Vol. V.

LITERARY (AND OTHER) GOSSIP.

Mr. George Cruikshank writes, with reference to an illustration in the Christmas number of London Society, announced as by "George Cruikshank," that it is not his work, but that of a son of Mr. Percy Cruikshank, his nephew. It is curious to find the veteran caricaturist, who was in the infancy of his fame when George III was King, should find himself competing for his own name with his grandnephew.

Dr. John G. Shea has in the press (to be published by subscription only) "A History of the Early French and Spanish Missions within the Limits of the United States." Twenty years since Dr. Shea published a work of this character, and now proposes to issue an enlarged and improved edition, embracing the extensive material afforded by the printed, and especially the manuscript matter, that has become accessible during that period. The work will form two volumes octavo, to match Charlevoix's New 'France. The edition will be limited to 100 copies, and will be supplied to subscribers at $7.50 a set. Subscribers' names will be received by J. Sabin & Sons.

Piety and business are very pleasantly blended in the following copy of a circular, which it is said has recently been issued by a commercial firm in Bombay: "Gentlemen, we have the pleasure to inform you our respected father departed this life on the inst. His business will be continued by his beloved sons, whose names are stated below. The opium market is quiet, and Malwa 1,500rs. per chest. 'O, grave! where is thy sting? O, death! where is thy victory?' We are yours truly."

A recent number of Henry Ward Beecher's paper makes the assertion that the Rev. John Weiss, who is presently to lecture on Shakespeare in this city, was prevented delivering his Shakespearian discourse in Association Hall on account of the "unsoundness" of his theology. We hope that this rumor is not true; for the Young Men's Christian Association is too valuable and decent a body to incur deserved ridicule without deep pain being given to thousands of very excellent citizens. But if Mr. Weiss is not to

No. 49.

be allowed to lecture on Shakespeare because he happens not to have precisely the same religious belief as that of the officers of the society in question, perhaps it would be as well for these gentlemen to attain consistency by subjecting to a rigorous catechism every lecturer whom they permit to speak in their hall. It would be interesting to learn, for instance, what Mrs. Scott-Siddons thinks is the chief end of man, and what are Mr. Yates' views on original sin and justification by faith. Mr. Bellew ought to be required to print his confession of faith on the billboards, and Bret Harte and John Hay should be compelled to explain by what means the Sacraments become effectual means of salvation. Let us have no loose way of doing this business. If Mr. Pickwick's heartless warming pans and tomato sauce were merely an ingenious symbolism for expressing erotic frenzy, who knows but that Mr. Weiss' lectures on Shakespeare are a dark pretence concealing the theism of a Theodore Parker or the optimism of a Frothingham? If "soundness" of religious doctrine is to be the condition of a lecturer's being permitted to appear upon the stage of Association Hall, let the officers of that association prepare a theological test formula at once. This will simplify matters, and, while freeing us from the pernicious liberalism of a wicked Weiss, not subject us to the pious vagaries of a Harriet Beecher Stowe or the picturesque paganism of the author of "Little Breeches."Herald.

D. M. Dewey, Rochester, has published "Later Lays and Lyrics," by W. H. C. Hosmer, author of "Legends of the Senecas."

The Boston Gazette says that Mr. Edwin Forrest, a short time before his death, offered Mr. James Parton $5,000 to write his biography.

The Lancet understands that Mr. Tom Taylor has left the Government service, the office he held having been superseded by the new Local Government Board. He entered the public service in 1850 as assistantsecretary to the then Public Health Act Board, at £750 per annum, and, in 1858, was appointed secreretary under the Local Government Act at a salary of £1,000 a year. He now retires at the age of fiftyfive, with a pension of £650 a year.

Mr. George, Henry Moore, LL.D.-Idoneus homo -for upwards of thirty-three years connected with, and for the last twenty-five years librarian of the New York-Historical Society, has just been appointed, by the trustees, superintendent of the Lenox Library.

George Gebbe, Philadelphia, has published "The Locomotive Engine, and Philadelphia's Share in its Early Improvement," by Joseph Harrison, Jr.

A curious book is now passing through the English press, the author of which seriously professes to give, from actual experience, a matter-of-fact account of the laws, manners, and customs of a kingdom situated in one of the planets of our solar system. The title of the book is "Another World."

