quietly look out for a purchaser, without communi- | 46, Dante, Le Terze Rime, first Aldine edition, £3 cating with the Orleans family.

AN edition of Schiller and Goethe's Xenien has recently been printed from the original manuscript formerly in the possession of Dr. Edward Boas.

A SELECTION, in three volumes, of the Correspondence of Herder is in course of publication, and from the interest and importance of the contents, is expected to command considerable attention. Professor Düntzer is the editor of the work, which will contain letters from Goethe, Schiller, Klopstock, Jean Paul Richter, Lavater, Jacobi, etc.

THE fourth portion of the Dutch translation of Macaulay's England, has just been published by the house of H. C. S. Ery, at the Hague.

15s.; 101, Histoire de Geroleon d'Angleterre, £5 12s. 6d.; 117, Les Quatre Fils Aymon, £5 5s.

THERE appears at present in Italy 311 newspapers -partly political, partly scientific and artistic. They are distributed over the peninsula in the following way: 85 appear in Lombardy, 87 in Sardinia, 5 in Parma and Modena, 33 in Tuscany, 30 in the Papal Dominions, and 56 in the Kingdom of both Sicilies.

THE Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Library of the House, has just been printed. Considerable additions have been made to the library during the last three years, and a sum bequeathed by Mr. Phillips (secretary to Speakers Abbott and Manners Sutton) has been paid by his executors and invested in the following works ton's "Biblia Sacra Polyglotta," 421; various writers of Byzantine History, 251.; and the "Silvestre, Paléographie Universelle," 991. Large additions have been made to the library in works of general history, the colonies, and East Indies, dictionaries, books of reference, voyages and travels, collections of treaties, topography, political economy, and law. The room adjoining the Oriel room has been added to the li brary for the accommodation of the new books. An alphabetical catalogue to the books, which amount to 20,000 vols. (exclusive of Parliamentary publica tions,) has been compiled and printed for the use of Members. The Journal Index, 1837-52, is in type to the word "Orders," and other indexes have been compiled and printed.

OUR readers may not be aware that the laws, or rather the custom of law, in Denmark, gives perpetu-viz., the complete works of Cuvier, 2367; Wality to copyright. On a late occasion, the children of Oelenschagen, who has been called the Shakspeare of Denmark, addressed to the Minister of the Interior of that State, a petition for a grant of the copyright, for a hundred years, of their father's works. The reply of the Minister informed them that in the opinion of the Procureur General, there was no occasion for any grant of the sort, and that by the law of the land, there was no doubt of the right possessed by the heirs of a deceased author to the exclusive right for ever of publishing themselves, or of assigning to others, the right of publishing.

At the late excursion of the members of the Book sellers' Provident Institution, nearly one hundred members assembled on the grounds of the Retreat at Abbots Langley, and dined in a tent under the presidency of Mr. Edmund Hodgson, who presided in the absence of Mr. Green. Through the exertions of the latter gentleman, with the cooperation of numerous friends, the Retreat has now assumed a more prosperous position than it has hitherto held, a sum of upwards of sixteen hundred pounds having been invested as a permanent maintenance fund, the interest of which it is considered will prove nearly sufficient to keep the houses and grounds in repair. The Retreat and the Provident Fund conjointly offer advantages which few institutions present; and it is to be regretted that the junior members of the trade do not join the society in greater numbers than they do. THE Illustrated Monthly News, is the title of a new periodical announced to be published at the office of the Klatteradatsch, (the German Punch,) at Berlin.

A CURIOUS collection of letters relating to Wallenstein and the Thirty Years' War, has been discovered among the records of the Collalto family, in their castle at Pirnitz. These interesting documents are published by Herr von Chlumezkz, Keeper of the

Records at Brünn.

THE Directors of the Crystal Palace have now opened their library gratis to visitors, and have assigned a portion of the reading-room as an advertising medium for such publishers as may choose to support the library by donations.

AT the late sale of rare books at Messrs. Sotheby's, on August 26th, a copy of the magnificent work, Peintures et Ornemens des Manuscrits Français depuis le Huitième Siècle jusqu'à la fin du Seizième, 20 vols., executed under the direction of Count Auguste Bastard, was sold for £180. Amongst other lots, 3, Allen, Traité Politique, on vellum, fetched £3 9s.;

A ROMANCE which has lately appeared in Munich has created a great sensation in the highest circles in Berlin. It is entitled "The Prince, my Beloved, and his Partisans," (Der Fürst, mein Leibchen, und seine Parteigänger,") and is translated from the Polish of Count Rzewuzki, by Assessor Jerzwski into German, but appears under the nom de plume of Bachmann. The German critics speak of it as a romance of the highest order; the story is founded on an historical fact of deep interest. The author says in his preface: "Just at present must the internal policy of a nation verging on its fall, the noble struggles and efforts, phases of a life which seems rather to belong to the present times, these must have a special interest for our own day." The fall of the kingdom of Poland forms the leading subjects of the romance; the dramatis persona are essentially Polish in their characteristics; the incidents are stirring, and the national features well portrayed. The book may be regarded rather as an historical memoir of the times than as a mere work of fiction; it is more true than poetical, presenting us with life pictures of the time and country, It is a curious fact that whilst the King of Prussia was in Berlin, marking his approbation of the work, by presenting the author with a valuable diamond pin, the petty representative of majesty in Posen had prohibited the sale of the book in that town. So much for despotic power committed to stupid and ignorant officials-this, too, in the so-called liberal and enlightened Prussia."

