Vol. VII.

LITERARY (AND OTHER) JOTTINGS.

The books printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden and Amsterdam have long been popular for their compactness, their correctness, and the neatness of their types, although modern bibliomaniacs, whose sight is generally dimmed by age, object to the minuteness of the typography, and the diminutive margins. During the first half of the present century they were still eagerly sought for, and brought good prices in France; and J. C. Brunet, in the later editions of his "Manuel du Libraire et de l'Amateur," studiously devoted to them a special catalogue. But habent sua fata libelli ! Some twenty years ago they were lying in great numbers on all the book-stalls in London, where their prices generally ranged from three to four pence each. Curiously enough, you can scarcely find one now in the boxes of cheap booksellers. Whither have they gone? Surely not to the shelves of bibliophiles who had so long shunned them as tiny kickshaws, unworthy of ornamenting a respectable library.

C'est du Nord maintenant que nous vient la lumière. They are gone to St. Petersburg and Warsaw, and have found a decent hospitality in the public and private libraries of Russia.

M. C. F. Walther, principal librarian of the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, published, at the expense of Prince Tossoupoff, in 1864, a "Catalogue Bibliographique et Raisonné" of "Les Elzevir de la Bibliothèque Impériale Publique de St. Pétersbourg " (Dufour). Now M. S. J. Siennicki has followed suit by publishing "Les Elzevir de la Bibliothèque de l'Université Impériale de Varsovie (Imprimerie du Journal Wieck)." The volume is well got up, in old-faced type, and illustrated with twenty-three plates on India paper, showing the various printers' marks of the Elzevirs, and the book-marks, with autographs, of the libraries from which the finest copies were collected.

The Parisian lovers of fine books-of impressions out of the common-are just now all agog about an edition of "Manon Lescaut," issued by a young publishing firm-Glady Brothers. It is printed on Turkey mill paper; has illustrations by Flameng and Jacquemart, and-even more notable thing-a preface by Dumas fils, written with consummate literary art, and with an audacity hardly less consummate. Before proceeding to analyse the work of L'Abbé Prévost, M. Dumas takes occasion to rate the mere

No. 74.

book hunter, who, when he has purchased a fine copy of a chef d'auvre, instead of reading it, only sends it to the binder. And from this little bit of personal audacity, Dumas proceeds to further boldness, in discussing the natures of whom Manon Lescaut is a symbol.

Our Lisbon correspondent writes: "The library of the late Dr. José Torres will shortly be sold in Lisbon, and it is known to contain many works and manuscripts of great value upon early Portuguese discoveries and archæology. Upon the Azores, their discovery and early history, there is a unique collection of books and manuscripts, perhaps one of the best in the world, for Dr. Torres made this matter his special study."

The committee appointed by the Booksellers' Convention last summer, with directions to consider the subject of trade sales, looking to a change from the present mode of conducting them, would, at this time, report that they have considered the matter, and have organized the "Booksellers' Exchange and Clearing House," appointing Messrs. George A. Leavitt & Co., Managers. The first meeting of the Exchange will take place in July next, or early in August, due notice of which, with full particulars, will shortly be published. They further report that they have instructed the Messrs. Leavitt to announce the spring trade sale to be the last under the present

mode.

Cowper, Shelley, Burns and Byron are familiar instances of the fact that genius often implies a onesided development. Cowper, for example, affects us because his powers of feeling were developed out of all proportion to his nervous strength. His emotions upset his intellect. He is a genius, not because he is stronger than other men on all points, but because he is weaker in some. His extraordinary powers of pathos would have been destroyed if one side of his nature had strengthened. He is original because the extraordinary keenness of his feelings was not balanced by a corresponding power of selfrestraint. Or, if we take genius of the most opposite type, Newton's superiority to other men was simply that he possessed in a higher degree qualities which all men possess in some degree, unless they are absolute idiots. The stupidest of men might be a Newton among monkeys, and is only called stupid because other men are Newtons to him. In this sense, therefore, genius, for anything that we can say, does not corres

pond to a specifically different power; but is merely the name which we give to the highest known examples of the old powers.

