S. SIMON STEVENS, lebe MAR. 15, 1867. B. F. STEVENS, Messrs. STEVENS BROTHERS, 17 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden London, W. c., Have established an American and Foreign Commission House for Publishing, Bookselling, and the execution generally of LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ORDERS both for Import and Export, and have undertaken the continuance of the current miscellaneous business of their brother, MR. HENRY STEVENS, of 4 TRAFALGAR SQUARE, which was commenced in 1845. In the execution of orders for the purchase or sale of early printed and scarce books they will have the benefit of the advice and long bibliographical experience of MR. HENRY STEVENS, who, as heretofore, devotes himself to the purchase and sale of rare books. Messrs. STEVENS BROTHERS are the special agents of the International Library Exchange, established by the "American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York," and are constantly making consignments through that Institution of BOOKS, MAPS, PHILOSOPHICAL APPARATUS, MAGAZINES, &c., for Departments of the U. S. Government, Public Institutions, Libraries, Colleges, and Incorporated Societies. Messrs. STEVENS BROTHERS are honored with the special Agency of several American and British Institutions. Parcels of a literary or scientific character presented by Institutions or individuals in the United States or Canada to individuals or Institutes in Great Britain or on the Continent, are received and distributed with punctuality and economy. LITERARY, SCIENTIFIC, AND MISCELLANEOUS ORDERS from private individuals will be executed with care and promptitude, and the goods forwarded to any part of the United States or Canada direct, or in the absence of special instructions, through their usual channels. All Parcels for America, including weekly packages for France and Germany, are forwarded under special arrangements by the INMAN STEAMERS, sailing every Wednesday from Liverpool. Consiguments from America are made by the same line every Saturday from New York. Messrs. STEVENS BROTHERS desire to purchase one copy of every Book, Pamphlet, or Magazine (not a reprint) published in America. They desire also to procure two copies of all Reports of every Railroad, Canal, Coal, Petroleum, Steamboat, Bank, for any other Incorporated Company in America. MAR. 15, 1867. STEREOTYPE PLATES FOR SALE. . Having concluded to relinquish the Book Publishing business, I will sell, on the most favorable terms, the following works: LOSSING'S ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE REBELLION. The most complete and reliable history published. UNION GENERALS. Numerous steel plates. These works offer extra inducements to publishers. DR. KANE'S GREAT WORK. ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. Superbly illustrated by upwards of 300 Engravings. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, $7 50. *More than 130,000 volumes of this work have been sold. DR. KANE'S FIRST NARRATIVE. The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, during the years 1850-51. A Personal Narrative. By ELISHA KENT KANE, M. D., U. S. N. 1 vol. 8vo., upwards of 550 pp., containing 200 Steel Plates and Wood Engravings, including a fine Steel Portrait of Sir John Franklin, being the only one ever engraved in America. With a Biography of Franklin, by S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE, LL. D. Cloth, $3. SIR CHARLES LYELL'S NEW BOOK. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, from Geological Evidences. With Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. By Sir CHARLS LYELL, F. R. S., author of "Principles of Geology," "Elements of Geology," etc. etc. Third edition, with Corrections and an Appendix. 8vo. With Illustrations. Pp. 524. $350. ANSTED'S GREAT STONE BOOK OF NATURE. With illustrations. F'cap 8vo. Pp. xvii., 309. $1 25. SIEGE OF RICHMOND. A Narrative of the Military Operations of MajorGeneral George B. McClellan. By JOEL COOK. With an Introduction by B. J. LOSSING. 12mo. $1 25. THE LIGHT AND DARK OF THE REBELLION. 12mo., pp. 393. By C. EDWARDS LESTER. $125. OUR LIVING REPRESENTATIVE MEN. Containing authenticated Lives of the most eminent Americans. By JOHN SAVAGE, of Washington, D. C. 12mo. Muslin, $1 25. PARSON BROWNLOW'S BOOK. 1 vol. 12mo., with fine steel Portrait; fully and characteristically Illustrated. $1 25. ROLLO AND LUCY BOOKS OF POETRY. BY JACOB ABBOTT, author of the Rollo Books, &c. 3 vols. 16mo. Illustrated with Original Drawings. Just Ready. Per set, $2 25. WELLS' FAMILIAR SCIENCE; or, the Scientific Explanation of the Principles of Natural and Physical Science, and their practical and familiar applications to the employments and necessities of common life. Illustrated with upwards of 160 Engravings. Large octavo. $175. PROF. HOWS' PRACTICAL ELOCUTIONIST, and Academical Reader and Speaker. 