“He was in the suite of the English ambassador to Russia, returned and practised physic in London married unfortunately, buried his wife, and then went to Nottingham, where he lived several years.  During his abode there he wrote a small Treatise on the Small Pocks, this Catalogue of Plants, and the History of Nottingham, the materials for which John Plumtre, Esq. of Nottingham, was so obliging as to assist him with.  He also was paid 40l. by a London bookseller for adding 20,000 words to an English dictionary.  He was master of seven languages, and in 1746 he was favoured with a commission in the Nottinghamshire Foot, raised at that time.  Soon after died, and was buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard.

“William Ayscough, father of the printer of this Catalogus Stirpium (G.  Ayscough), in 1710, first introduced the art of printing at Nottingham.

“Mr. White was the same year the first printer at Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Mr. Dicey at Northampton.”—­MS. Note in the Copy of the Cat.  Stirpium, in the Library of the British Museum.

* * * * *

MISCELLANEOUS.

NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC.

Our advertising columns already show some of the good results of the Exhibition of the Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Art.  Mr. Williams announced last week his Historic Reliques, to be etched by himself.  Mr. Cundall has issued proposals for Choice Examples of Art Workmanship; and, lastly, we hear that an Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition, prepared by Mr. Franks, the zealous Honorary Secretary of the Committee, and so arranged as to form a History of Art, may be expected.  We mention these for the purpose of inviting our friends to contribute to the several editors such information as they may think likely to increase the value of the respective works.

The second edition of our able correspondent, Mr. Peter Cunningham’s Handbook of London, is on the eve of publication.

There are few of our readers but will be glad to learn from the announcement in a previous column, that the edition of the Wickliffite Versions of the Scriptures, upon which Sir Frederick Madden and his fellow labourers have been engaged for a period of twenty years, is just completed.  It forms, we believe, three quarto volumes.

Messrs. Puttick and Simpson lately disposed of a most select and interesting collection of autograph letters.  We unfortunately did not receive the catalogue in time to notice it, which we the more regret, because, like all their catalogues of autographs, it was drawn up with amateur-like intelligence and care; so as to make it worth preserving as a valuable record of materials for our history and biography.

We have received the following Catalogues of Books:—­No.  XXV. of Thomas Cole’s (15.  Great Turnstile):  No. 2. for 1850, of William Heath’s (291/2 Lincoln’s Inn Fields); and No. 15. of Bernard Quarritch’s (16.  Castle Street, Leicester Square) Catalogue of Oriental and Foreign Books.