THOMAS DE QUINCEY is a contributor to the new English periodical called The Titan. In the September number he has an article entitled "Storms in English History: a glance at the reign of Henry VIII."

LITERARY MISCELLANIES.

ANOTHER Copy of the quarto edition of Hamlet, (1603,) of which the only other copy at present known is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, has lately turned up, and although imperfect in the beginning, supplies at the end that portion of Prince Talleyrand leaning on the arm of an attend-which the Duke's copy is deficient. This copy, which ant, his hair white as wool, and his piercing eyes flashing with diamond-like brilliancy. The portrait is a striking likeness.

ed to £785. These facts should certainly be additional inducements to those who have not done so to join the Institution, while they should on no account cause the efforts of its active friends to relax.

THE Tribunal of Commerce at Paris, has fined a publisher two thousand francs, (£80,) for inserting in a catalogue appended to a work published by him, a deprecatory remark on a rival publication.

MR. BENTLEY, the London publisher, has obtained the whole of Horace Walpole's unpublished correspondence with his friend and deputy in the Exchequer, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford. Old Mr. Bedford (the uncle of Southey's correspondent) was the channel of many of Walpole's unknown communications with the public papers, and at times of his many unostentatious charities. "Horry," as Lady Mary Wortley delighted to call him, will be found to have had a heart, after all. His charitable sympathies were chiefly with poor prisoners for debt. This accession will give additional interest to the forthcoming edition of "Walpole's Letters."

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munications between the Scandinavian kingdoms, and reducing the postage on letters and books; they also decided on founding a central Scandinavian library, on establishing an annual book-fair similar to that of Leipsic, on improving their trade relations, and on getting up a fund for the relief of such of their body as may fall into distress.

AT Liege, there was within the last few days, a competition for prizes in poetry in the Walloon language, and the fire and inspiration of the Walloon poets produced such excellent verses, that the judges felt themselves necessitated to award two first and one second prizes.

IN our last, we recorded that, amongst the prizes awarded by the Académie Française of Paris, in its last annual sitting, was one to M. Bartholmess, for his "Histoire des Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophie Moderne." We have now to record the death of this gentleman. The melancholy event took place suddenly, at Nuremburg, a few days ago. The deceased possessed considerable reputation as a philo

THE Builder notices an important invention in ste-sophical writer on the continent. reotype: "One of the persons employed in the State printing-office of Vienna, has made the discovery, that plates of plaster of Paris will uniformly contract by a repeated washing with water, and still more if with spirits of wine. On this is based a process to produce both print (drucksachen) and woodcuts in various gradations of type and size, by a calculated diminution of the plaster of Paris plate. Already print and drawings have been made of a twelfth-part size, reduced from three inches to one inch in diameter, and yet even the reduction to the smallest size does not encroach on the perfect correctness of the impression."

THE Academie Française, at its sitting on the 28th of August, announced its prizes for last year. Amongst them is one of 2000 francs, (£80,) for a poem on the Eastern War; another, of the same amount, for a Eulogium of Regnard, the dramatic poet; and a third, of £120, which has been more than once offered, and offered in vain, for the best treatise "On the State of Letters, and the Progress of Intelligence in France in the first part of the Seventeenth Century, before the tragedy of the Cid, and Descartes' treatise on Method." Finally, the Académie announces that in 1858, it will give £120 for the best treatise "On the Historical and Oratorical Genius of Thucydides."

WE hear that the object of the preservation of the house in which Shakspeare is said to have been born, is about to be effectually accomplished, by the bounty of a gentleman of the name of John Shakspeare, (who claims to be descended collaterally from the poet,) resident not far from the neighborhood of Stratfordupon-Avon. He has given no less a sum than between £2000 and £3000, in order that the small edifice in Henley street may be separated from other buildings, and put in a condition to resist, as far as possible, the inroads of time. The money has actually,

as we hear, been paid over to certain trustees, we believe forming at present the principal members of the corporation of Shakspeare's native town.

THE booksellers of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, have just held a Congress" at Copenhagen. They decided in it, after due deliberation, to petition the King of Denmark to cause the Diet to adopt laws for protecting literary property, increasing postal com

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THOUGH she was little known in the general world of letters, the death of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, of Clifton, at the age of seventy-eight, claims a record in a literary journal. Her work on "Port Royal and its dependencies, many years ago published and circulated in the sectarian world, besides displaying a thorough knowledge of languages, and of the bearings of the Jesuit and Jansenist controversy, was excellent as a piece of narrative. Her "Theory of Beauty and Deformity," though disfigured by crotchets, was full of ingenious speculation and curious example. She was an eccentric, but a learned and accomplished woman.

