last twelve years. Neither the words nor music are of a very elevated kind, but they are thoroughly pure and healthy, and their popularity is significant of the prevailing taste.

Mrs. Lucy Audubon, the widow of the distinguished ornithologist, died in her 88th year, at Shelbyville, Ky., on the 17th of June. Mrs. Audubon published a life of her husband in 1869, which was pronounced a very creditable literary production.

Our English contemporary, the Bookseller, states : "New books are scarce at this season, and announcements equally so. Edmund Yates' novel, A Dangerous Game,' has met with very fair success. Some curiosity was excited by the announcement of an American novel by so well-known a writer; but beyond the fact that some of its scenes are in New York, it has nothing particularly American about it. The author has been careful not to trust himself on dangerous ground, but writes pleasantly about some men and things he saw in New York, somewhat in the vein of a special correspondent. As New York

is as much like a city in the south or east, as a French ordinary in Soho is like the old Chapter Coffee House, the peculiarly American' character of the book may be proportionately estimated. The truth is, that if a man were to fall asleep in London, and wake up at Delmonico's in New York, he might fancy himself in Paris until he paid his bill; or if he woke up in a lager-beer garden in the Bowery, he might think himself in Munich, and within a hundred yards might find himself surrounded by all the picturesque vicissitudes of an Irish colony. The typical American is singularly hard to discover, and, when you have found him, the chances are ten to one that he will turn out to be a German or a native of the Emerald Isle. The second volume of the 'Life of John Quincy Adams' has appeared, bringing the work down to the year 1814, and also a new book by one of those ubiquitous gentlemen, a Herald correspondent. It is Mambi Land,' being the adventures of James J. O'Kelly, a correspondent of the New York Herald, in Cuba. Max Adler's book, 'Out of the Hurly-Burly,' it appears, is to have the special honor of being reprinted by two London houses, one of which, however, pays the author something. Curiously enough, when the second announcement was made in London, a New York house, thinking it an English book, promptly announced it also."

Literary Popularity and Discrimination. For some time past a poem entitled, "Binley and '46," has been going the rounds of the press, purporting to have been written by Bret Harte. Of course the average editor, on seeing a poem by Bret Harte, grabbed his shears and cut it out to reprint. It

finally reached Frank Leslie's, and was given the benefit of a full page illustration by Matt Morgan, The poem appeared first in the Open Letter, and its history is as follows: "Some weeks ago one of the editors of the Open Letter made the assertion that a poem written in the style of any well-known poet, no matter how absurd, would be copied clear to the Atlantic seaboard. This point was disputed, and accordingly the poem was written in the Open Letter office as a contribution by Bret Harte, and published as such. The result was as expected. The papers were sold." In the first place, the complete absurdity of the poem ought to strike anybody. It represents an engineer rushing through the snow blockade without any stoker, and at last freezing to death by the very side of a blazing fire and steam up. The literary fraud proves, first, how much the acceptation of matter depends upon the name it bears; secondly, the discriminating and critical powers of the average American editor.-Literary Miscellany.

According to the "American Newspaper Directory for 1874," there are now published in the United States 7,339 newspapers and periodicals, and in the the Dominion 445. Of the American papers, 678 are dailies, and 5,554 weeklies, the rest being issued at monthly, quarterly, and other intervals. The increase since last year has been 464, chiefly among the weeklies. Florida is the only State in the Union which has no daily paper. In addition to those published in English, the list includes papers in French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Welsh, Bohemian, l'ortuguese, Polish, and Cherokee-the German, after the English, being the papers most numerous. The Dominion has 46 daily papers, and shows a total periodicals since last year. ed at San Francisco,

increase of 29 papers and The Alaska Herald, printprinted partly in English and partly in Russian. No paper in Chinese has yet appeared, but as it has only lately been discovered in California that stoning hurts a Chinaman, it is hardly to be wondered at that Chinese literature does not flourish.

