Vol. VI.

LITERARY (AND OTHER) GOSSIP.

In the sale of the engravings belonging to the late Hon. R. Pole Carew, by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, the following, by Martin Schöngauer, produced the prices mentioned: The Crucifixion, 85; another, 417.; Christ bearing the Cross, 271.; The Almighty Enthroned, an angel on either side, 871.; The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John, 161. Heads of Angels, by Toschi, after Correggio, 15.; Two Cavaliers engaged in Combat, by Israel Van Mecklen, 177. 175.; The set of Horses, by Paul Potter, 187.; Mrs. Abington as the Comic Muse, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 221.; The Farm-yard, 18/.; Inverary Castle, 24/. These last two from Turner's "Liber Studiorum."

were

The same auctioneers sold a collection of rare prints, the property of an officer in the army. The following were by Dürer: Adam and Eve, 531. 10s.; The Nativity, with Joseph drawing water from a well, 317; another, 27.; The set of "The Passion," 32/.; another, 227.; The Conversion of St. Hubert, 391.; another, 30l.; St. Jérôme, 321.; The Sorceress, 20/.; "Melancolia," 40/.; An Es cutcheon, 22/. 10s. The illustrations of the Apocalypse, by Jean Duvet, 150/.; View of the CampoVaccino, by Claude, 23.; "The Passion," by Glockenton, 44/. 10s.; Van Leyden, Adam and Eve (before the letter L), 40/.; Conversion of St. Paul, 30.; The Dance of the Magdalen, 50/.; Marc Antonio, The Almighty appearing to Noah, 754.; The Virgin seated on the Clouds, 110/.; St. Cecilia, 106/.; another, on darker paper, 22/.; Lucretia, 1971.; Mount Parnassus, 20/.; The Old and the Young Bacchant, 40/.; Orpheus and Eurydice, 267.; The Man with the Two Trumpets, 537.; "Poetry (first state), 186/; The Seven Virtues, in niches, 32/.; "Adam and Eve," before the hard outlines on the arms, and the " Cleopatra in an early state, hitherto undescribed, the former 4851., and the latter 3691.

A copy of the "Heures d'Anne de Bretagne," by M. Curmer, on vellum, was sold the other day in J is for 16,000 francs.

1 a sale of books just concluded by Messrs. Put& Simpson, of Leicester Square, London, there

Nos. 67 & 68.

appeared a copy of Vyrgyle's "Boke of Eneydos," translated and printed by William Caxton, 1490, which, although wanting two pages, was knocked down for 1917.

The late Mr. George Daniel, so well known for his book-lore, condensed much of the results of his wide knowledge and voluminous acquisitions of rare "broad-sides" into a series of gossiping articles, published some thirty years ago in Bentley's Miscellany, under the title of "Merrie England in the Olden Time." These papers were duly republished in expensive volumes, which are now somewhat rare. cheap reissue was much to be desired, and we are glad to say that this has been carried out by Messrs. F. Warne & Co., of London, in their "Chandos Library." The work can now be bought in this handy form for three shillings and sixpence, with plates by Leech and Robert Cruikshank.

A

Miss Thackeray, daughter of the celebrated novelist, W. Makepeace Thackeray, publishes the following warning to the public: "It has recently come to my knowledge, by the kindness of a friend, that letters and manuscripts are being frequently offered for sale as autographs of my father. Some which I have seen are rather clumsy forgeries; but they were sufficiently well executed to impose upon persons already familiar with my father's handwriting. May I therefore beg you to publish this letter, in order to check a fraud which might incidentally be injurious to my father's memory? In one case a letter attributed to him had been manufactured by copying a fragment from a magazine article not written by him, and appending his signature; and I should much regret that correspondence so compiled should be attributed to him."

The Saturday Review is notorious for its lofty disregard of facts, whenever it condescends to treat of American subjects. A late example of its brilliant mendacity, in which, however, it was evidently led astray by a parliamentary statement, was the announcement that "a newspaper, called the Congressional Globe, is recognised as the official record of Congress, and receives for reporting and printing the debates a subsidy of something over £50,000 each session." This was true at one time, but it seems to

have escaped the notice of the oracle of Southampton Street that the broom of reform swept the Congressional Globe out of existence twelve months ago, and that its place is now occupied by the Congressional Record, issued from the State printing department, at a cost to the nation of so much paper, print, and reporting. The fact is probably of little importance; but as it was given as a fact, it might as well have been correctly stated.