A Life of Lord Shelburne, the minister of George III., by his great-grandson, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, will (the Academy says) fill up in some ways a missing chapter in English history. Papers that have turned up lately in the possession of the family throw new light on the negotiations with America that took place in Shelburne's ministry. Mr. Bancroft acknowledges his obligations to these papers in his new volume; but it did not come in his plan to use them exhaustively, as they will be used in these volumes. The first volume, taking in 1737-1766, has been published. The others may be expected before very long.

Herr Schmidt is Professor at the University of Strasbourg, and in his "Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," which is one of King's scientific series, gives us a handbook of this modern teaching, which combines with its principles those of evolution and selection of species. The book is very well done. Herr Schmidt says, in his preface, the cry is, "avow your colors," and he has endeavored to define his position sharply. It is that of Darwin and his school.

Thus the Professor, p. 81, sets down those "who require a personal God in the current history of creation" as "drawing from these facts no other inference than that their God had the whim of producing at first imperfect and subsequently more perfect organisms." Even Professor Agassiz' prophetic types "have no sense at all," and the soul of the animal and the child are the same. From this it will be seen that Faith has no stand-point in this nicely printed volume.

The Boston Public Library has issued a revised and enlarged edition of its admirable "Chronological Index to Historical Fiction," including novels, poems and plays, and embracing also the odd specialty of Crusoe literature. The body of the neat quarto pamphlet is arranged by countries, there is an alphabetical index to names of persons, etc., at the end, the preface includes citations from leading authors on the value of historical fiction, and altogether the catalogue is one of those excellent pieces of work for which the Boston Library has become famous.

We learn from Madrid that the ninth volume of the "Collection of Rare and Curious Spanish Books," issued under the direction of the Marques de la Fuensanta del Valle and Don José Sancho Rayon, will be the "Segunda Comedia de Celestina," por Feliciano de Silva. The edition is limited to 300 copies, on thread paper (papel de hilo), and in Elzevir type.

Solidified carbonic acid gas dissolved in ether reduces the temperature to 140 Fahrenheit, below zero. By evaporating this mixture in vacuo the temperature falls to 166°. Solid carbonic acid mixed with nitrous oxide and ether reduces it to 2000. By adding bisulphide of carbon to this mixture, and evaporating in vacuo, the temperature falls 20 lower, or to 220, which is the greatest degree of cold yet attained.-Pharm. Gazette.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone's famous essay

on "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance," created an excitement in the Catholic world, both of priests and laymen, which has no similar precedent. Replies were made to it by Dr. Newman, Archbishop Manning, Monsignor Capel, and others. It is in answer to these his present document, "Vaticanism, An Answer to Reproofs and Replies," has been written. He reiterates all his former assertions, and considers them completely justified by the copious additional proofs which he offers.

We have received from Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, O., a copy of their admirably compiled "Bibliotheca Americana: A Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Books and Pamphlets Relating to America," 8vo, pp. viii, 180, which cannot fail to be of much interest to the student of American history and the collector of Americana. The publishers, on application, mail copies gratis to those interested in this branch of bibliography.

It is a pity that some leading publishing house does not put forth, what is sadly needed, a new edition of the "Basia, or Kisses of Johannes Secundus.” There are few men who have had a greater experience in kissing than Henry Ward Beecher, and he would make a capital editor. His recent expositions of certain kisses unknown to Secundus, such as "the holy kiss," "the kiss paroxysmal," "the kiss of inspiration," "of love," etc., render him peculiarly adapted for the task. In description he is far superior to Swinburne, who, with Secundus, had previously almost the entire monopoly of the art of "kiss painting."

Jean Jacques Rousseau is conceded to have been the intellectual father of St. Pierre, Chateaubriand, Byron, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and a host of others in literature, and in politics of Robespierre, Paine and Jefferson, while of educational reformers, the most systematic and successful, Pestalozzi, borrowed his spirit and principles largely from him. Jean Paul, in the preface to his "Levana, or Doctrine of Education," in acknowledging his indebtedness to previous works, declares that first and last he names the Emile of Rousseau. The spots this man haunted have drawn pilgrims so unlike as Gibbon, Byron, and Napoleon.

