5 NOVEMBER 1864, Page 20

The Chronicle of the "Conpleat Angler." By Thomas Westwood. (Willis

and Sotheran.)—This beautiful volume contains an account of all the various editions of Walton and Cotton's famous book. It appeals of course to book collectors, and mainly to collectors of books on fishing. For in these days people form collections of special subjects—one man has all the child's story-books that ever were published, and another all the playbills. Mr. Westwood has, however, managed to make a very agreeable little monograph, full of curious and recondite information about the different biographers and illustrators of "England's one per- fect pastoral." He writes like an enthusiast who is also a man of sense, and has made out of a subject apparently unpromising an essay which

is especially marked by its curiosa fclicitas. It is just the book to please a rather indolent fastidious scholar —a trifle made valuable by its work- manship—a small subject exhausted without repetition.