New York Herald expeditions are not invariably successful, and our contemporary has for once had to confess a failure. The Herald sent an expedition, headed by a "special commissioner," to Cuba to find out the truth about the insurrection. The "special commissioner," however, was requested by the Government of Cuba to publish the information he had acquired at the expense of his employers in the Journal Officiel of the island. He naturally refused this request, and was consequently informed that "his life was in danger" from the "incensed volunteers." Startled by this direful threat, the "commissioner" demanded his passports, and immediately started for New York. As nothing succeeds like success, nothing ruins a man like a failure, and warmly does the Herald lash its unfortunate commissioner. "A Stanley is not met with every day, and the man who could be checked by disappointment, or driven back from his object by the fear of death through war, pestilence, or famine, would never have discovered Livingstone." "It is idle to speculate," continues the Herald, "whether a bold, resolute, and dignified, but modest, demeanor would not have been sufficient protection against these blustering volunteers, without the safeguard of American nationality, and a lawful peaceful mission. It is enough that our present commissioner has left the island with his work incomplete, and as this is a sufficient proof that he is not the right man in the right place, we are glad that he has thus early given us an opportunity to select his successor." Not discouraged by this failure, the Herald warns the volunteers that "it will find other agents who will succeed in their object," and that, although the services of Mr. Stanley will not be utilized, there are many others on the staff "who can make as brilliant a success in

Cuba as Stanley achieved in Africa." "We regard it now as important to discover the true condition of the revolutionary army and the actual state of Cuban affairs as it was to discover Livingstone. In both expeditions the cause of humanity is to be served."

Of Mr. Page's "Memoir of Nathaniel Haw. thorne," the Athenæum says:

The

As regards this Memoir,' Mr. Page has merely er tracted scraps from the The Note-Books,' a few passages from Fields's 'Yesterdays with Authors,' and a sentence c two from an old paper by Mr. Curtis. This is all. Mi Page had no information to give us, and so we learn nothing that we did not know before. There is not a single frest incident in the book. There is no example of that deligh: ful humor which dropped out so slowly and unexpectedly. There is not even a fragment of an unpublished letter. seven years of life in Europe is compressed into two pages: the whole Memoir,' properly so speaking, includes but fifty This is a book which is discreditable to every one who is concerned in its publication. When we have said that (s: far as Mr. Page is concerned) the book is utterly worthless we have said nothing. It is much worse than this. It is a direct defiance to Mr. Hawthorne's expressed wishes; it is a direct injury to his children; it is scarcely less than a direct insult to the public."

Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge lately sold, in London, some fine specimens of the works of M. Schongauer and A. Dürer. By the former: The Angel of the Annunciation, 56/.; The Annunciation, 461.; The Nativity, 22/.; The Baptism of Christ, 19.; Christ before the High Priest, 461.; Pilate washing his Hands, 41/.; Christ presented to the People, 40/.; Christ bearing the Cross, 20%; The Virgin in a Courtyard, 961.; Temptation of St. Anthony, 261.; St. Michael, 12/.; One of the Foolish Virgins, 13; The Censor, 217.-A. Dürer: The Little Passion, 151.; The Prodigal Son, 1ol.; The Virgin with flowing hair, 187,; Virgin suckling the Infant Christ, 12/.; Melancolia, 30.; The Standard-Bearer, 71.; Life of the Virgin, 10/.; The Knight of Death, 751.

An American correspondent of the London Athenæum furnishes that journal with the following hitherto unpublished letter of George Washington:

MOUNT VERNON, February 5, 1788.

"Dear Sir:-At length I have got some answer to my application for Wolf Dogs. I wish it were more satisfactory, but such as it is I give it, as suspense, of all situations is the most disagreeable. The information comes from Sir Edward Newesham, a gentleman of family and fortune in Ireland; and is in these words: 'I have just received a let ter from your noble and virtuous friend the Marquis de la Fayette, in which he communicates your wish to obtain a breed of the true Irish wolf dog, and desires me to procure it. I have been these several years endeavoring to get that breed without success; it is nearly annihilated. I have heard of a bitch in the north of Ireland, but not of a couple anywhere. I am also told that the Earl of Altamont has a breed that is nearly genuine; if he has I will procure two from him. The Marquis also wants some at his domain, where he is troubled by the wolves. If mastiffs would be of any service, I could send you some large ones, which are our guard dogs; you will honor me with your commands about them. They are very fierce, faithful, and long-lived.' "If, upon this information, you think I can be further useful, I shall be happy to render any service in my power. Mastiffs, I conceive, will not answer the purposes for which the wolf dog is wanted. They will guard a pen, which pen may be secured by its situation, by our dogs, and various other ways; but your object, if I have a right conception of it, is to hunt and destroy wolves by pursuit, for which end the mastiff is altogether unfit. If the proper kind can be had, I have no doubt of their being sent by Sir Edward, who has sought all occasions to be obliging to me.-I am, dear sir, your most ob', and affec1. servant,

"G. WASHINGTON. "Charles Carter, Esq., of Ludler Farm, Fredericksburg."

