The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-10 00:00:00

MR. BOHN'S NEW VOLUMES.

An Introduction to Aeronomy : to which is added
An Astronomical Vocabulary. By John Russell
Hind, F.R.A.S. Ono eel., pp. 216. Third Edition.
Henry G. Bohn.
Our Village. First and Second Series. By Mary
Russell Mitford. 2 vols. Henry G. Bohn.
Guided by the happiest tact in the selection of
copyrights, Mr. Bohn has, during the last sixteen
or eighteen years, been gradually accumulating
upon his own library bookshelves, and upon those
of his subscribers a really wonderful store of sound,
stirling, delightfully entertaining, and hardly less
delightfully instructive literature. He has been
enabled to do this, all the more effectually and effec-
tively, all the more rapidly and comprehensively
by issuing from the press, almost simultaneously,
not merely two or three, but as many as ten
or a dozen totally different collection of books,
or as he has entitled them, one and all (and with
good reason) LIBRARIES. In evidence, at once,
that we aro not in any way exaggerating the
number of these distinct series we need only
here briefly enumerate the designation of each set of
these valuable works. The Standard Library,
the most varied amongst them all, is, as a matter
of course, far and away, amongst them all, the
most voluminous. Uniform with it, is The School
and College Series, hardly less varied, though,
as might at once be imagined, not , nearly
so voluminous. The illustrated Library, a little
more costly in price, comprises within it worke no
less popular than " White's Selborne" and " Wal-
ton's Complete Angler," and with these others no
less comprehensive in their scope than "Lodge's
Portraits of Illustrious Personages." The Anti-
quarian Library comprises within it, again, such
otherwise inaccessible authorities as Bede and Mallet,
as Mathew Paris and William of Malmesbury, as
Marco Polo and Giraldus Cambrensis. The _His-
torical Library would be welcome to any book col-
lector or moderate means, if for nothing else, for its
comprising within it editions of the Diaries and
Correspondence of both Samuel Pepys and John
Evelyn. The like might be said for The Library
of French Memoirs, because of its supplying the
English reader, in full, with those both of the
famous Duke of Sully and of Phillip of Commines.
What need be said further in regard to the value
of The British Classics, when it has been remarked
that, among them, have here been brought together
the works of Edmund Burke, of Daniel Defoe, and
of Joseph Addison ? No less than seven volumes of
the collection being given up to a noble edition of
"Gibbon's Roman Empire," complete and una-
bridged, the original text of the " Decline and Fall"
being accompanied by a profusion of illustrative
notes and commentaries, by critics as various in their
acumen as Guizot, Wenck, Neander, and Niebuhr.
The Ecclesiastical Library, embracing within it
translations from the Greek of Eusebius and Philo
Jac m as—The Philologico-Philosophical Library,
containing, among other curious works, ‘. Wright's
Provincial Dictionary" and " 'Wheeler's Analysis
of Thucydides"—The Extra Volumes, no mere
careless after-thoughts on the part of the publisher,
be it observed, but a series, on the contrary, num-
bering within it the writings of such giants of
literature as Rabelais, Cervantes, and Boccaccio—
The Shilling Library, about the best of all the
railway libraries issued from the press : these, with
The Classical Library and The Scientific Library,
carry the separate collections of works pub-
lished by Mr. Bohn to the full number
of THIRTEEN ! The Scientific Library and
The Classical Library, each of them, extending
already to very nearly 100 volumes ! The latter,
even now, is a perfect marvel of completeness, con-
sisting, as it does, of literal prose translations from
such Greek and Latin classics as Homer, Virgil,
Horace, Cicero, Herodotus, Livy, Plato, Aristotle,
eEichylus, Thucydides, Suphocles, Terence, Sallust,
Pt cedrus, Tibdllus, Suetonius, Apuleins,Xenophon,
Hesiod, Catullus, Nepos, Caesar, Juvenal, Plautus,
Euripides, Pindar, Lucretius, Aristophanes, Mar-
tial, and Demosthenes. Talk of CRAM like that to
a Schoolboy—it were (for him) like killing off-hand
the grim old Dragons of Difficulty now watching
over the wickets of the golden orchard, and, after
that, turning him loose and unnoticed into the
Garden of the Hesperides! Whatever extent
