nation of the origin of this name is given, which there can be little doubt is the true one. "Fronting the royal stables (now appertaining to the Toy Hotel) is a small triangular plain. This plain in the era of the Tudors and Stuarts was the tilting-place, and indeed the playground of the adjoining palace. Here used to be set up moveable fences, made of net-work, called toils or tois, used in those games in which barriers were needed, from whence the name of the stately hostel on the green is derived."

This is borne out by a passage in the Rev. D. Lysons's "Middlesex Parishes." "In the survey in 1653 (preserved in the Augmentation Office) mention is made of piece of pastureground near the river, called the Toying Place; the site probably of a well-known inn near the bridge, now called The Toy.""

This tavern stands directly facing the ancient Tilting or Toying Place, now commonly called Hampton Court Green, one side of which is bordered by "Frog-walk."* The stables at tached to it formerly belonged to the palace, and their dull and gloomy architecture contrasts strangely with

the stately and handsome façade of the tavern. In these stables we may suppose the horses were housed, and the Tois kept prepared for the tilts and equestrian games which were held opposite; so that the present position and property of "The Toy" are in singular harmony with the origin of its name.

William III. who lived much at Hampton Court, patronized the Toy, and was in the habit of giving periodical rump-steak dinners to his Dutch courtiers at the tavern, terminating no doubt with a glorious consumption of tobacco. It is well known that the king and his Dutch friends had an ardent passion for smoking, which was probably forbidden to be indulged within the palace walls.

John Drewry, who issued this token, adopted the heart-shape; it is undated, but must have been struck between 1648 and 1672, the period to which this species of currency was limited. We have delineated, among our former examples, specimens of the square and the octagon. These were all departures from the ordinary circular form, and were probably devised to attract notice. B. N.

Henry. Some time after the Bartholomew Act came into operation, Henry chanced to fall in with his old master, Busby of Westminster. "Why, child," said the patriarch of the sieve," what has made thee a non-conformist?" "Master," replied the pupil, "it is your doing. You gave me the learning which taught me that I ought not to conform." So with ourselves. It was the editor of the Athenæum who gave us the information which taught us to unite his scheme with the monster

"The

catalogue of Mr. Panizzi. What he wrote in his paper of the 11th May, was as follows:

"What we propose is this:-let Mr. Panizzi proceed without interruption to complete his catalogue,-let him have additional assistants, one, two, or three, as may be desired, who shall, under his direction, consult libraries, catalogues, bibliographical works, and prepare, on the same uniform system, the titles of all works published in the English language, or printed in the British territories, but not at present in the British Museum."

Now, in our judgment, the union clearly proposed in the passage we have cited constitutes an entire barrier to the bestowal of any proper consideration upon the scheme of a Universal Catalogue.

The Panizzi Catalogue is a nuisance and an absurdity. All common sense revolts against it. We have proved it in our former articles upon this subject to be irrational, ridiculous, and extravagantly expensive. It alone stands in the way of a simple and easy solution of the difficulties connected with the present position of the Library of the British Museum. Under these circumstances, when our friend makes common cause with this catalogue, unites his scheme indissolubly with it, and proposes to proceed "on the same uniform system" with Mr. Panizzi, he immediately brings himself within the scope of the objections which exist against his proposed co-partner, and effectually prevents such attention being given to his proposal as it would otherwise deserve.

We are not withheld, as our friend supposes, by any morbid dislike to the vastness of the proposal. We have termed it "vast," "almost too vast for comprehension:" we esteem it to be so. We look upon it as a much greater work than we think our contemporary supposes it to be, but he mistakes us when he concludes that we there

fore object to it. We have not objected to it, and do not object to it, on that account. Abstractedly, we see no objection to the scheme of the compilation of a Universal Catalogue; but taken in unison with that system of cataloguing which, if persevered in, will make us the laughing-stock of the whole civilized world, and keep us without a catalogue for twenty years to come, we cannot have anything to do with it. The Unholy Alliance with the Panizzi Catalogue prevents our even approaching the scheme in such way as to give it full consideration.

