A Frenchparty in Mauritius have started a new journal, calledMadagascar. The name indicates its object—it is to promote the annexation to France of the great African island.
A curiousdiscovery has recently been made in the records of the Calcutta High Court which may serve to throw additional light on the history of the time of Clive. Some of the papers relating to the trial of Nandkumar have been unearthed, and among them is the judgment, with a long note appended in some old system of stenography, giving what purport tobe the true reasons for the lightness of the punishment inflicted. A lithographic copy of the note is to be sent to England for decipherment.
Mr. Swinburne’snew tragedy, “Marino Faliero,” is dedicated to Aurelio Saffi, the Italian patriot. This will indicate that the striking chapter of Venetian history upon which the drama is based has been treated in some measure politically. The chronicle, however, has been faithfully followed as to incidents.
Mr. J. A. Symondsis engaged upon the sequel to hisRenaissance in Italy. This book will deal with the period between 1530 and 1600. Mr. Symonds proposes to treat of the changes effected in Italian politics, society, and culture by the Spanish ascendancy and the Catholic revival. He will probably call the bookItaly and the Council of Trent.
Herr W. Friedrich, of Leipzig, will publish shortly a history of Russian literature, by Alexander von Reinhold, forming vol. vii. of the series, “Geschichte der Weltlitteraturen im Einzeldarstellungen.” The prospectus, issued by the publishers, claims that the book will far surpass in completeness and accuracy all previous works on this subject.
A drollincident occurred recently at Scotland Yard, London. Mr. Charles Gibbon, the novelist, has a friend there who is an inspector of the detective department, and to whom he is indebted for valuable instruction in the details of criminal procedure. In recognition of this service he forwarded to his friend a copy of the book just published entitled “A Hard Knot,” one of the principal characters in which is a detective. The parcel was done up in brown paper and delivered late in the evening by the Parcels Delivery Company, This was the information forwarded to Mr. Gibbon on the following day:
“Inspector —— was on duty here last night, and it is usual for the officer to turn in about 11.30P.M.But having received the parcel, he informed me this morning that he was unable to sleep—wondering if it containeddynamiteand every minute was to be his last. After turning over and over in bed, he at length got up and examined his bugbear carefully. Then, seeing your name on it, he felt satisfied, went to bed, and slept.”
Professor Blackieis not the only eccentric master the young men of Edinburgh University have had over them. Professor Christison—whose son became eminent in the Edinburgh Medical School—once having caught astudent winking in his Latin class ordered him to stand up, and spoke as follows: “No smirking, no smiling, and above all, no tipping of the wink; for such things are hurtful to yourselves, baneful to the republic, and will bring down the gray hairs of your parents with sorrow to the grave. Hum! by the way, that’s a very pretty sentence; turn it into Latin, sir.”
The Worldof London has conspicuously suggested Mr. Lowell for the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature at Oxford.
A finemonument has been erected at Ormiston, East Lothian, to the memory of Dr. Robert Moffat, the famous missionary to Africa.
Someinteresting autographs were recently sold at auction in London. The original autograph copy of Lord Byron’s “Fare thee well! and if forever,” fetched $85; the originals of Burns’s “Tam O’Shanter” and “Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots” together fetched $760; one of Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son, $15; thirteen letters of Dean Swift, from $38 to $85 each, and one of Charles Lamb, from Paris, $65.
Thecommission intrusted with the publication of the correspondence of Peter the Great has collected up to now 8,000 letters and other documents, among which are the copy-books used by the emperor when a child, and one letter written to his mother in 1688 from Pereyslavl, giving her an account of the work of rigging the ships then in course of construction on the lake of that name. It is stated that these documents will be printed with as little delay as possible.
Theremainder of the famous Salamanca collections are now being dispersed at Madrid. The library was formed mainly by Señor Gayangos, and was rich in works of chivalry and early editions of “Don Quixote.” Most of the rarest books had already found a resting-place on the shelves of Señor Cánovas del Castillo and other collectors. The portion now sold, for which a bookseller gave 700l., comprised general works with a sprinkling of rarities. One of these, a work but little known by Boccaccio, entitled “Caida de Príncipes,” translated into Spanish in the sixteenth century, led to a lively competition; a reprint of this work is promised shortly. When the last of these volumes shall have been sold, nothing will remain of the treasures acquired at great cost by that prince of financiers the late Marquis of Salamanca.
TheMarquis of Lorne’s volume on “Imperial Federation,” is announced for immediate publication in England.
“Othmar” is the title of Ouida’s forthcoming story. The scene is laid in Russia and the novel is said to be full of dramatic incident.
A littlegirl—the granddaughter of the Rev. Cazneau Palfrey—said to her mother the other day: “Mamma, I feel so strangely when I read Hawthorne, it seems as if I was reading through a veil.” Of course this was a Boston babe.
Prince William, eldest son of the Crown Prince of Germany, is about to publish a book on “The Wars of Cæsar in the Light of Modern Strategy.”
