Ireland, France, Spain, Holland, Germany, Italy, and many other places. By John Hill, Physitian and Astrologer." Then a diagram on title-page," the form of the Comet with its Blaze or Stream as it was seen Dec. the 24th, anno 1680. In the evening. London, printed by H. Brugis for William Thackery, at the Angel in Duck Lane." [1680.]

This same comet led to the publication of another very curious folio tract: The Petitioning Comet, Or, a Brief Chronology of all the Famous Comets, And their Events, that have happen'd from the Birth of Christ to this very day. Together with a Modest Enquiry into this present Comet. London: printed by Nat. Thompson, next door to the Cross-Keys in Fetter Lane, 1681.

"The Sinner's Thundering Warning-piece. Being an Account of the great Damage done by the late Dreadful Thunder and Lightning on the 16th of July last, both in City and Country; particularly at Tatnum-court, Islington, and several other places in and about the City of London, by beating down Chimnies, part 9 Houses, striking some dead, and others speechless, in a sad and deplorable manner; as also how one Mr. Woollar, of Ipswich in Suffolk, and six of his passengers was struck dead in his Wherry the same day by the lightning, and many others dangerously scorch'd and burnt. The truth of which will be attested any day of the week by Ipswich Hoy-men at Bearkey near Billingsgate, or at the Pewter Platter in Bullingbrook's-rents, near Spittle Yard. To which is added a Sermon preach'd at Mr. Wollar's Funeral on the said occasion at St. Margaret's Church in Ipswich, by Mr. Wm. Elemy, Minister of the said Parish, his text being Psalm lxxvii. 17, 18, &c." "Licensed according to order. London, printed by H. Hills, in Blackfryars, near the water-side." By local inquiries at Ipswich I fixed the year of this event at 1708, whereas the title-page and appearance of this tract would place it a century earlier.

Among other curious and rare books which I have seen, may be enumerated: "An Apologie, 1, Or Rather a Retractation; 2, Or Rather a Recantation; 3, Or Rather a Reiapitulation; 4, Or Rather a Replication; 5, Or Rather an Examination; 6, Or Rather an Accusation; 7, Or Rather an Explication; 8, Or Rather an Exhortation; 9, Or Rather

a Consideration; 10, Or Rather a Confirmation; 11, Or Rather all of them; 12, Or Rather none of them. 1596." By Sir John Harington. "Rot among the Bishops, or a Terrible Tempest in the See of Canterbury set forth in Lively Emblems to please the Fudicious Reader, 1640," a satire against Archbishop Laud. By Thomas Stirry. A certain Relation of a Hog-faced Gentlewoman, called Mistris Tannakin Skinker, who was born at Whirkham on the Rhyne. 1640."

"March of the Lion; or, the Conclusion of the War between Dunce and the Dunces, containing the progress of the Golden Savage from the Bedford Coffee House in search of new quarters. 1752."

2. Books I have not seen :-Among the books to be classed under this heading are: "Foyfull Newes out of the newe founde world, wherein is declared the rare and singular virtues of diverse and sundrie Herbes, Trees, Oyles, Plantes, and Stones, by Dr. Monardus of Sevill, Englished by Jhon Frampton, 1577." "A Discovery of Subterraneall Treasure, viz., of all Manner of Mines and Minerals, from the Gold to the Coale, Art of Melting, Refining and Assaying of them, etc., 1639." By Gabriel Plattes. "The Doctrine of the Asse, an account of their Principles and Practice, in whose behalf the complaint was written, that it may serve for advice to others; whereunto is added,

Balaam's Reply and the Author's Reply, 1661." By Lewis Griffin. "A Dialogue concerning Decency.... 1751."

3. Books I should like to see :-Under the heading I might name, among other books for which space does not admit, such works as the following:-" The Enemie of Securitie; or, a Daily Exercise of Godlie Meditations, for the Profit of all Persons of Anie State or Calling, translated by Thomas Rogers, 1583." By Dr. John Avenar, Professor at Witeberge [sic]. "A Purge for Pluralites, showing the Unlawfulnesse of Men to have Two Livings; or the Downe-fall of Double Benefices; being in the Clymactericall and fatall yeare of the proud Prelates, but the year of Fubilee to all poor hunger-pinch'd Schollers, 1642." "Essay in Praise of Woman, a Looking-glass for Ladies to see their Perfections in . . . . Edinburgh, 1767." By J. Bland. "Cupid and Hymen, or a Voyage to Isle of Love and Matrimony, containing a diverting Account of their Inha

bitants, with the Bachelor's Estimate of Expenses, and the Married Man's Answer to it, by John Single, 1742."

