Two questions:
Here my approach,
To get first 10 commits:
git log -n 10
-n is number
Additional To get next 10 commit skip first 10 :
git log --skip=10 -n 10
Simply log everything with one line format and tail the output:
git log --pretty=oneline | tail -n 10
In case someone wants more than just git one-line log:
git log --reverse | awk 'NR>1 {print last} {last=$0}; /^commit/ && ++c==11{exit}'
where the 11
at the end should be set to 1
more than the number of commits you want.
As here points out git log --reverse -n 10
doesn't work as you need it to. (I suppose it would need to be non-commutative to give you the ability to chose the first 10 commits in reverse order or the last 10 commits