And it appears to us that this alliance is as destructive of the scheme of the Universal Catalogue as it is objectionable in other ways. We have said that that scheme becomes "altogether impracticable when

connected with Mr. Panizzi's catalogue." Such is our deliberate opinion. Without that connection we do not see anything impracticable in it. It is, we repeat it, a "vast" scheme, and it may be objectionable on the score of time, but it is not an "impracticable" one. Dove-tailed with the Panizzi catalogue, hampered with that Siamese union, and intended to be formed upon one uniform system with its objectionable companion, we do not think it can ever be compiled, and unless we are mistaken we shall have no difficulty in convincing all the world that such must be the result.

Its

Our contemporary, in explanation of his scheme, remarks, that it merely amounts to the preparation of a second edition of the first half of Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, the whole of which was "in the first instance, a result of the labours of one man. Very well; assume that to be the case. Now Watt's Bibliotheca was compiled in the following manner. foundation was Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary. So far as regards the greater part, perhaps four-fifths, of Watt's book, it consists of merely a series of extracts of the bibliographical portion of Chalmers. If any one will compare the commencement of the first volume of Chalmers with the first page of Watt, he will see at once what we mean. The latter book will be found to be pro tanto merely a reprint of the former, with additions derived from some subsequently published biographical dictionary or other book containing lists of the works of living authors. These are facts which, so far as we know, have never been observed before. They ought to have been mentioned in the preface to the work; but, although the sources whence other parts of the book were derived are there stated, there is no reference whatever to these far greater obligations which the author owed to Chalmers. In what degree this omission was culpable is not the present question, but the fact is important as illustrating the way in which thisUniversal Catalogue" was compiled. The book is usually regarded as a wonderful monument of human labour, because it is presumed that the author compiled it from an immense variety of sources. The explanation we have given will probably lessen the wonder, and detract a little from the credit of the compiler, but will not diminish the value of the book itself. The compiler was a medical man, and his additions to Chalmers are in many cases derived from the books which a scientific practiser of medicine is the most likely to be familiar with. His notices of the works of medical authors, and occasionally of some others, are fuller than they are in Chalmers; but,

with respect to the general literature included in the Biographical Dictionary, Watt's book is a mere reprint of the various lists of works to be found scattered through Chalmers's thirty-two volumes. It is quite obvious, from innumerable extraordinary blunders, that Watt knew nothing about many even of the commonest books he recapitulated; of course he never saw a thousandth part of them. Chalmers was his library and his chief informant; and what Chalmers wrote Watt copied with no more blunders than a man under such circumstances would be sure to make. Any correction of mistakes was out of the question. Compiling in the way we have described, the work was the labour of nearly twenty years.

We may presume that no one would desire to have a second edition compiled after this heedless and ignorant fashion. There ought to be some attempt at rectification of the errors, numerous beyond number, in the existing book, and of course a much nearer approach should be made to something which may deserve the name of a universal catalogue; and this attempt could not be made, as Watt made it, with the assistance of a Chalmers ready prepared to his hand. That has already been ransacked. No doubt it would be possible to derive assistance from an infinite number of helps, of which Watt was ignorant. Biographies and bibliographical books, which were never dreamt of in his philosophy, and many previous and subsequent works of that kind, and the memoirs in our own Obituary, would all afford aid; but, after all these were exhausted, there would still remain an ocean of inquiry to be traversed, after the fashion in which it has always been supposed that Watt's book was compiled, without chart or pilot, gathering indications here and there from whatever chanced to float by; and we are confident that we do not overstate the result when we say that it would be to add a great many thousands to Watt's entries. Now, with all deference to our friend of the Athenæum, we call this a "vast" work, and a difficult work to perform creditably; and we confess that it did cross our minds, when we found him recommending that it should be delegated to "one, two, or three additional assistants, as may be desired," that he did not form quite an accurate estimate of either its greatness or its difficulty.

But, suppose the work begun according to our friend's scheme. Suppose the necessary assistants engaged, and that one is set to work to correct Watt's entries, and another to add subsequently published works, and a third to enter authors who are not mentioned by Watt.