A great literary curiosity is now for sale at Pekin. It consists of a copy of a gigantic work, composed of 6,109 (sic) volumes, entitled "An Imperial Collection of Ancient and Modern Literature." This huge encyclopædia was commenced during the reign of the Emperor Kang-he (1662-1722), and was prin ed at the Imperial Printing Office, where a complete font of copper type was cast for the purpose. Its contents are arranged under thirty-two divisions, and embrace every subject dealt with within the range of Chinese literature. Unfortunately the greater part the type employed in printing the work was, after the first edition, purloined by dishonest officials, and the remaining portion was melted down to be coined

of

into cash. The result is that very few copies are now in existence, and still fewer ever come to the market. The price asked for the present copy by the Chinese owner is about $20,000.

Gipsy Marriage.-In the London Times' list of marriages on July 21, 1874, appeared the two following curious announcements: "On the 11th instant, at Vallö Herregord, Norway, Hubert Smith, Esq., the author of Tent Life with English Gipsies in Norway,' to Esmeralda, the Heroine of his book." "On the 11th instant, Adreg Vallö Phillissin, Norway, the Rye Hubert Smith, Esq., romado to Tarno Esmeralda Lock, who pookers covah Lava to saw Romany Palors." By the aid of Borrow's "Romano Lavo Lil," the last announcement reads: "On the 11th, in the &c., Norway, the Noble Hubert Smith, Esq., married to Tarno, &c., who talks bewitching words to laugh at her Gipsy brethren."

The three essays on religion left by John Stuart Mill, of which he expressed an opinion shortly before his death, that when they came to be published they would evoke criticism which would go far to destroy what reputation he had in England, will be issued in October.

The catalogues of books we receive from Germany usually compare favorably with those issued in England and the United States, for the German bookseller is, as a rule, we must confess, better educated and better informed than his English rival. However, the learned Teuton is not infallible, and sometimes carries his zeal for classifying too far. In a recent catalogue, under the heading "Microscopy and Technic of the Microscope," after enumerating the works of Frey, Schacht, and other authorities, the compiler has inserted "Swinburne (A. C.), Under the Microscope; London, 1873."

The celebration of the fifth centenary of Petrarch's death passed off very successfully at Arqua and elsewhere. At the Fontaine de Vaucluse, once the residence of the poet, an address was delivered by the Chevalier di Nigra, Italian Minister to France.

Be

Mr. Howard Staunton, the celebrated chess-player and Shakespearian commentator, died suddenly in June. His health had been for some time somewhat indifferent, but his friends had no expectation that they were to lose him so soon. He was found dead one morning in his chair in his library, with an unfinished letter lying on the desk before him. sides his contributions to Shakespearian literature, Mr. Staunton was author of a work on "The Great Public Schools of England." As a chess-player Mr. Staunton's attainments were well known. His victory over M. St. Amant won for him a European fame as a player, and his books on chess have long been regarded as standard authorities on the games.

He was conductor of the chess column of the Illustrated London News from its commencement, and was a frequent contributor to its literary columns.

The list of pensions granted by Queen Victoria to persons eminent in literature and art in the eventful year 1874 is not very long, nor are the amounts heavy. The literary police of Great Britain and Ireland do their work well, and, on the whole, look after political opinions and morals with an assiduity of which no other country can boast. Yet the pay