The great work on Harvard College, according to the plan of its projectors (Messrs. F. O. Vaille and H. A. Clark, Old President's House, are the names given), promises to be one of the most ambitious volumes attempted in this country. The volume will be an imperial quarto, 11 x 14, at $30, in cloth, and will be illustrated and historical, containing a number of engravings, full-page heliotypes of every building connected with the University, several interiors, representations of the College at different periods in its growth, portraits of a few of the former Presidents, all the professors at present in the University, with autographs and brief biographies, society rooms, and other objects of interest, making the total number about one hundred and twenty. President Samuel Elliot will write a full history of the College, and other writers, graduates of Harvard, and numbering some of the most distinguished writers in the country, will treat of the several buildings, societies, college publications, the athletic and social

features, and the professional schools of the University. Among them may be named A. P. Peabody, J. F. Clarke, J. R. Lowell, C. E. Norton, O. W. Holmes, Samuel Longfellow, R. H. Dana, Jr., J. S. Dwight, C. P. Cranch, Col. Higginson, Emory Washburn, and hosts of others. With such writers,

and the Osgood heliotypes, the work should be worthy of old Harvard.

In Germany there is a readiness to acknowledge merit in authors, which is, to say the least, flattering. Miss E. H. Hudson, the author of "The Life and Times of Louisa, Queen of Prussia," has received from the Emperor of Germany a valuable bracelet, containing a portrait of his mother.

A

The Portfolio for March opens with a fine etching by Rajon from Giorgione's "Knight in Armor" in the National Gallery. The series of photogravures from Greek coins is continued, giving some of those admirable Syracusan medals whose cutting is to numismatics what the art of Phidias is to sculpture. rather flattering article on Bouguereau, by a fellowcountryman of the artist, is illustrated too in photogravure, the example being from one of the pseudoclassical figures of this too elegant painter. The editor, Mr. Hamerton, reviews some etchings, and the article on technical method describes the processes of Holman Hunt. The only symptom in the number that is not quite reassuring is the tendency to lessen the proportion of etchings and increase that of the clever photograph prints, thus substituting "inspired chemistry" for "artistic inspiration."

One of our principal New York periodicals, conspicuous for its assumed air of high tone, has published this remarkable effusion in a prominent position "Hush-a-by, Beecher,

On the church-top!

If Tracy bends,

Poor Beecher will drop!

If Evarts breaks,

Poor Beecher will fall!

Down will come Halliday, Plymouth, and all !"

Can this be a specimen of the "Poetry of the future?"

Another literary journal of an aesthetic character furnishes the following: "This is the way a Frenchman reported the Brooklyn scandal:- One Grand Ecclesiastical Scandal-Great Excitement in New York, Brooklyn and Chicago-Three Clergymen in moosh Troubell-Mons. Moultong, Tiltong, and Beechare have one grand controversee. Mons. Moultong is ze pastorr of ze Pleemoz shurch of New York, discovered by Columbus, Ohio, in 1492. Mons. Moultong is accuse of taking ze impropare lebertee wiz ze wife of Theodore Beechare, who is Mrs. Hariott Beechare Stowe, ze mozare of Onkle Tom, ze blind Pianist. Mons. Beechare also is accuse of ze impropare libertee wiz Mons. Tiltong, daughtare of Susan B. Anthony, ze sistare of Mark Anthony, who was make love wiz Cleopatra. Mons. Tiltong have cause ze separashong of Mons. Beechare and his vife. Ze congregashong of ze Pleemooz Rock shurch will not permit Mons. Moultong to preesh longer from zat poolpeet. Ze greatest excitement prevails. Our French friend appears to understand this matter as clearly as though he had a statement to make."