The London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian writes that a very extensive and interesting sale of engravings by and after Turner is to come on at Messrs. Christie's in March. The engravings number considerably more than 20,000, and include thousands of copies of the larger and more expensive plates. The plates themselves are likewise valuable, many being in excellent condition. This property has lain for twenty years uncared for, in the house in Queen Anne street where Turner's studio was. This house, tenantless, dirty, literally rotting away, of which the neighbors said it was a disgrace and an eyesore to their street, contained the treasures which Messrs. Christie are about to offer to the world. Death has lately removed the man who was ostensible custodian of the property, and after his death there were found piles of engravings of all kinds reaching breast high around the room. Slates had fallen off the roof, the water had dripped in and was actually standing in tiny pools on some of the heaps of prints, and the floors had so far rotted that some of them appeared unsafe to carry a single person. By purchase or by death several of the claims on the property have become extinguished, until it is now vested jointly in the hands of two gentlemen, distant relatives of the painter, one of whom had to be fetched from the wilder parts of Alabama to establish his identity and his right to a share of these treasures. The sale will include quantities varying from about 400 to 600 each of the larger and more popular engravings, such as Caligula's Bridge, Dido and Æneas, Mercury and Argus, Mercury and Herse, and Crossing the Brook; more than 500 sets of the England and Wales series, and large numbers of the smaller book plates illustrating the works of Scott, Byron, Milton, Campbell and Rogers, together with those done for the Keepsakes, Annual Tours and other works. Of the published plates of Liber Studiorum there are few or no good examples, but collectors may enrich their folios from the etchings, of which there are more than 700 of the published series and more than 80 of the rarer unpublished. A number of the copper plates of the unpublished part of that work were found lying heaped in a corner of some old cupboard, where a charwoman had pitched them out of the way.

Dr. C. M. Ingleby has in preparation a volume entitled "Shakespears Prayse sung by the Poets of a Centurie," being a complete Catena of early notices of Shakespeare and his works, with a photographic frontispiece, reproducing the Hunt portrait.

The London Publisher's Circular gives its usual analysis of books published in England during the year 1872, with the following result: New books, 3,419; new editions, 1,100; American importations, 295; total, 4,814.

Messrs. Dodd & Mead have just published, from advance sheets, "Little Hodge," by the author of "Ginx's Baby."

The London Court Journal says that the Marquis of Ripon told "an amusing story" the other day in an after-dinner speech at Ripon. This is "the amusing story" "He said he well remembered when he went out to America one of the first persons who came on board the steamer when he got to New York was a gentleman connected with the press, and having tried various persons of the English Commission, and not having extracted very much from any of them, he at last went in despair to a friend of his (the speaker), who was also attached to the Commission, and said, 'Sir, have you nothing to reveal? Well, his friend had nothing to reveal." Now that is what we call a very "amusing" storyfor a lord.

Mr. Henry Stevens has issued an essay called Photobibliography a Word on Catalogues and How to make them. The first suggestion of the reader will be, What has the first word to do with the second and explanatory title? and the ready answer of Mr. Stevens would be, after a lively and well-deserved attack upon the present system of cataloguing, that he proposes to photograph all valuable title-pages of rare books, certain editions of which are necessary to be identified, and thus to place before the book-student or buyer the vera effigies of an editio princeps, or any other valuable example, such as, for instance, the 1623 folio of Shakespeare, the first edition of Sidney's Arcadia, or of Robinson Crusoe, or a rare Caxton. Mr. Stevens then, by a delicate forethought, reduces these titles to the ninth part of the original, and produces very charming little miniature title-pages, which could be inserted in any catalogue, and which would at once identify the edition. The thought is a happy one, if the practice is to be indulged in only by those who are rich and able to afford luxuries, perfect catalogues being of the number; but we quite agree with Mr. Stevens when he says that his system would make bibliography an exact science. As he adds, "It is not well to put a library into its catalogue, but better to put a catalogue into a library;" and we can quite conceive that such copies of titles could be produced so as to be infinitely better than any mere descriptive work of the ordinary cataloguer. The specimen photogram which Mr. Stevens issues is really very admirable, and will convince the most sceptical as to the excellence of the plan. The only thing to be got over is the expense. Mr. Stevens' collection of photograms of books already comprises many of the rarest volumes relating to America, the works of Marco Polo, Vespucci, &c., and of the early editions of Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, Raleigh, and some of the early English, French, and Italian romances and poems.-Publisher's Circular.