of such, in the shape of pensions, is probably not a twentieth part of that which Marshal MacMahon disburses for the prosecution and warnings of the Paris press. We have to congratulate the mother country and Mr. Disraeli in particular, that they can duly reward the representative persons of their vast and influential body by the munificent sum of £290 between four professors of literature; er, not counting Lady C. Jackson, whose works as an authoress have not come very prominently before the public, with £190! Mr. Gladstone was comparatively profuse, since the last literary reward he bestowed was nearly two-thirds of the whole sum, viz. £120, upon Dr. Martin Tupper. After all, we must remember that the money of the Civil List is granted the Queen to reward her servants, not professors of art and literature. Art is so well paid that it should take care of itself; and although it seems little to grant Mr. R. H. Horne, a fine poet, a discriminating critic, the friend and contemporary of Dickens, and an industrious author, about the half-pay of a retired postman, yet we are glad that Silver-pen, Miss Jewsbury, and the author of "Orion a farthing-Epic "-all veterans of well-worn and honorable pens-are the only authors found who need State relief. It says well for advancement and independence. The two nations who owe most to their authors are the most dignified in their freedom from acknowledging any obligation to them. In this great country we give our writers no State aid at all; and the British so far emulate our example that they give theirs as little as they can. Lord Lytton, in his palmiest days, wrote a brilliant passage, asserting that "sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword"; it is so, especially in the faculty it has of warding off any expression of its services, whether wielded for literature or science. A steel sword is much weaker than a steel pen; it has only to show the slightest merit, and a heavy pension at once settles on it; whilst the most powerful steel pen remains in the beautiful simplicity of perfect freedom.

Mr. John Heneage Jesse.-Another of the army of workers has vanished from the scene. For years the name of Jesse has been a pleasant name to English readers. The class known as general readers" has had no greater favorite. The "general reader " loves his ease, and Mr. Heneage Jesse, who was a

son of Mr. Edward Jesse, the naturalist, never disturbed it. The "general reader " does not care for literature which demands close attention, or which affords matter for reflection. Mr. Jesse catered for the "general reader's" amusement, and was eminently successful. He was the harlequin of patchwork historians, and was here, there, and everywhere. Vivacity he seems to have considered as the first merit of an historian, and he was, undoubtedly, vivacious. Yet he started in literature under very opposite conditions In his sixteenth year he commenced his career as a poet by a solemn poem on Mary, Queen of Scots. The young author's first step in literary life was inscribed to Sir Walter Scott, and soon after he took for his theme "Tales of the Dead"; these latter poems were dedicated, by permission, to Queen Adelaide. In this respect Mr. Jesse was not unlike those mercurial comedians who fancy they can play Hamlet much better than Launcelot Gobbo, and who occasionally kick off the sock, and challenge applause in the buskin. So Mr. Jesse, long after he had been accepted as a sort of light historian, returned to his early love, and hoped to tempt the world to take him for a poet. He set Richard the Third in a dramatic form, not at all like Shakespeare's; and he not only compiled his readable historical memoirs of London, and wrote volumes on the metropolis and its celebrities, and others on its remarkable localities, but he swept the lyre somewhat ambitiously on the same subject, and left for the admiration of posterity "London," a fragmentary poem. It dealt with the whereabouts of great men in London, and was dedicated to Samuel Rogers. Mr. Jesse's histories were, for the most part, "6 fragmentary," too; or rather, they were to grave, philosophical history, much the same that colored "characters on a toy theatre are to the real drama. had the merit of dressing and spangling them well; he moved them over his stage anything but awkwardly, and he spoke for them in a clever, off-hand manner. But he could seldom move more than one figure at a time; grouping was beyond him. Each of his historical characters goes through the whole of his part independently, and, having done, makes way for a successor. In this fashion, however, Mr. Jesse has told the story of England, from the time of Richard the Third to that of George the Third, inclusive. Within those periods he has, in his own way, illustrated the history of the nation in that of individuals, under the Stuarts, the Protectorate, great Nassau, and the House of Hanover. Of these, by far the best piece of workmanship is his history of the life and reign of George the Third. It raised him above the level of a drawer of characters, and ranked him among historians-not among the "great" writers of history, but in an honorable position next to them. The difference in character be

He

tween the last-named work and Mr. Jesse's "Lives of the Pretenders and their Adherents," shows how an old writer may emancipate himself from habit, and develop qualities of a higher kind. In the "Memoirs of George Selwyn and his Contemporaries," Mr. Jesse illustrated much of the social history of George the Third's reign. Finally, to an honored name he added honor. After fifty-nine years of life, and more than forty of literary work, combined, at one time, with the performance of duties in the Civil Service, John Heneage Jesse has gone to his rest, owing nothing to any one in that world which owed many an hour of pleasant instruction to him. While speaking of Mr. Jesse, we may mention that for the last twenty years he never once slept out of London, and that every night (Sundays excepted) he was in the habit of appearing regularly at the Garrick Club, at half-past eleven o'clock, to engage in his favorite game, a rubber at whist, at which he remained until half-past two or three in the morning.