12mo. $1 50. Propositions for any of the above Stereotype Plates will be entertained, and they will be sold a great bargain. GEO. W. CHILDS, 628 and 630 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. APRIL 1, 1867. OUR CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENCE. PARIS, February 15, 1867. WILL you let me gather some of the more salient characteristics of the late M. Cousin from the numerous biographical sketches which have appeared of him since I touched upon his career? The great accusation brought against his memory is his avarice. I am inclined to think the charge proved. He unquestionably had fits of generosity, but all vices are intermittent, and misers' feasts are proverbial for prodigality. For instance, when M. Franck, at the beginning of his career, was menaced with consumption, and ordered by his physician to spend a winter at Pisa, M. Cousin offered him his purse. MM. Janet, Bersot, and Waddington, who were his secretaries (and rumor alleged he treated his secretaries with particular harshness), continue to be his friends. One of M. Cousin's warmest friends, in defending him from this reproach, says: "They have confounded in M. Cousin's character two things which are completely distinct: hardness and avarice. He was hard to himself, tasking his mind with persevering labor even when it was rebel to inspiration, feeding himself with stoical sobriety, ignorant of luxury, denying himself the comforts of wealth, braving humidity and cold in the sombre chambers of the Sorbonne, which he seemed to think sufficiently warmed and heated by the inner fire which always glowed within his breast. Hard as he was upon himself, how could he have avoided being often hard upon others? But the best-known acts of his life demonstrated that he was not avaricious. Did he not give us, at his own expense, the two magnificent editions we possess of the works of Proclus and of Abailard? Did he not found, two years ago, a prize in the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences double in value those established by the government? Did he not purchase with his own money that incomparable library in which one was sure to find what was to be found nowhere else, and which he bequeathed to the State with a salary for the librarian ?" The reply to these questions is made by events which we see occur every day of our lives. There was Capt. U. P. Levy, notorious for his avarice, and scarcely less notorious for his harshness to the sailors under his command, yet he left the great bulk, if not the whole of his estate for the education of sailor boys. In the daily relations of life M. Cousin was "hard" upon everybody near him where money was concerned, and if he could avoid payment of money, he did so. I could instance a great many anecdotes in illustration of this trait of his character, but I have no room for them. He was asked one day what woman in the world he would prefer to have as a wife; to the surprise of everybody present (who expected he would have declared for Mme. de Longueville), he said: "If I were a marrying man, I should prefer Heloise for my wife." He was a good listener. "When anybody spoke in his company of things he knew nothing about, but which could in any way touch his habitual meditations, at the very first words his precipitate gestures were ended, his attitude became motionless, his head bent forward towards the speaker, and his admirable eye, embracing the whole speaker, seemed to seek to penetrate to the very depth of his mind. He could remain in this way for whole hours at a time, which may seem incredible to those who have seen him in another aspect." A friend of the late Leon Gozlan has published some conversations held with the latter. I translate some sketches of our literary men, which are excellent caricatures: "Chateaubriand, a pagan tattooed with sacred hearts, a Narcissus of the Dead Sea or of Jordan, a sobbing but not a blind Homer, reading fluently the Iliad bound as the Bible, a sort of St. Christopher carried by Jesus. Lamartine, a voluptuous fellow loving canticles and boats. He will be canonized under the vocable of St. Alphonse de Parny. Victor Hugo, minute and grand, Michel Angelo-Meissonnier. Sainte-Beuve, sticky and slippery, fleeting and glazed, real eel pie. Alfred de Vigny, a pretty fellow who has lost his voice. Alfred de Musset the Viscount Henry de Murger. Octave Feuillet. Musset had a golden savings-box in which he threw his cents when he was drunk. Little poor young man, you broke the savings-box and filched the copper in the gold. Guizot. I met on a glacier in Switzerland an Englishman who spoke French; if 'twas not M. Guizot, who was it? Adolphe Thiers and Eugene Scribe. What a great historian is that Adolphe Scribe! What a great vaudevillist is that Eugene Thiers! George Sand. A vivid talent do you say? Not a bit of it. A woman's novelist. Jules Sardeau. Ah! he had a very masculine talent. A novelist for ladies. That is the difference. Mme. de Girardin. The Muse of the Country turned milliner in the Rue Vivienne. Stendhal, a boiling Merimée. Prosper Merimée, a frozen Stendhal. Michelet. A woman's voice. A child's voice. Moans, groans, screams of distress. Great God, 'tis heart-rending! I am agitated. I run to give help. Lord bless you! neither a woman nor a child! A supple, strong man throws his arms round my neck, strangles and throws me down. Help, ho! Murder! Murder! Thief! Thief! No, 'tis Michelet. Louis Veuillot. A fish woman from Billingsgate. "Icy talent! icy! icy! fresh as can be." Hold your nose, my friend. Balzac. Her cules in slippers spinning feuilletons at the feet of his creditors. Ponson du Terrail. Nunc dimittis! I have read Rocambole. I can die. But before giving up the ghost I have written Ponson's will and make him its executor. "I, Viscount Ponson, king of the feuilleton and providence of illustrated newspapers, Whereas I have obtained by my writings the greatest success of the nineteenth century, and that a daily vote confers on me undisputed empire over all my brethren, and at the same time an immense privy purse; Whereas not even my most malignant friend has ever been able to detect me guilty of anything like genius, esprit, correction, or erndition, but nevertheless I have become the most popular and most fortunate writer in France: Desirous at my last day to make a noble use of my estate and give a particular mark of my interest to penniless noble literature, I found forever a library of the best French authors for the use of the sick, infirm, maimed, enervated and weakened whom my literature has deprived of intellectual health: Item.