In five

minutes they would be all at a stand-still; each would have found a something requiring a new entry. But how is it to be made upon a "uniform system," with the notions of the great catalogue dictator ? It cannot be done. His scheme is applicable only to the preparation of a catalogue of books which are before him. He cannot stir a step without a sight of a title page. His minute distinctions, and refinements, and pedantic quibblings, all turn upon what the bookseller tells him in the title-page and the author in the table of contents. There is not in the great chaos of the ninety-one rules a single regulation applicable to the case of a book to be described from a catalogue, or from a bibliographical or biographical work. The thing outrages all ideas of Panizzian propriety. No stumbler upon the dark mountains could ever be more astounded than our great cataloguer, if he were desired to find places in his five hundred volumes for the thousands of entries which such a proposal would call into existence. Its very simplicity would involve him in a maze of inquiries, and subtleties, and distinctions, and splitting of hairs, which would be fatal to it. The thing is impracticable. It would be to put frills and ruffles on a quaker coat; to unite Doric simplicity with Corinthian superfluity; to join together blunt plainness and courtly over-refinement, conciseness and diffuseness, life and death;-it cannot be done!

And even supposing it were possible (which we do not believe, for the two things differ in all their essential qualities) our friend is grievously mistaken if he supposes that the thing ever would be done by the keeper of our printed books. Such a union, if practicable, would show forth the absurdity of his five hundred volumes to an admiration not at all to his taste; and it would do more, it would exhibit to all the world the alarming state of deficiency of our library under his management in our native literature. What that deficiency is, our contemporary, or any body else, may ascertain for himself, if he will but compare the enumeration of the original editions of the works of any English author mentioned in the General Biographical Dictionary of the Diffusion Society, with those mentioned in the printed catalogue, vol. A; or if he will but in imagination suppose himself about to edit the works of any English author-it matters not whom-let him frame a list of his works from the best available sources, and take that list to the British Museum and test it by the catalogue. He will have better fortune than ourselves if the comparison does not produce results anything but cre

creditable either to the library or to the nation.

No! There is but one way in which the scheme of a Universal Catalogue can be practicable, and that is, by itself. Unite it with the Panizzi scheme; submit it to the tender mercies of that gigantic nurse, it will be overlayed and smothered. It will serve but as an excuse for the waste of additional years, and the expense of additional thousands.

Our contemporary suggests the transference of Mr. Rowland Hill and the classifying power of the Post-office to the British Museum for three months. It is in

deed a consummation devoutly to be wished; but why? Would it give us a Panizzi catalogue? Would Mr. Rowland Hill dream of puzzling simple people by entering books where no one would expect to find them, ex. gr. throwing the works of all publishing societies under one general head of "Academies," and stowing away Voltaire under "Arouet?" Would he enter into all the absurd distinctions of the ninety-one rules, the provisions about lords and ladies, and honourables and right honourables? Would he gravely sit down to consider what is to be done when a name begins with "Mc,"

whether it might be written M' or Mac, and with what cross references to the other forms, or how otherwise? Postoffice practice would soon cut knots like these, and yet these are the absurdities under the trammels of which Mr. Panizzi has been at work these eleven years, and will continue to work, faint yet pursuing, so long as the nation finds money, and sensible and admirable men, like our friend of the Athenæum, can be misled into tolerating his absurdities. Mr. Rowland Hill, or any other man of business, would give us a short, sensible, concise finding catalogue in the briefest possible space of time. That is what literature wants, and what we have contended for. Print it with moveable stereotypes and in the form of a Universal Catalogue, if upon consultation with practical men (which may be had whilst the Catalogue is in process of com pilation) those schemes are found feasible; but, so long as those schemes are united with the upholding of the vagaries of Mr. Panizzi, we cannot lift a finger in their defence. They are by that union rendered, as we have said, " impracticable," inappropriate to the purpose in hand, and calculated rather to do harm than good.

THE subject of THE ARREARS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM READING ROOM CATALOGUE has been taken up by the Trustees, and vigorous measures have been adopted to put an end as soon as possible to the present very discreditable state of things. A large additional body of transcribers has been placed for this purpose under the direction of Mr. Panizzi. They are now at work, and it is said that a new edition of the Reading Room Catalogue, brought down to the end of 1848, and comprised in 250 folio volumes, is to be ready for use by the end of next September. It is proposed that the new Catalogue shall be placed in the smaller Reading Room, on the shelves now occupied by parliamentary papers. This is good news, so far as it goes, but it does not affect the main question of the great Panizzi Catalogue, which we have treated elseGENT. MAG. VOL. XXXIV.

where. That such vigorous measures should have been necessary, is a fact which throws a strange light both upon the management of the Printed Book department of the Museum, and upon the recent inquiry before the Commissioners. What sort of management can that be which has permitted the accumulation of an arrear so vast as only to be got rid of in the manner we have indicated? And what kind of an inquiry can that have been which never mentioned the most important fact of these disgraceful arrears in its Report?

