THE Abbé Liszt is engaged on the fourth volume of his Memoirs. The
work is expected to fill six volumes. The first volume is to appear
immediately.
THE authorities of the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg intend to
bring out a palæographical series, containing specimens of their most
important Greek, Latin, Slavonic, French, and other manuscripts.
M. RENAN’S health has improved, but his projected tour in Palestine
is postponed on account of the disturbed condition of the East. His
lectures at the Collège de France on the Old Testament are attended by
persons of both sexes and listened to with much interest.
A PRAISEWORTHY step has been taken by the Edinburgh Town Council in
resolving to place memorial tablets on all spots of historical interest
in the city. The first place to receive this mark of attention is the
site in Chambers Street (formerly College Wynd) of the house where Sir
Walter Scott was born; and it has also been decided to erect a memorial
stone over the grave of the novelist’s father in Greyfriars’ Churchyard.
THE Senate of Hamburg has made a gift of 1,000 marks to Herr Karl
Theodor Gædertz, the author of _Geschichte des Niederdeutschen
Schauspiels_, in acknowledgment of the value of his work in the
illustration of the literary history of Hamburg. The present was made
through the Hanseatic Minister in Berlin, where Herr Gædertz resides.
A BIOGRAPHY of the late Richard Lepsius is in preparation by his pupil
and friend Prof. G. Ebers. The author has had the diaries, letters, and
other papers of Lepsius placed at his disposal for this purpose.
THE successor of the lamented Prof. Lepsius at the Royal Library at
Berlin is not yet appointed. We are glad to learn that the post will
not be filled by a great name only, but by a specialist. This is,
in fact, greatly needed, as the Berlin library is one of the least
accessible in Europe to scholars in general. Books are given out but
twice a day, and then only if they have been asked for the previous day.
“COUNT PAUL VASALI,” whose lively sketches of Viennese society in the
_Nouvelle Revue_ have just been completed, announces that he intends
shortly to commence a similar series on society in London.
A COLLECTION of unpublished letters of the Countess of Albany is being
prepared for the press by Prof. Camillo Antona-Traversi. It is stated
that these letters far exceed in interest all the specimens hitherto
printed of the correspondence of the Countess.
SAYS the _Athenæum_. The Trustees of Cornell University have invited
Mr. Eugene Schuyler to give a course of lectures on the diplomatic
and consular service of the United States. The course is to be in
connection with the Department of History and Political Science. It is
hoped that these new lectures, by supplementing those already given in
the university in connexion with international law and history, will
aid in training men to compete for positions in the service when a
proper reform shall be made in the matter of appointments.
THE study of palæography is receiving increased attention just now
in Italy. A short time since a palæographical school was founded at
Naples, under the direction of the learned archivist, Dr. A. Miola.
More recently the Pope has established at the Vatican a similar
institution, which he has placed under the management of Father Carini.
THE _Revue Politique et Littéraire_ states that the MS. of two
unpublished tales by Perrault has just been discovered. The titles are
“La Fée des Perles” and “Le Petit Homme de Bois.” It is added that the
MS. will be offered to the Bibliothèque nationale.
A CORRESPONDENT writes from Paris that M. Victor Hugo seemed strong and
well on his birthday, though troubled with deafness. He expressed his
gratification at the Laureate’s sonnet, which made a deep impression on
him at the time of its publication, and which he has not forgotten.
THE correspondent of the _Academy_, M. Lambros, has found in a MS.
of the fourteenth century, belonging to the Ministry of Education at
Athens, a collection, in form of a dialogue, from the works of Menander
and Philistion. Boissonade printed a similar one from a Paris MS. to
be found in Meineke, “Fragm. Com. Græc.,” iv. 335 ff. That consists,
however, of only fifty-four verses, while the Athens one contains 350.
The MS. also contains a collection of 415 maxims from Menander, each
consisting of a single line.
THE French edition of Mr. H. M. Stanley’s book on the Congo, which,
as recently announced, is to be published in Brussels, will, we are
informed, be translated by Mr. Gerard Harry, one of the editors of the
_Independance belge_ and of the _Mouvement géographique_.
MR. R. L. STEVENSON’S second series of “New Arabian Nights” will be
called, not “The Man in the Sealskin Coat,” as at first announced, but
“The Dynamiter.” Its purpose is comic. It consists of a “Prologue”
and an “Epilogue,” both in the Cigar Divan (in Rupert Street) to
which, as readers of the first series may remember, the chance of
revolution relegated Prince Florizel of Bohemia; of a certain number
of “adventures;” and of a set of subsidiary stories, “The Fair Cuban,”
“The Brown Box,”“The Destroying Angel,” and “The Superfluous Mansion.”
It will be published almost at once, we believe.
DR. LUDWIG GEIGER has begun a new journal which promises to be of great
literary importance, _Vierteljahrsschrift für Kultur und Litteratur
der Renaissance_. (Leipzig: Seeman.) In the first number the editor
contributes a very thorough study of the life and writings of Publio
Fausto Andrelini, of Forli, who taught in Paris from 1489 to 1518,
and did much to quicken the impulse of humanism in France. Herr Grimm
examines Vasari’s authority for the statement that Michelangelo
finished four statues of captives for the tomb of Julius II. He
comes to the conclusion that Vasari was mistaken, and that only two,
now in the Louvre, were really his work. Herr Zupitza criticises
“Three Middle-English versions of Boccaccio’s story of Ghismonda and
Guiscardo”—one by Banister, a second by Walter, and a third anonymous.
Besides these articles are published unprinted letters of Guarino and
Reuchlin. This new quarterly journal has every prospect of filling a
decided need in literature, and bringing to light much new material for
literary history.
IN a recent number of _Deutsche Rundschau_ Herr Herzog gives a vivid
sketch of modern progress in an article on “Die Einwirkungen der
modernen Verkehrsmittel auf die Culturentwicklung.” His general
conclusion is that the discovery of railways and the electric telegraph
has tended to democratise society and substitute practical materialism
for any moral ideal of life. Only when commerce has become truly
world-wide, and national interests have ceased to jar and conflict,
must we look for a world-state in which ideal ends again will meet with
due recognition. Freiherr von Lilicronen, in a paper on “Die Kunst
der Conversation,” undertakes the defence of German “Ernst” against
French “esprit” as a basis for social life. An English bystander is
probably inclined to suggest a happy blending of the two. Dr. H. Hüffer
publishes some hitherto unprinted letters of Heine to his friend Johann
Hermann Detmold. They are the scanty records of a friendship of thirty
years, and are of great importance for Heine’s biography, especially as
regards his life in Paris and his relations to his wife.
IN an exhaustive paper recently read before the Académie des
Inscriptions (_La Donation de Hugues, Marquis de Toscane, au Saint
Sépulcre, et les etablissements latins de Jérusalem au Xe siècle_),
M. Riant reminds us how little is known of the history of Palestine
previous to the time of the Crusades from the Latin side, although much
has been done of late years to elucidate its history in connection with
the Greek Church. He makes the re-examination of an important grant of
property by the Duke of Tuscany, in A.D. 993, to the Holy Sepulchre
and St. Maria Latina the occasion for a sketch of the Latin occupation
from the end of the sixth to the end of the eleventh centuries, showing
especially the nature of Charlemagne’s protectorate of the holy places.
The document itself he subjects to a searching criticism, calling up,
while so doing, a most striking figure in the Abbé Guarin, of Cuxa (one
of the grantees), an eloquent ecclesiastic of great influence in both
France and Italy, and a wide traveller.