of toil Mr. Bohn may have lavished, whatever
amount of money he may have squandered (and
he has manifestly been stinting of neither) in the
publication, simultaneously or alternately, steadily
and progressively, of these Thirteen remarkable
collections from the literatures of all nations and
in all languages, that enterprising publisher must
surely have had, must surely be now having his
reward—for he has certainly earned it, he ise
still persistently earning it. Here, in the two
charming works, whose titles are prefixed
t to
this notice, are his two latest additions n two
among bis Thirteen Libraries—Miss Russell
Mitford's Village to his Standard Library, and Mr.
Russell Hind's Introduction to Astronomy to his
Scientific Library—the two works,or three volumes,
issued from the press by Mr. Bohn simultaneously
with the magazines for this present monthda o f Sep-
tember. As to " Our Village," it has . ring the
last two generations enjoyed the reputation belong-
ing of right to a beloved and favourite English
classic—a book familiar to every patriotic man of
letters who can appreciate a humour as sweet and
innocent in its flavour, a style as pure
Washington
eaaned spon-
taneous in its grace, as those of either
Irving or of Oliver Goldsmith. What the Rev.
Gilbert White did so wondrously by the natural his-
tory, or more especially by the andbidrdasehy the social
insects of
Selborne, that Miss Mitford has
life of the Village, of which she herselfn was, in every
sense of the word, so happily a
that is for herself while an ninhabitant; happily
inhabitant and for our
national literature for ever afterwards. Gaffer and
gammer,lads and lassies,old crones and apple-cheeked
children, tinkers and tailors, as the nursery district
has it, soldiers and sailors,
ha butchers and bakers and
(supposing there could vebeen such in Our Village)
candlestick makers—all were as one to Miss Mit-
ford; she had an eyeef: the oddities and the virtues,
alike, of each of the motley race around her—each
was caught and embalmed and eternized in the
amber of her
beautiful narrative. And here in
what is • nothingless than a really lovely edition,
Mr. Bohn presents
two series
whole of this charming Eng-
lish classic (the w
series of the work complete),
in companion volumes to. his subscribers. As to the
new volume of The Scientific library (is not this,
by the way'
the sixty-second P), while it is
notified upon its titlepage as the Third Edition
of the work contained in it, we may here add
in reference to the interest attach
yet more,
it, as a whole, that the book con-
ing to
of two distinct publications originally issued
fsrisatms the press separately,
and now brought toge•
taker—
henceforth, we will hope, to be incorporated
permanently with each other. It is but right that
they should be so, for they certainly harmonise
very admirably. Both works, in this third
edition,o
moreover, are very considerably en-
larged, while the contents of each have been
subjected to a most careful revision. As an
Introduction to Astronomy we believe the book
to be unrivalled. As an Astronomical Vocabulary
we believe it to be at once the complctest and the
most accurate ever yet published, certainly within so
brief a compass and at so small a price. As might
have been expected from so eminent an astronomer as
Mr. Hind—himself the discoverer of no less than ten
out of the astounding number of seventy-eight
aateriods, yet brought to light, between the tat of
January, 1801, and the 15th of last March, 1863
Mr. Hind's asteroids being Iris, Flora, Victoria,
Irene, Melpomene, Fortuna, Calliope, Thalia,
Euterpe, and Urania—the very latest information
in regard to the growth of this celestial science, a
science ever-expanding, ever-advancing, is embodied
with scrupulous care in this very lucid and masterly
Introduction to Astronomy.

SCANDAL ABOUT QUEEN ELIZABETH ! Mr.
Fronde has been busy about the Sionaneas MSS.,
and intends, it is said, making liberal reference to scandals
about Queen Elizabeth in his first and second volumes of
the history of the reign of that Queen, forming the seventh
and eighth volumes of his " History of England from the
Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth." Hitherto the
extracts given from these Simancas documents seem en.
titled to no more credit than is usually accorded to the
scandals promulgated by Nicholas Saunders and Girolarae
Polliui towards the clue of the 16th celattiry,