One day Louis XV. surprised Mdlle Genest, afterwards Madame Campan, dancing by herself in front of a huge mirror. His Majesty stopped and waited until the young lady had finished her solitary waltz, and then said to her, as she courtesied, red with confusion, before him: "Mademoiselle, they tell me you are a very learned person. How many languages do you speak?” "Six, your Majesty," answered Mademoiselle. "Do you sing?' "Yes, your Majesty." "You dance, I know?" Yes, your Majesty," quoth Mademoiselle, still bobbing courtesies. "You draw?" "Yes, your Majesty." "God help your husband, whenever you get one," said the monarch, as he turned on his heel.

66

The play upon which Mr. Horace Howard Furness, of Philadelphia, is now engaged for his superb edition of Shakespeare, is "Hamlet." Mr. Furness has, we hear, entirely finished the collation of the "Hamlet text in the folios and quartos, and is half through the collation of some fifty modern editions. Uniform in size, and in all essential particulars, with the handsome volumes of her husband's edition, Mrs. Furness has, in her enthusiasm and devotion to the same cause, produced a complete "Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems; an Index to every word therein contained." This beautiful book is a literal

fulfilment of the title. It comprises every instance of the use of any part of speech, even to the most minute, throughout "Venus and Adonis," "The Rape of Lucrece," the "Sonnets," "A Lover's Complaint," ," "The Passionate Pilgrim," and "The Phoenix and Turtle." To facilitate reference, the clause in which the required word stands and the number of the line are both given; and "that nothing may be wanting to the convenience of the student, the whole of the poems are reprinted at the end."

Diabolical.-Some years since, it will be remembered, the Rev. W. R. Alger published a catalogue of works relating to the future life. We do not remember that he took cognizance, however, of the superintendent of the lower regions, a deficiency which is to be remedied by Mr. Henry Kernot, with a catalogue raisonée of books relating to the devil. The appearance of his infernal majesty in history and letters will be chronicled with very full annotations, the books being catalogued in chronological

crder. It will be forwarded on receipt of twenty-five cents, or with twelve illustrations, representing the devil at different epochs, for fifty cents.—Publisher's Weekly.

A Good Answer.-A well known idiot, named James Fraser, belonging to the Parish of Lunan, in Forfarshire, Scotland, quite surprised people sometimes by his replies. The congregation of his parish church had for some time distressed their minister by their habit of sleeping in church. He had often endeavored to impress them with a sense of the impropriety of such conduct, and one day, when Jamie was sitting in the front gallery, wide awake, while many were slumbering around him, the clergyman endeavored to awaken the attention of his hearers by stating the fact, saying: "You see, even Jamie Fraser, the idiot, does not fall asleep, as so many of you are doing." Jamie. not liking, perhaps, to be thus designated, coolly replied: "And I hadna been an idiot I wad ha' been sleepin' too." This is only another of the instances where fools astound wise

men.

Dr. Watts. A great deal of fuss was made lately by the English newspapers because Dr. Watts, the bicentenary of whose birth has just been celebrated at Southampton, when only nineteen years of age, gave an impromptu description of the first miracle in the following words:

"Modest water, pressed by power divine, Saw its Lord, and blushed itself to wine." Surely Isaac Watts is not to have the credit of that beautiful conceit. Richard Crashaw, the poet, died twenty-four years before Watts was born. The latter knew Latin well, and it is highly probable that he was acquainted with the Latin poems and epigrams which the former composed while resident at Cambridge, and which, doubtless, were more widely read during Watts's time than they are now. In this volume we find reference to the miracle thus:

"The conscious water saw its God and blushed."

Good News from France.-Where Young's "Night Thoughts" and Hervey's "Meditations " were once so popular, we learn, with satisfaction, that Cowper has, at last, been introduced to the acceptance of the French public. This has been done by M. Léon Boucher, in a handsome volume, entitled, "William Cowper, sa Correspondence et ses Poésies."

The Athenæum calls for a new edition of "The Letters of Horace Walpole," saying that copies are very hard to get, the American demand having absorbed the supply.

Pope's Rhymes. In looking through Pope's "Essays" and "Satires," we have been struck with the number of rhymes that, to our ears, seem essentially faulty. We suspect that he often made his rhymes

purposely inaccurate, for variety's sake. If not, the pronunciation of many words must have greatly changed since his days. In two instances the difference is strangely remarkable (Es. M., Ep. i. 1. 223): "Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier; For ever separate, yet for ever near!"