THE Liverpool Mercury states that the success which has attended the formation of the free-lending libraries in Liverpool, is quite unprecedented, and their increasing usefulness is becoming daily more and more apparent. At present, the issue averages upwards of 4500 volumes per week. The care which is taken of the books, and the punctuality with which they are returned, are remarkable; and although there have been upwards of 350,000 volumes lent since the commencement, only three or four books of trifling value have been really lost to the libraries. In the selection of books, all tastes, as far as practicable, have been consulted; and the readers have now between 13,000 and 14,000 volumes to select from. The high class of reading which the statistics exhibit is most cheering, and the happiest results must necessarily flow from the establishment of such institutions.

case which seems strongly to illustrate the defective THE French tribunals have been occupied with a state in which the law of that country is with respect by purchase come into the possession of certain manto property in manuscripts. A bookseller, having uscripts of the late Louis Philippe, communicated the fact to the Orleans family, and gave them the option of purchasing, if so disposed. The Duke D'Aumale, to whom the application was made, took no notice of it; but legal proceedings were commenced by the family to obtain the manuscripts without purchase. The bookseller declares that, whatever may have been the history of the papers, he came by them honestly enough, and defends his rights pertinaciously. The next time he gets such precious wares into possession, he will probably keep his own counsel, and

and from literature is, however, chiefly | lity of a sun-picture that more ethereal shown in the extreme rarity of allusion to beauty which sometimes glows in the huit in any but the most general sense. man face; but we never yet met with the Nothing is more common in our everyday man, even amongst the most susceptible writing than illustrations drawn from the and eloquent, who could convey the feelachieved results of other arts. Authors ing raised in him by an Adagio of Beetpossessing no skill of their own, either in hoven otherwise than by ejaculations of a painting or music, speak familiarly of the monotonous ecstasy, or by a far more exformer, yet utterly ignore the latter. The pressive silence. Bachism of Bach, though obvious enough to the musician, is not so available to our scribes as the "Corregioscity of Correggio." A description of nature brings up the name of a picture or a painter as if it were part of the scene, but we remember no similar case in which impressions of the Pastoral Symphony or of Haydn's Seasons are recalled.

These reasons, however, do not dispel our surprise that at least the biography of composers should be so scanty, and the facts of their personal histories so rarely alluded to, as compared with those of the great masters in others arts. We should rather have supposed that the very mystery of that spiritual meaning which the composer elicits from sound and rhythm, that his function as the priest of an oracle which speaks in language native to the soul yet hidden from the intellect, would have created the keenest interest in all that related to his person, culture, habits, and external relations. The very secret of that hero-worship, which of late years has been exaggerated into a dogma, and which makes us track with such delight those "footprints on the sands of time" left by great men of the past, is the piquant conjunction, in one view, of that power of large ideal conception which separates genius from ordinary humanity, with those personal facts which again identify it with the mass of common life. Curiosity usually hovers about the point at which the sphere of a strong creative force touches that of a mere mortal existence, chequered with common joys and sorrows. all the powers wielded by human art, that by which the great master in music

And of

Probably the reason why that art which most promptly, if not most powerfully, elicits the emotions of men, has left the scantiest impression of that effect on written records, may be found partly in the origin and partly in the nature of music. In a creative sense, it is the youngest of the arts. In the earlier ages of the restoration of learning, the arts of poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture, seemed to come up out of antiquity linked and grouped together, each pointing to its own material results. But music, which in ancient times was probably never anything more than a spontaneous recitative, was not one of the group, and had no works to show. As the awaking thought of men naturally concerned itself much with the media through which it had derived its impulse from the past, the arts of form and color entered from the first into the tide of common intellectual interest. Music, however, which, so far as it had been really developed, seemed to have lapsed into the silence of oblivion, was only written about by those who were slowly creating it anew. But music is itself too subtle an essence to is surely that which might kindle in us the admit readily of verbal analysis. Articu- eagerness of Comus to learn something of lating no definite thought to the mind, the the" mortal mixture of earth's mould" from mind in its turn can give it no articulate which it emanates. The composing faculecho. The structural features of a compo- ty, besides, if of the highest order, must sition may indeed be discussed, and they grow in the naturally rich soil of which afford delightful exercise for the faculties strong affections and a reverent will are which recognize proportion, sequence, also indigenous products. Music is itself, symmetry; but all this is professional, not in spite of its many prostitutions to baser popular, while that which is popular and uses, the art most closely related to relinot professional, is exactly that which can- gion and "homefelt delights." Nor is its not be translated into words. Language progressive history without that picturis eminently pictorial. The pen of Ruskin esque clustering and contrast of individusteals all the tints of Turner's pencil, and alities along the path of a continuous deve our poets can transcribe with all the fide-lopment, which gives something of dra

"Takes the prisoned soul, And laps it in Elysium,"