The Baltimore and "Old Mortality "Pattersons.— Some years ago, some curious information was given respecting the family of "Old Mortality," investigating the truth of the statement, which had been long believed, that Madame Jérôme Bonaparte, nèe Patterson, was descended from John, the eldest son of "Old Mortality." It was shown by a letter from Mr. Baylies, a friend of Madame Bonaparte, that she believed her ancestors to have come from Ireland, and that they were in no way connected with the Scottish Pattersons. In a volume just published (1874), "Letters to his Family," by Nathaniel Patterson, D.D., with a Memoir by the Rev. Alexander Anderson, West Free Church, Helensburgh, the question has been further investigated by the son of Dr. Patterson, great-grandson of "Old Mortality," who, happening to be in Baltimore, was courteously permitted to examine the will of Madame Jérôme's father. We quote the following passage from the memoir, which sets the question for ever at rest : "The Rev. Nathaniel Patterson, a son of Dr. Patterson, and minister in Martin Town, Canada, visited Baltimore last autumn, found Mr. Pennington, the lawyer who drew out the will of Madame Bonaparte's father, and was permitted to examine it for himself. From this document, which is prefaced by a short autobiography of the testator, it appears that Madame Bonaparte's father's name was William ; that he was a native of Tanat, County Donegal, Ireland, and brought up in connection with the Episcopal Church. After settling in Baltimore, he had seven sons and one daughter, whom he mentions under the name of Betsy, and as the wife of Jérôme Bonaparte. There seems no reason to doubt the statement made in the will, especially in view of the scanty evidence for the truth of the story so long and so widely circulated."

We hear of the death of Mr. E. A. Moriarty, who translated "Pickwick and some other of Dickens' novels into German. He was for some time teacher of English at a Government College at Berlin.

Let an interviewer enter the closet of a well educated professional man, whether lawyer, politician or divine, and it is astonishing with what avidity he waives all other subjects, and with what celerity he enters into the consideration of the social question of the hour, to wit: "Did Bacon write Shakespeare?" Every thorough college student has pondered the works of the great master of English literature, and had his plastic mind indelibly impressed with the sublime thoughts of him who has been not inaptly described as the original interviewer of any age-one who could interview with equal adroitness and finesse either the stable boy or Queen Bess-who could squeeze out of boon companions the wit and humor that sparkled in their cups, or sympathize with the sorrows of the despairing, the stricken and the forlorn. Just such a student was Judge Edwards Pierrepont, the now able lawyer and jurist, the apt scholar and well known politician, and upon him a Herald representative called with the following result: Interviewer-" What do you think, Judge, of the question now exercising literary and other circles, 'Did Bacon write Shakespeare ?'” Judge (promptly)—“ There is no more sense in undertaking to show that Shakespeare did not write the works attributed to him than there is to attempt to show that Napoleon Bonaparte never lived and never

was Emperor of France. A few years ago an ingenious and elaborate effort was made to prove that Napoleon never lived-that he was a myth. But it amounted to nothing. The proofs of his existence were too irrefragable to be controverted. In the lapse of time the ingenuity of some minds is employed in getting up these things-these doubts about men who have existed, and events that have occurred. But, coming more directly to the point, Bacon could no more have written the plays of Shakespeare than Shakespeare have written the 'Novum Organum.' The subject of Shakespeare's originality was discussed and settled at the time of his existence, and the discussion at this late date is only an ingenious contrivance to see how plausible an argument can be raised in behalf of the nonShakespearian theory. Miss Bacon, who spent a good deal of time on the subject, and who wrote a great deal about it, was insane, and died in a madhouse, and, in my judgment, all people who honestly believe that Bacon wrote 'Shakespeare' are equally insane." It will appear from the above that Judge Pierrepont is among those who decidedly believe that Shakespeare himself wrote Shakespeare."