(Moral Essays, Ep. ii. 1. 111):

"The daily Anodyne, and nightly Draught,

To kill those foes to fair ones, Time and Thought."

The legend of "Whittington and his Cat" will be the subject to be set by M. Offenbach for the opéra-bouffe he has engaged to compose for Cramer, Wood & Co., through the agency of Mr. D'Oyley Carte. The libretto will be written first in French, by MM. Nuitter and Tréfeu, and the English adaptation by Mr. Farnie. The work will be produced at Christmas in London.

We regret to record the death, on the 13th ult., of Miss Agnes Strickland, the well-known authoress of the "Queens of England." The third daughter of Mr. Thomas Strickland, of Reydon Hall, Suffolk, England, Miss Strickland was born early in the century, and her first effusions were poetry-much discountenanced by her father. One poem, "Wor

cester Field," was praised by Thomas Campbell, but her poems are now forgotten, and she soon turned her attention to French and Italian biographies and to historical compilation. After writing, for keepsakes and for children, "The Rival Crusoes," she, aided by her sister Elizabeth, produced, in 1840, "The Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest." This work was completed in 1849, and since then Miss Strickland produced "The Lives of the Bachelor Kings of England." She was rewarded, in 1871, with a pension of £100 on the Civil List, in recognition of her literary merit.

"Antient," corrupted from ensign, and also applied to the bearer of an ensign, is in fact equivalent to the British (though now defunct) subaltern, an ensign. It is used more than once in Shakespeare : "This is Othello's ancient, as I take it. The same indeed; a very valiant fellow." Othello, v. 1.

And again :

English literature at present, as described by the Herald's London correspondent, is better in the old than the new. Even in this dull season there are plenty of fresh novels; but few of them are likely to live more than a year or two. It is so easy to find a publisher nowadays that everybody writes, though, luckily, it is not everybody that reads. The republication of the old English dramatists seems to be one of the most important events in the book world of London, and we wish a similar enterprise would be

undertaken here The majority of American readers know little of Webster, Dekker, Middleton, Hey wood, Marston, Marlowe, and other early dramatists simply because of the difficulty of finding their works outside of libraries.

Shakespeare's Name.-The variations in spelling the name of Shakespeare may be illustrated by the following extract from the register of the parish of Beverston, in Gloucestershire, not far from Stratfordon-Avon, and in the adjoining county, for the year 1619: "Edward Shakespurre, the son of John Shakespurre and Margery his wife, was baptized the 17th day of September. Godfathers: Edward Eastcourt, Fraunçis Savage. Godmother: Mary Eastcourt." Edward Estcourt was an ancestor of the Right Hon. T. H. S. Sotheron-Estcourt, of Estcourt, five miles distant from Beverston. Francis Savage and Mary Estcourt married in 1621, being ancestors of the Savages of Tetbury. The Hicks family, ancestors of Sir Michael Hicks Beach, had recently bought Beverston Castle, which, until 1597, had belonged to the Berkeleys of Beverston.

A Parallel.-History repeats itself. "Instances," says the Athenæum, in its review of Mr. Farrar's Life of Christ "of special pleading might be given were it needful on the present occasion, and of diluted paraphrase which spoils the simplicity of the original words, as in speaking of Jesus's 'eyes streaming with silent tears,' for he wept." writes Mr. Wickins of Dr. Johnson, "through the house, he stepped into a small study or book-room. The first book he laid his hands upon was Harwood's 'Liberal Translation of the New Testament.'

66 'Returning,"

The

passage which first caught his eye was from that sublime apostrophe, in St. John, upon the raising of Lazarus, Jesus wept,' which Harwood had conceitedly rendered 'And Jesus, the Saviour of the World, burst into a flood of tears.' He contemptuously threw the book aside, exclaiming Puppy!"'

From Germany we hear that the new work of Gregorovius, "A History of Lucrezia Borgia," which has attracted much attention, has reached a second edition.

Mr. John Forster's next work is likely to be a biography of Swift, for which he has collected a valuable mass of materials, including not a few unpublished letters of the famous Dean.

Some rather astonishing figures are given concerning the sale of the works of a popular song-writer, William S. Hayes, of Louisville, Ky. The following are some of the figures: "Shamus O'Brien," 234,375; "Mollie Darling," 237,450; "Nora O'Neil," 346,644; "Driven from Home," 356,345; and "Write me a Letter from Home," 446,100. All these figures relate to songs published within the