Among its inmates may be enumerated, Lady Caroprovides a remedy for every injury, has thrown its pro-line Lamb, the Countess St. Quentin, Miss Mitford, tection over the use of these symbols for commercial purposes, by extending its aid to prevent their piracy. An instance of judicial recognition of the right of individuals to assume exclusively peculiar marks occurred so early as the 22nd year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth in the following case, related by Mr. Justice Doddridge. "An action was brought upon the case in Common Pleas, by a clothier, that whereas he had gained reputation by the making of his cloth, by reason whereof he had great utterance to his great benefit and profit; and that he used to set his mark to his cloth, whereby it should be known to be his cloth; and another clothier perceiving it used the same mark to his ill-made cloth, on purpose to deceive him, and it was resolved that an action did well lie."

Courts of Equity, as well as Law, have in various instances of recent occurrence supported the principle of this decision.

The Editor of the Memoirs of L. E. L. relates two or three circumstances which give a general interest to Hans Place. Here it was that Miss Landon was born on the 14th August, 1802, in the house now No. 25; and "it is remarkable that the greater portion of L. E. L.'s existence was passed on the spot where she was born. From Hans Place and its neighbourhood she was seldom absent, and then not for any great length of time; until within a year or two of her death she had there found her home, not indeed in the house of her birth, but close by. Taken occasionally during the earlier years of childhood into the country, it was to Hans-place she returned. Here some of her school time was passed. When her parents removed she yet

clung to the old spot, and as her own mistress chose the same scene for her residence. When one series of inmates quitted it she still resided there with their successors, returning continually after every wandering 'like a blackbird to her nest.""

The partiality of Miss Landon for London was extraordinary. In 1834 that accomplished lady wrote, ominously wrote, to a literary friend, "When I have the good or ill-luck (I rather lean to the latter opinion) of being married, I shall certainly insist on the wedding excursion not extending much beyond Hyde Park Corner." Little did she then dream that her wedding excursion was to be to Cape Coast Castle. When in her sixth year (1808), Miss Landon was sent to school at No. 22, Hans Place. This school was then kept by Miss Rowden, who, in 1801, had published "a Poetical Introduction to the Study of Botany," (8vo. 2nd Ed. 1812), and in 1810 a poem entitled "The Pleasures of Friendship." Miss Rowden married, and in the course of events became the Countess St. Quentin, went to France and died there.

In this house, where she had been educated, Miss Landon afterwards resided for many years as a boarder with the Misses Lance, who succeded Miss Rowden in conducting a ladies' school there. "It seems," observes the biographer of L. E. L., " to have been appropriated to such purposes from the time it was built, nor was L. E. L. the first who drank at the well of English' within its walls. Miss Mitford, we believe, was educated there, and Lady Caroline Lamb was an inmate for a time."

Our readers need scarcely be reminded that Lady Caroline was the wife of the late Viscount Melbourne to whom she was married in 1805. Or that her Ladyship published three novels-Glenarvon in 1816, and Graham Hamilton and Ada Reis, 1823. Miss Mitford has so minutely detailed her own history while a resident at No. 22, Hans Place, and her literary productions are so numerous, that we prefer allowing her to tell her own story hereafter, and following the course of Miss Landon.

that homely looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street and barely furnished with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old oblong shaped, sort of dressing table, quite covered with a common worn writing desk, heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught besides a desk; a little high-backed cane chair which gave you any idea rather than that of comfort. A few books scattered about completed the author's paraphernalia." In this attic did the muse of L. E. L. dream of and describe, music, moonlight, and roses, and apostrophise loves, memories, hopes, and fears," with how much ultimate appetite for invention or sympathy may be judged from her declaration that, "there is one conclusion at which I have arrived, that a horse in a mill has an easier life than an author; I am fairly fagged out of my life."

Miss Roberts, who had resided in the same house with Miss Landon, prefixed a brief memoir to a collection of poems by that lamented lady, which appeared shortly after her death, using as a motto her own mournful lines,

"Alas! hope is not prophecy-we dream,

But rarely does the glad fulfilment come;
We leave our land, and we return no more."

And within less than twenty months from the selection of these lines they became applicable to her who had quoted them.

Emma Roberts accompanied her sister, Mrs. M'Naughten to India, where they resided until her sister's death. Upon that event, Miss Roberts returned to England, and employed her pen assiduously and advantageously in illustrating the condition of our Eastern dominions. She returned to India, and died at Poonah on the 17th of September, 1840.

Though considerably the elder, she was one of the early friends of Miss Landon, having for several years previous to her visit to India boarded with the Misses Lance in Hans Place.

It was the remark of L. E. L. herself that "a history of how and where works of imagination have been produced would often be more extraordinary than the works themselves." "Her own case," observes a female friend, whom we believe we do not err in naming as the present occupier of 22, Hans Place, "is in some degree an illustration of perfect independence of mind "These were happy days, and little boded the premaover all external circumstance." Perhaps to the ture and melancholy fate which awaited them in foreign L. E. L. of whom so many nonsensical things have climes. We believe," says the editor of the Literary been said, as that she could write with a crystal pen, Gazette," that it was the example of the literary purdipped in dew, upon silver paper, and use for pounce suits of Miss Landon which stimulated Miss Roberts to the dust of a butterfly's wing, a dilettante of literature try her powers as an author, and we [Mr. Jerdan] rewould assign for the scene of her authorship a fairy- member having the gratification to assist her in launchlike boudoir with rose-coloured and silver hangings, ing her first essay-an historical production, [Memoirs fitted with all the luxuries of a fastidious taste. How of the rival houses of York and Lancaster, 2 vols. 8vo. did the reality agree with this fancy sketch? Miss 1827], which reflected high credit on her talents, and Landon's drawing-room, indeed, [It was the wing at once established her in a fair position in the ranks of attached to the house between it and "the Pavilion." literature. Since then she has been one of the most From the back a flight of steps descended into a small prolific of our female writers, and given to the public garden] was prettily furnished, but it was her invari- a number of works of interest and value. The expeable habit to write in her bed-room. I see it now, dition to India, in which she unfortunately perished,