A FRENCH party in Mauritius have started a new journal, called
_Madagascar_. The name indicates its object—it is to promote the
annexation to France of the great African island.
* * * * *
A CURIOUS discovery 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 to be 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’S new 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. SYMONDS is engaged upon the sequel to his _Renaissance 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 book _Italy 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 DROLL incident 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 11.30 P.M. But having received the parcel, he
informed me this morning that he was unable to sleep—wondering if it
contained _dynamite_ and 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 BLACKIE is 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
a student 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 World_ of London has conspicuously suggested Mr. Lowell for the
Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature at Oxford.
* * * * *
A FINE monument has been erected at Ormiston, East Lothian, to the
memory of Dr. Robert Moffat, the famous missionary to Africa.
* * * * *
SOME interesting 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.
* * * * *
THE commission 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.
* * * * *
THE remainder 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 700_l._, 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.
* * * * *
THE Marquis 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 LITTLE girl—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.”
* * * * *
THE immediate 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.
* * * * *
AMONG the 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 the _terreno_ of 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.
* * * * *
THE Royal Spanish Academy has published in the _Madrid Gazette_ the
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 120_l._ 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 a _romancero_ upon 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 the _romancero_ must be furnished not later than
March, 1886, and the Tirso, March, 1887.
* * * * *
THE translation 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 WORK so 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 of the 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’s _nom 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.