Book-Lore e a Magazine devoted to Old-Time Literature. Vol. V.
December, 1886—May, 1887. (Elliot Stook.)—So far as print, paper, and binding are concerned, this magazine excels, we imagine, all its contemporaries. The valve of its contents is more open to question. Several of the writers seem better acquainted with books than authorship, and air their learned fancies in a style that is alike quaint and wearisome. The manner is sometimes rhapsodical, and the matter trivial. A magazine of this class need not be destitute of humour, and the sport of book-hooting affords ample food for it ; but what the reader mostly requires is practical information and such knowledge as cannot readily be gleaned elsewhere. Book-Lore aims unsuccessfully to be amusing; but in the collocation of curious facts it is by no means deficient, and occasionally the reader will come upon an exhaustive article on a eubject that repays the labour expended upon it. There are essays highly creditable to the journal on "The Functions of a Noveliat," on "John Skelton," on "The Legend of the Cross," and on "The Quarto Edition of Coverdale's Bible ;" and the short paper, "A Shakespearian Cipher," reminds as that Mr. Donnelly has recently promised to publish a volume before the close of the year which will convince the world that Bacon wrote Shakespeare!
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