Theimmediate publication of the MS. diary of Shakespeare’s cousin, the Town Clerk of Stratford-on-Avon, is announced. The volume will consist of autotypes of the folio pages of the MS., a transcript by experts of the British Museum, an introduction by Dr. Ingleby, and an appendix of documents illustrative of the diary, and some of them never before printed. The diary extends from 1613 to 1616—the years of Shakespeare’s residence at Stratford previous to his death on the 5th of May (April 23 O. S.) of the latter year. From beginning to end it is a record of the attempts made to enclose, and of the resistance offered to the enclosure, of the common fields of Stratford, in which Shakespeare was interested, not only as a freeholder, but also as the owner of a moiety of the tithes.
Amongthe brilliant young Englishwomen, who are making a name in contemporary literature, is Miss Violet Paget, the Vernon Lee whose “Miss Brown” has caused some scandal among the London pre-Raphaelites. She lives on theterrenoof No. 5 Via Garibaldi, Florence, and is not quite twenty-four years of age. She is a brilliant talker, and if sometimes sophistical, is never without a clever reason for her sometimes extreme and startling opinions. Her reading is astounding in its extent and variety; her memory more remarkable still. Some of the most striking essays, which have appeared in the English magazines and reviews during the last five years, on Italian art, history, and literature have been from her pen. Her time is greatly taken up with the care of her half-brother, Eugene Hamilton, the poet. The fate of this brilliant young man is a very sad one. He was in the Government service during the Siege of Paris and at the Geneva Alabama Claims Conference and was so overworked that he brought on a disease of the spine which has buried him in what Heine calls a “mattress grave.” Miss Paget’s mornings are devoted to riding with her brother, and whatever time she has for individual work is in the night or between the return from this drive and four in the afternoon, when her brother’s callers begin to arrive. Miss Paget is a great admirer of Henry James, is an omnivorous reader, an illogical but often wonderfully intuitive exponent of mediævalism, and a deadly enemy of the æsthetic movement.
TheRoyal Spanish Academy has published in theMadrid Gazettethe conditions of a literary competition of considerable interest, to those at least conversant with Spanish literature. The temptation, in the shape of profit as well as of honor, should develop latent talent if it exists. The Academy proposes to give the successful author a gold medal, about 120l.in money, and 500 copies of the book. The first competition is for the best biographical and critical study upon Tirso de Molina; the second for aromanceroupon the lines of the “Romancero del Cid,” the subject being Don Jaime el Conquistador, the volume to contain not fewer than twenty nor more than fifty romances. The manuscripts of theromanceromust be furnished not later than March, 1886, and the Tirso, March, 1887.
Thetranslation of the “Mahâbhârata” published at Calcutta by Protap Chandra Roy, and distributed gratuitously, is not only progressing regularly, but begins to excite more and more interest among the people of India. Several Indian princes have contributed largely toward the funds necessary for carrying on this enormous work, more particularly the Maharajah of Cashmere, the Nawab Khayeh Abdul Gani Bahadoor, the generous Maharanee Swarnamayee, the Guikwar of Baroda, the Maharajah of Travancore, etc. More funds, however, were wanted, and it is pleasant to hear that Babu Govinda Lal Roy, a rich zemindar of Rungpore, has on the occasion of his daughter’s marriage undertaken to bear all the expenses of the English translation of one of the largest books of the “Mahâbhârata,” the “Vana Parva,” or Forest Book.
A workso rare that its existence might have been doubted has lately found its way from Persia to the British Museum. The historian Hamdullah Mustaufi says, in his preface to the “Guzidah,” that he was engaged upon the composition of a rhymed chronicle ofthe Muslim world, which would consist when completed of no less than 75,000 verses. That voluminous work, which, for all we knew, had never been seen or heard of since, has been found. To Mr. Sidney Churchill, of Teheran, belongs the credit of having discovered it in private hands at Shiraz, and secured it, not without a long and severe struggle with the owner, for the national library. It is entitled “Zafar Namah,” and forms a bulky and closely written quarto, richly ornamented with frontispiece and gilt headings, and dated Shiraz, 807,i.e., 1405 of our era. It contains the author’snom de guerre, Mustaufi, and comprises, according to the epilogue, the precise number of verses announced beforehand, viz., 75,000. Of these the first 25,000 are devoted to the Arabs,i.e., to Mohammed and his successors down to the fall of the Califate of Bagdad; the next 20,000 to the Persians, or to the dynasties of Iran from the Saffaris to the Karakhitais of Kerman; and the last 30,000 to the Moghols. This last section, the largest and most valuable, beginning with the origin of the house of Genghizkhan, treats very fully of the foundation of the Moghol empire of Hulagu, and of his successors in Persia down to Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan, the last of the dynasty, under whom the author lived. The history is brought down to the time of composition,A.H.735,A.D.1334, just one year before Abu Sa’id’s death.