4. Books I never expect to see:-Regarding these books I will be vain enough or sanguine enough to hope that they may constitute a constantly decreasing number. Accident rather than design seems to help one respecting them they turn up unexpectedly in the most unlikely places. While the number thus seems to be steadily decreasing, it is, in fact, rather rapidly increasing, in the sense that, so long as we know nothing of the actual existence of a book, we are necessarily indifferent about seeing it; but from the moment that we do get to know that it was once a veritable fact, we are put upon our mettle, and do not readily abandon hope. One's literary acquaintance here come in of great service-not to beg or to borrow, but to cast about for us. We constitute them into a corps of skirmishers, to search for, verify, and, perchance, produce to our vision that which without them we should at least have a lessened chance of seeing. I have the good fortune to possess several such friends; they fall within the category of Burton's Bookhunter-they are mighty book-hunters. I name two as samples-Mr. Samuel Timmins, and Professor W. Stanley Jevons. In the trade they are legion. But, notwithstanding the aid of such friends, I own to a misgiving if I shall ever see the following, or any considerable proportion of them:-" The Miserie of Flaunders, Calamitie of Fraunce, Misfortune of Portugall, Unquietness of Ireland, Troubles of Scotland, and the blessed state of England. 1579." By Thos. Churcheyarde. "The Lawyer's Logike, exemplifying the Precepts of Logike by the Practise of the Common Lawe. 1588." By Abraham Fraunce. "The CounterScuffle, whereunto is added the Counter-Rat, written by R. S. 1670." "The Miraculous Power of Clothes, and Dignity of the Taylors, being an Essay on the words Clothes make men.' Translated from the German. Philadelphia, Mentz, MDCCLXXII."

I trust that the foregoing remarks may prove of sufficient interest to induce others to follow up the subject of special collections, of tracts more particularly, and to note the peculiarities of title-pages at different periods of our book-history.

The Shakespeare DeathMask.

HERE are few people of any culture who have not longed in moments of their lives to have seen some of the greater dead-of the immortals as they were when in the flesh-if but for one minute. Who that loves art has not attempted to imagine when in Florence or Rome the massive face of Buonarotti, or the imperial visage of Sanzio; who that cares for poetry has not conjured up the thin close-set lips and beaked nose of Dante or the dome-shaped brow of Shakespeare ?

It has been my privilege recently to have seen, not indeed one of these faces in the flesh or in a vision, but (if self-conviction be allowed) as near to what it was once when still in our common mould as human skill can reproduce-namely, a mask of the dead face of Shakespeare.

At the present time of writing these lines there is staying at Windsor Castle (as private secretary to the household of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt) Doctor Ernest Becker, whose brother, Ludwig Becker, Court painter at Darmstadt, discovered the mask or cast of Shakespeare's face in an old curiosity shop at Mayence in 1849, and brought it in the following year to London, where it was exhibited. In the same year he left England for Australia, and was one of the victims of the expedition led by Burke and Wills, to which he had attached himself as naturalist. Between the years 1849 and 1861 this cast was kept in the charge of Professor Owen. I recollect seeing it under a glass case in his department in the British Museum, probably about a quarter of a century ago.

The impression of an individual, especially if he be of an artistic temperament, I know, goes for little in such a question as whether the cast now in Dr. E. Becker's possession is, or is not, actually the one taken from the face of the dead poet. Without evidence, and without even a tradition, such impressions are but worth the ink with which they are written. As for the very slight history relating to this cast, I will give it in as few words as I can.

as being that of Shakespeare, there is little reason to doubt; but how it and the picture came into that family, or into Germany at all, no one knows, nor will it be known probably throughout all time.

So much and so little, alas! for the evidence, legally speaking, in favour of this cast being taken from off Shakespeare's dead face.