Sev

The Prefect of the Seine has given a magnificent example of the way in which the authorities of his Department are accustomed to treat the historical and artistic treasures with which they have to do. The Prefect has sent to the South Kensington Museum, London, a collection of not fewer than seventeen complete works, produced at the public expense and published at the public cost, the greater number being illustrated with an artistic and scientific skill such as is to be found only in France and is never seen in official work in Great Britain, and, in fact, hardly exists here at all. Nor is the letter press of these volumes inferior to their illustrations. eral able French antiquaries, of whom some are men of high reputation, were employed to produce these texts, which exhaust the subjects. Some idea of the nature of the works may be gathered from the titles of the more important publications : 1. "Les Anciennes Bibliothèques de Paris," par M. Franklin, 6 vols., 4to.; 2. "La Topographie du Vieux Paris," par M. Berty, 2 vols., 4to.; 3. "Le Cabinet des Manuscrits," par M. L. Delisle, 2 vols., 4to.; 4. "Les Historiens de Paris," par MM. Leroux de Lancy et Tisseraud, 2 vols., 4to.; 5. "Les Halles de Paris," par M. Baltard, 1 vol., 4to.; “ŒŒuvres de Lavoisier,” 5 vols., 4to.: fancy the cities of New York or of London undertaking to publish anything like the "Works" of Lavoisier; 6. "Monographies des Églises de St. Ambroise et de La Trinité," par M. Ballu, vol., folio; 7. Monographie du Théâtre

du Vaudeville," par M. Magne. Besides these, we observe in the collection, which will soon be placed in the Art Library at South Kensington, and be accessible to every one, "Grande Vue Panoramique des Quais"; "Vues de l'Hôtel Carnavalet"; "Plan de Paris Moderne"; "Collection des Planches gravées, publiées par la Ville, d'après les Peintures Murales des Edifices," &c.

In the course of March Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkin son & Hodge sold by auction the famous "Antiphonarium," presented in 1488 to the Cathedral Church of Lodi, by S. Charles Marquis Pallavicini, Bishop of the Diocese, whose gift is commemorated by an inscription engraved on marble within the Cathedral. This splendid manuscript, until lately the pride of Lodi, is written in large characters on sheets of vellum, measuring 22 inches by 16, and is bound in six huge volumes, the binding being heavy oak boards, covered in morocco, protected by brass rims, corners and bosses, with the arms of the Bishop traced thereon. The manuscript is gorgeously decorated with numerous magnificent illuminations in gold and colors. The miniatures are, it is alleged, by Calisto Piazza, usually called Calisto of Lodi, the pupil and imitator of Titian, who assisted Calisto in his paintings for the Church of the Incoronata at Lodi

Mr. Kegan Paul's book on "William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries," will appear in the spring, says the Academy. It will contain portions of an autobiography of Godwin, and large selections from his correspondence, as well as from letters hitherto unpublished of Mary Wollstonecraft, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Horne Tooke, the Wedgwoods, Curran, Wolcot (Peter Pindar), Mackintosh, J. Kemble, Mrs Siddons, Mrs. Inchbald, and others.

Father Augustine Theiner, Protestant-born (at Breslau, 1804), was by profession a Prussian cavalry officer, when he became a convert to Catholicism in 1831, and shortly afterwards took orders. Through various degrees he reached the post of archivist of the secret Vatican archives, and enjoyed the full confidence of the present Pope, and even, in the early days when Pius IX.'s leanings were notoriously liberal, his sympathy as against the Jesuits. These gentry, among their other misrepresentations, had studiously disguised the true character of the proceedings at the Council of Trent, to which the church mainly owes its organization and discipline and exact doctrine, and that tendency toward centralization to which the Ecumenical Council gave the finishing touch. The Jesuit Pallavicini, for example, in the history of the Council of Trent, took pains to conceal or falsify the speeches which many learned and prominent bishops made in opposition to the tendency just referred to. When Theiner obtained the Pope's permission to publish the original pieces relating to the Council, every obstacle was thrown in his way. He had gone

so far as to set up a printing office of his own in Rome with the aid of the Pope and of the Emperor of Austria, and had begun printing, when the Jesuits persuaded the former to revoke his permission, and the work was indefinitely postponed. Towards the close of his life, which ended only last year, Father Theiner renewed his labors in this direction, and having carried his manuscript to Agram, in Croatia, was superintending its passage through the press when death overtook him. Learned friends of his in that place resumed the work where he left it, and the report of the Council has now been published in two large quarto volumes.