-I found, besides, a prize for the best novel, which shall be awarded neither by the Academy nor by the Literary Men's Society, but by an inde pendent critic who has never been tempted to get up behind the carriage of success: Item.-I leave $20,000 to the Literary Men's Society, upon condi tion it dissolves at once and clears the place for a new society where real literary men shall form the majority, which has never been the case since the foundation of the society." The best of all these caricatures is M. Michelet's; it is capital. These are the more recent publications: Dr. P. Em. Chauffard's "De la Spontanéité et de la Specificité in Diseases;" Ch. Fay's (Marshal Bosquet's aide-de-camp) "Souvenirs of the Crimean War;" Messrs. Goizet and Burtal's "Universal Dictionary of the Theatre. Gomez's "Essay on the Theory of Political Economy, and its Relations with Morals and Right;" Dr. E. Gouert's "Normal and (especially) Abnormal Perceptivity of the Eye for Colors, and especially Blindness to Colors;" De 66 APRIL 1. 1867. Janze's "Constitution (of France) of 1852;" A. de pieces. Be good enough to allow us to play it no NOTES ON BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS. THE FORCE LIBRARY.-Mr. A. R. Spofford, the Congressional Librarian, has recently made a report to the Joint Committee on the Library, justly urging the purchase by Congress of the historical library of Peter Force, Esq., of Washington. Some of the many interesting facts stated by Mr. Spofford concerning the library are as follows: It is announced the Messrs. Pereire have determined to publish the "Encyclopædia of the Nineteenth Century," which M. Duveyrier's death led them to abandon . . Prince Talleyrand's "Memoirs" will be published this year; there will be an edition published at Brussels and one at London. None will be published in Paris, as it is feared the Government would seize it. . . It is once more said the French Government is about to come to M. de Lamartine's aid. Some time ago the Emperor offered to pay all of M. de Lamartine's debts and grant him a pension suited to so eminent a genius. M. de Lamartine declined to accept it from the Emperor, but hinted he would accept it from the French Parliament; so it is said a bill is soon to be presented to the Chambers to provide for these objects. Here is a description of M. de Lamartine's study, which may be read with interest: "I was the other day in M. de Lamartine's study. The servant was shaking and sweeping. The magnificent carpet, with a white ground, was covered with snuff. M. de Lamartine snuffs more than twenty old women, and the greater part of his pinches fall on the carpet." M. Sainte-Beuve has been elected to succeed M. Victor Cousin as one of the In the department of books relating to America, managers of the "Journal des Savants." . . The the library embraces the largest private collection Madrid newspapers announce the death of Senor Ser- ever brought together, having been formed by Mr. afin Esteban Calderon, one of the most intelligent Force with special reference to assembling the fullest bibliographers of Spain." He wrote several works materials for editing his " American Archives." The over the signature of "El Solitario." . . M. Guizot plan of this work embraced nothing less than a is reading the proofs of the eighth and last volume complete publication of all the more important origiof his "Memoirs ;" they come down to the 22d, 23d, nal State papers, letters, narratives, and other docand 24th February, 1848. The volume will be pub- uments relating to the settlement and history of the lished in April. A bookworm has discovered United States, from the discovery of America in that "Mérope" was played only 29 times, and Vol-1492 to the establishment of the present Government taire received 3,600 francs copyright from it; "La in 1789. His library embraces an immense collecMétromanie" returned Piron 3,000 francs for its first tion of the early American voyages, in Latin, French, 23 performances, and afterwards he received nothing Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, and English, while more for it; Crebillon received 1,140 francs for 18 per- in books and pamphlets relating to the politics and formances of "Electre;" Thomas Corneille's "Timo- government of the American colonies, it stands uncrate" ran 80 nights in four months, and the specta- rivalled in this country. In the field of early tors continued to ask it; at last the actors, tired of printed American books, so much sought for by the same pier, sent their spokesman on the stage collectors, and which are becoming annually more to say to thimicence: "Gentlemen, you are never scarce and costly, this library possesses more than tired of a price Timocrate,' while we are tired of ten times the number to be found in the Library of playingin two years risk of forgetting our other Congress. Not to dwell upon particulars, it need 66 |