A FEW WORDS OF EXPLANATION. It was in no boastful or puffing spirit that, when thanking a correspondent in our last number for "his endeavour to enlarge our circulation," and requesting all our friends and correspondents "to follow PHILO'S example by bringing 'NOTES AND QUERIES' under the notice of such of their friends as take an interest in literary pursuits," we added... more...

MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE EARL OF BOTHWELL. [Among the curious documents which have been produced from time to time before the House of Lords in support of peerage claims, there have been few of greater historical interest than the one which we now reprint from the Fourth Part of the Evidence taken before the Committee of Privileges on the Claim of W. Constable Maxwell, Esquire,... more...

TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND. I suppose that the history of travelling in this country, from the Creation to the present time, may be divided into four periods—those of no coaches, slow coaches, fast coaches, railways. Whether balloons, or rockets, or some new mode which as yet has no name, because it has no existence, may come next, I cannot tell, and it is hardly worth while to think about it; for, no... more...

DRYDEN ON SHAKSPERE. "Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition."—Samuel Johnson. No one of the early prose testimonies to the genius of Shakspere has been more admired than that which bears the signature of John Dryden. I must transcribe it, accessible as it is elsewhere, for... more...

A. A.(A.) on solemnization of matrimony, 46.Admiration, a note of, 86.Adur, origin of, 71. 108.Æneas, Silvius, 423.Aërostation, works on, 199. 251. 269. 285. 317. 380. 459.Aerostation, squib on Lunardi, 469."A Frog he would," &c., 45. 188.A.(F.R.) on Dr. Maginn, 109.—— on the Darby Ram, 285.—— on "Epistolm Obscururum Virorum," 122.—— on Parse, 522.—— on Hockey,... more...

A. Abbey of St. Wandrille, 382. 486.Abdication of James II., 39. 489.Aberdeen, Burnet prize at, 91.Aboriginal chambers near Tilbury, 462.A.(B) on emancipation of the Jews, 475.Accuracy of references, 170.Addison's books, 212.Adolphus on a recent novel, 231.Advent bells, 121.Adversaria, 73. 86.Aelfric's colloquy, 168. 197. 232. 248. 278.Aelian, translation of, 267. 284.A.(F.R.) on... more...

AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering... more...

THE FUTURE OF CHINA. The late reconquest by China of some of her former possessions in Central Asia, and the firm tone in which she is urging her demands upon Russia, in respect of the Kuldja territory, are giving her a prominence as a factor in Asiatic politics which she can scarcely be said to have claimed before. These signs of tenacity of purpose, if not of actual vitality, acquire an additional... more...

THE LANDING AT JOUAN The perfect calm of an early spring dawn lies over headland and sea—hardly a ripple stirs the blue cheek of the bay. The softness of departing night lies upon the bosom of the Mediterranean like the dew upon the heart of a flower. A silent dawn. Veils of transparent greys and purples and mauves still conceal the distant horizon. Breathless calm rests upon the water and that awed... more...

Pursuant to a call published in all the daily papers, and signed by a large number of prominent citizens and tax-payers of Boston, a public meeting was convened in Faneuil Hall on the evening of Wednesday, the 7th of June, 1876, to take action on the recommendations contained in the Report of the Park Commissioners. The hall was crowded by an intelligent and enthusiastic audience; and the proceedings... more...