Sentimentally speaking, I am convinced that this is indeed no other but Shakespeare's face; that none but the great immortal looked

stonemason) is taken from a cast of the corpse: a trifling but a marked difference between the sides of the face almost prove this. Looking into the cast narrowly, one is convinced that that bust is a poor copy, a very poor and coarse but still a copy of this mask; the features are, as it were, coarsely and vulgarly photographed and reproduced in the stone, and with the exception of the nose (in the bust it is much shorter, but this is probably owing to an accident)

that of a jury of matrons should undertake to view the opened grave at Stratford: they at any rate would not need to fear the curse that is written above the grave-for it says, "cursed be he (and not she), who stirs that sacred dust."

For your readers of a scientific turn of mind I will give the following dimensions of this mask-copied from an article in that admirable American publication Scribner's Monthly for July, 1874. They are as follows:

1. Length of a straight line from ear to ear (the exterior part of the ear excluded), 10.2 in. 2. Distance between the eyebrows, 16 in. N.B. The extreme ends of the eyebrows are not exactly equidistant from the middle line of the face, the right being distant 0'75 in., and the left 0.85 in.

3. The length of a straight line, from the centre of the pupil of one eye to the centre of the other, 2.75 in.

Sentiment is not proof, and facts, not fancies, I may be told, are what is required in ascertaining the authenticity of such a relic as this death-mask. These, indeed, are not to be obtained, as I have already said; but even without these I for one would consider the acquisition of this cast for this country as one of immense interest and importance. RONALD GOWER.

M

Reviews.

Memoir of G. Béranger. By the late Sir WILLIAM WILDE, M.D. (M. H. Gill & Son, Dublin, 1880.) OST of our readers, we imagine, will be more likely to associate the name of Béranger with French songs than with Irish ecclesiastical antiquities; and we expect that, on this side of the Channel at least, few persons know anything of the labours of Gabriel Béranger, just a century ago, in the cause of art and antiquities in Ireland. Of Huguenot extraction, and an adopted son of Ireland, he devoted the best years of a laborious and not very well-paid life to an examination of the many remains of early ages which had been spared through all the civil wars that had devastated that island; and he claims the credit of the first person in modern times who set himself earnestly to work to read the riddle of the Round Towers which there form so striking a

From the line of the eyes to the centre of the mouth, o'93 in.

From the mouth to the bottom of the chin (not the beard), 18 in.

The whole distance from the line of the eyes to the bottom of the chin, 4'4 in.

In these days of general doubt, and when it is the fashion to pooh-pooh religious as well as historical matters, one can hardly expect that this cast of Shakespeare's brow and face can be accepted by the savans and wise men of arts and letters; but I should like any unprejudiced person to be shown this death-mask, and, after a thorough and complete investigation of it, to say whether he does not think that it comes up to the very highest conception that he has formed of his own ideal, as well as from the very poor representations that have been handed down to us of what William Shakespeare looked on that April morn in 1616, when the everlasting day had cast over the dead poet's face a light not of this world.

structures, built also with a view to defence and security; and he does not at all accept the theory that they were intended as beacons. It is almost needless to add that the researches of more recent times have fully confirmed this view, and that the name of Béranger, the pioneer, has been undeservedly forgotten, being thrown into the cold shade of oblivion by those who came after him-Dr. Petrie, Mr. Madden, and the leading spirits of the Archæological Association of

Ireland.

Sir William Wilde has given us, in a preface and in the body of the work, a short but complete biography of Béranger; and has amplified the diary of his various antiquarian tours into a consecutive narrative which is full of interest, and as rich in local anecdote as in topographical description; letting the reader into the condition of the Irish peasantry as well as of the upper and wealthier classes during the first decade of the reign of George III. The memoir was about two-thirds completed when its continuity was broken off by the long illness and death of Sir William Wilde; but the thread has been taken up, and the concluding portion faithfully given to the world by Lady Wilde, first in the columns of the Kilkenny Archæological Journal, and now in the volume before us. It should be added that the book is adorned with no less than seventeen illustrations, carefully drawn on wood, showing a variety of other Irish antiquities besides the Round Towers-stones, cabins, arches, crosses, &c. Even many a well-informed Irishman may learn from this work for the first time that a Round Tower was standing in the City of Dublin a little more than a century ago.