It may interest our readers to hear that the Messrs. Harpers, of New York, who have published the American edition of "Dr. Livingstone's Last Journals," have forwarded already £1,000 for the family. The book is published there, as it here, for the benefit of the children of Dr. Livingstone. The work is being translated into French and German.— Athenæum.

Mr. F. Norgate has in the press a volume, edited by Prof. Bucheim, of King's College, London, entitled "Humboldt's Natur und Reisebilder," containing an abridgment of Humboldt's "Personal Narrative of Travels in America," and his "Ansichten der Natur," with English notes and life of the author.

Replying to the statement made the other day in the French National Assembly by M. Laboulaye, that the great schools of Paris are almost destitute of libraries, the Bibliographie ae la France mentions the following as the actual condition of things. The Ecole de Droit has a library of about 11,000 volumes, but the room in which it is placed is of very small dimensions, and by no means well adapted for consultation by students. The Ecole de Médecine has a library of 32,000 volumes, well cared for and placed in a handsome room, capable of seating as many as 150 readers at a time. Adjoining it is the celebrated anatomical collection, known as the "Musée Orfila," occupying a suit of six rooms. The Collége de France, unfortunately, has no library. The Ecole des Mines has a library of about 7,000 volumes.

Finally, the library of the Ecole Normale Supérieure has a collection of 30,000 volumes, devoted to general literature, and another of 10,500 volumes, devoted exclusively to science. From this it would appear that the picture drawn by M. Laboulaye is over-charged.

The Diritto says the Pope has taken up a project which he formed many years ago of placing twelve statues round the cupola of St. Peter's, in accordance with the idea of Michael Angelo. Twelve sculptors are to be charged each with the execution of a statue, but they are not to be chosen by public competition; nor will any artist be eligible for the work who was not domiciled in Rome prior to 1870, or who has manifested any opposition to the cause of the Holy Church. The Diritto adds that, seeing the enormous sums which are just now being poured into the Pontifical treasury in the shape of Peter's pence, there should be no lack of funds for carrying out the project.

The indefatigable bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix) has compiled an exhaustive work on the publications of Restif de la Bretonne, a writer who flourished between 1760 and 1805, and whose works are said to throw much the same light upon the manners of French society during the period mentioned as the works of Petronius and Apuleius do upon the society of Ancient Rome. The title is as follows: "Bibliographie et Iconographie de tous les Ouvrages de Restif de la Bretonne; comprenant la description raisonnée des éditions originales, des réimpressions, des contrefaçons, &c.; notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de l'auteur, par son ami Cubières Palmézeaux; avec des notes historiques, critiques, et littéraires, par P. L. Jacob, Bibliophile. Paris, Auguste Fontaine."

The Academy states that we are at last to have a complete edition of the prose works of Wordsworth, which he himself expected and desired to be given to the world by Dr. Wordsworth or Mr. Quillman. The task has now devolved upon the Rev. A. B. Grosart.

Rev. A. H. Wratislaw writes to the Athenæum concerning a Bohemian (Slavonic) manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge: "A manuscript was noticed last autumn in the 'Gale' collection in Trinity College Library, which was written in perfectly legible characters, but the language of which was not immediately recognizable. I was requested by the Rev. R. Sinker, the Librarian, to examine it, and found it to contain about two-thirds of Dalemil's Bohemian Chronicle, which traces the Czechs in verse from the Tower of Babel to the writer's own day, finishing about the year 1314. Communications with the Librarian and authorities of the National Museum at Prague, have led to the conclusion that it is of the same date with the earliest hitherto known complete MS. of this chronicle, which was lately discovered at Vienna. An edition of the chronicle was in preparation by Pan Jireczek, at Prague, but had happily not gone to press when intelligence of the Cambridge MS, arrived, and this now waits for a transcript of the newly discovered treasure. "The Cambridge MS. is in small quarto, fifteen lines to the page, and is beautifully written. It is