The TRUSTEES have also submitted to the Government certain REMARKS UPON THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS, which have been printed by order of Parliament. The paper is a fair and temperate one. The Trustees have made certain alterations in the Standing ComI ·

mittee of management in accordance with the recommendations of the Commissioners. They vindicate their accounts by shewing that the Commissioners did not carry their inquiry far enough; that the accounts are regularly audited by one of the examiners of the Audit Office; and are kept in the way recommended by him. The Trustees defend their practice of receiving written reports from their officers. They deny that there has been any systematic exclusion of the officers of the Museum from personal communication with the Trustees, or that the jealousies referred to in the Report have arisen from that cause; but, in order to prevent all misunderstanding for the future, the Trustees intend to give notice to all heads of departments that they will from time to time enter into personal communication with them "on the signification of a wish to that effect." The Trustees vindicate their general management by evidence given before the Commissioners which goes to show a general approval of the good condition of every separate division of the Museum. They thus contradict the conclusion of the Commissioners that the mode in which the Trustees have exercised their functions has not been satisfactory. The Trustees add, at the same time, with great good taste and propriety of feeling, that they have no desire to deprecate any changes which may appear to the Crown or Parliament calculated to promote the successful administration of the affairs of the Museum. On the whole, the paper does the Trustees great credit; but their expulsion from their office is doomed. It was determined long ago. The partial inquiry before the Commissioners was merely designed, as such inquiries generally are, to furnish an excuse for bringing about a predetermined end. Come when it may, no one who recollects what the Museum was some years ago, and knows what it is now, will think of the Trustees and their management save with respect, always excepted the way in which they have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and misled by Mr. Panizzi.

The State Paper Commissioners, a very slowly moving body, known only by a publication, liable to a good many objections, of certain ponderous quarto volumes of State Papers of the reign of Henry VIII., have at length taken the course which they ought to have adopted at first; they have determined to print A CALENDAR OF THE DOMESTIC PAPERS IN THE STATE PAPER OFFICE, beginning, where their publication closed, at the accession of Edward VI. The editorship is given to Mr. Lemon, whose competency no one will call in question,

and it is intended that the work should be proceeded with immediately. It is to be published in 8vo. volumes, without any unnecessary typographical display. We congratulate all persons interested in English historical inquiries upon this very important determination, and would encourage Mr. Lemon to push forward his work with all possible expedition. Let it be a simple calendar, divested of all needless repetitions, and merely containing a plain description of the general nature of every paper alluded to, with its date, and the names of persons and places mentioned in it, and we are quite sure that it will be universally welcomed. It should also be published volume by volume, as each volume is completed. We know enough of these papers to be well aware that they are a great storehouse of historical information, the actual contents of which this Calendar will for the first time fully disclose.

An excellent lithographic PORTRAIT has just been published of "WILLIAM RICHARD HAMILTON, esq. Secretary to the Society of Dilettante." It is drawn by Baugniot. This striking likeness of a gentleman universally respected cannot fail to be acceptable to the members of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Geographical Society, and the other learned and scientific bodies of which Mr. Hamilton has been so long a distinguished member.

A correspondent who subscribes himself "ALPHA," writes to us upon a very important subject, THE PROPER MODE OF MAKING REFERENCES IN NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD WORKS. His remarks are called forth by the recent edition of Pearson on the Creed, edited for the Syndics of the Cambridge University press, by the Rev. Temple Chevallier. After some congratulations upon the indication afforded by this work that the Syndics of the Cambridge University press design to shake off the lethargy which has so long oppressed them, and make their establishment, what it ought to be, an amicable rival to the Oxford University press, our correspondent marks, that it would have been better if the Cambridge press had begun with some valuable work which had not been published at Oxford, rather than with one which has already been very fairly edited by the late Dr. Burton. "It may be,' our correspondent continues, "that when Dr. Burton's edition was published the work required from an editor of any standard reprint of an English divine was not so well understood as at present. The manner in which this

re