"The Easy Chair, mindful of posterity, and of that future loiterer in the retired alcoves of coming libraries who will turn to the pages of an old magazine to catch some glimpse of the daily aspect and the homely fact of our day, which will be then a kind of quaint remembrance, like the 'Augustan age' of Anne to Victorian epoch, puts here upon record for his unborn reader--whom he salutes with hope and Godspeed--that the winter of 1883-4 in the city of New York was a gray and gloomy season almost beyond precedent, during which the persistent fogs and mists appeared half to have obliterated the sun." Here are a few excerpts which may be called "Gems for the Easy Chair;" but those given are no better than thousands of others that are scattered through these many volumes. A Madonna. Once in Dresden the Easy Chair climbed into a little room where an engraver was finishing a picture which is now famous. He had worked long and faithfully upon it. It was truly a work of love, and it had cost him his most precious and essential possession for his art--his eyesight. The engraver was Steinla, and the picture was the Madonna di Sisto.... It can be seen only by those who go to Dresden. Among pictures there is none more justly famous, and the devoted engraver toiled long and patiently, and at such enormous sacrifice to re-produce it, so far as lines could do it, from the same love and instinct that produced the picture. * * * * * PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. MIDDLESEX COUNTY MANUAL. By CHARLES COWLEY. LL.D. Penhallow Printing Company, Lowell, Mass. In this handy volume, the "Historical Sketch of the County of Middlesex," Judge Cowley has made a valuable contribution to the recorded history of our Commonwealth. He has traced in a clear and concise manner the important events of Middlesex County from 1643, the year of its incorporation, down to Shay's Rebellion. REMINISCENCES OF JAMES COOK AVER AND THE TOWN OF AVER. By CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D. This work is one of many for which the public are indebted to Judge Cowley. It presents many facts of great historical value, and in the usual pungent and agreeable style of their author. SHOPPELL'S BUILDING PLANS FOR MODERN LOW COST HOUSES. The Co-operative Building Plan Association, New York. Price, 50 cents. This book contains a mass of information to builders and would-be _home owners_. Its many and varied plans are for the construction of neat, comfortable and very attractive buildings at very reasonable cost. * * * * * CORRECTION. In the sketch of Saugus in the December number of the BAY STATE MONTHLY, line 14, on page 149, should read "as early as 1828" instead of 1848.--E.P.R. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885, by Various