Mr. John M. Bellew, author of "Blount Tempest," Shakespeare's Home," "The Poet's Corner," etc., is now amongst us to give us a specimen of his qualities as a reader. For a number of years Mr. Bellew has been well known throughout England as one of the most successful elocutionists of the period. With Shakespeare, Hood, Pope, Tennyson, Ingoldsby or Dickens-the pathetic, the humorous or the sublime-Mr. Bellew is equally at home. We cordially recommend all of our readers who can do so to pay a speedy visit to Steinway Hall. A rich intellectual treat is in store for them.

Soon after the death of Mr. Forrest the news papers of the day gave an account of a fire which was said to have destroyed the choicest treasures of his library, or, in their own language, "reduced them to ashes." Among the works destroyed was the first folio edition of Shakespeare, 1623, concerning which it is stated that it was the most precious of his books, and was worth ($5,000) five thousand dollars. Of course it is to be regretted that it was destroyed, but its value is much overestimated. The writer sold this very copy to Mr. Forrest in October, 1860, for $375. It has, doubtless, appreciated since, but $500 is as much as such a copy is worth; it was what is known as a made up copy-the title and last leaf being in fac-simile. Books do not readily burn, and it is certainly somewhat remarkable that $20,000 worth of books should be destroyed by fire which was put out by "a fireman and a policeman."

Robert Burns's birthday was celebrated in this city on the 24th ult., by a dinner given at Delmonico's. George Macdonald was one of the guests, and delivered a speech. The Burns' Club in Brooklyn also gave a dinner, at which Mr. W. C. Bryant was one of the speakers of the evening.

At one of Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Wood's recent sales an interesting historical picture was disposed of to Mr. Graves. It is a large canvas, presumed to have been painted by Stoop, and represents the entry of Charles II into London. The gay monarch is on horseback, the picture is full of por traits of men memorable at the Restoration. Stoop, the artist, came over with Charles, and was afterwards sent by Charles to attend Catherine of Braganza from Lisbon. He did a series of etchings of that event.

Mr. Parker Gillmore ("Ubique ") has a new book in preparation, entitled "Adventures Afloat and Ashore."

Dr. Beke contemplates a journey to the East with a view to Biblical explorations. He proposes to look for "The Mount of God" in the country east of the Gulf of Akaba.

"The May Queen," by Alfred Tennyson, in illuminated borders designed by L. Summerbell, has Miss been published by Frederick Warne & Co. Summerbell has added a new charm to Mr. Tenny. son's poem, if, indeed, that be possible. She has inclosed the words of the poet in a framework of graceful flowers, the colors of which are so arranged that they please the eye without distracting it or interfering with the perusal of the verses. All who love the art of illuminating will be pleased with this book, apart from the beauty of the poem.

The thirteen unedited letters of Voltaire, now published at Moscow in the fifth volume of the "Memoirs of Prince Vorontzof," deserves attention, says the Temps, since Voltaire never left anything written which did not contain either some curious peculiarity, or some distinctive feature, of his genius. They are not remarkably interesting in a literary or historical point of view, but their bibliographical attractions are greater; for they are original, and the the signatures are autographs. One of these letters contains a curious profession of faith on the part of Voltaire, which was called forth by the request made to him on behalf of Catherine II of Russia by his friend, Count Vorontzof, to represent that sovereign's interference in favor of the Polish dissenters in its true light. "I am indeed," he writes, "in my fifth attack of fever; and I am seventy-four years old; but as long as I am not dead, I shall eagerly embrace that which you propose to me. I even believe that this project will make me live. Great passions give strength. I idolize three things,-liberty, tol eration, and your empress. I entreat these three divinities to inspire me. I await your orders."

Mr. Armitage, the eminent English artist, is engaged in painting a large picture of Chicago, the cartoon of which was at the last Royal Academy exhibition. This painting is to be hung in the Town Hall at Chicago.

Mr. J. Murray Graham, author of "An Historical View of Literature and Art in Great Britain," &c., is engaged in preparing a memoir of the lives of Viscount Stair and the first two Earls of Stair, all of them Dalrymples, and well known to readers of modern Scotch history. The viscount was distinguished as a lawyer and patriot. The first earl is notorious in history for the share he took in the Glencoe massacre, an atrocity which was scarcely atoned for by his subsequent services in bringing about the legislative union between England and Scotland. The second earl was concerned in several historical passages of interest, especially while acting as ambassador to France during the early years of the regency.