66

It used to be said of good old French books, "La mère n'en défendra pas la lecture à ses filles." A French writer authorizes the reading of a new French novel by a writer of a not over-modest school in these words: "Although the story develops itself on slippery ground, it may be read by Parisian ladies who are already initiated in the strange phases of life by the audacities of contemporary literature."

Bosh.-Mr. R. S. Charnock, recently, in N. and Q., writes: "Redhouse renders the Turcic bosh, empty, vain, useless, and bòsh làkirdi, nonsense; but this word is probably an abbreviation of the slang term kibosh or kybosh, doubtless corrupted from cui bono."

Spaniards may be congratulated upon at last having an edition of Shakespeare begun, if not completed, faithful enough to enable them to appreciate the original. But Senor Clark, who displays knowledge of both English and Castilian idioms, has certainly a very English name.

A curious set of people has been lately discovered by Captain W. C. Manning, in a village in Northwestern New Mexico, just south of the border line between that Territory and Colorado, and of whom a description is given in the Denver News, a Colorado paper. A strong wall surrounds the village, which contains houses sufficient to accommodate 4,000 people. The population has, however, dwindled to about 1,800. The language and some of the customs of the inhabitants correspond to the language and customs of the Chinese. The women are of the

true Celestial type. They dress themselves and their hair in Chinese fashion. Their religion is described as "barbarously magnificent." Montezuma is their deity. His coming is looked for at sunrise each day. Immortality is part of their creed. The priests have heavily embroidered robes, used for unnumbered years. The ceremonies of worship are formal and pompous. The morality of the people is unimpeachable. They keep a record of events by means of tying peculiar knots in long cords. Their govern

ment is a Conservative Republic. Power is vested in a council of thirteen caciques. Six of them are selected for life. Old men are generally chosen, in order that their terms of office may not be inordinately long. The remaining seven are selected from time to time. One of them is the Executive Chief; another is a sort of Vice-President.

There is a war chief and a chief of police. These seven caciques are usually young men. They serve but a few months. Suffrage is universal, and civilization is "quite far advanced." Woman, as might be expected under these circumstances, is held in the highest possible respect and veneration. Nothing is too good for her, and her only tastes are those of housekeeping. This isolated community has maintained its traditions unbroken for at least three and half centuries, and it is, in fact, a paradise for women and priests.-Pall Mall Budget.

A really good "Life of Dr. Thomas Fuller," the author of the "Worthies," etc., has long been considered a desideratum. This want will be filled up by the forthcoming work, compiled from authentic sources by John Eglington Bailey, of Stretford, near Manchester, England, and will not only be most excellent as a biography of the quaint chronicler, but as a bibliography of Fulleriana. It will be published shortly, with numerous illustrations, in two volumes, 8vo., by Mr. B. M. Pickering, of London, son of the great Pickering.

The "Jackdaw of Rheims."-Few of our readers are perhaps aware that the legend of the jackdaw of Rheims, in Barham's humorous "Ingoldsby Legends," is historical. According to one of John Dunton's amusing folios ("The Young Student's Library, 1691," p. 403), the incident is given in the "Holy Recreations of Father Angelina Gazee." The first part of the "Pia Hilaris" of Angelinus Gazæus appeared in 1618, the second in 1638. Brunet styles them "poésies mystiques." It would be curious to compare the poetry of the two reverend gentlemen (Gazæus and Barham) who have given this legend in rhyme.

meeting the names of twenty new members (including fourteen from Montreal), who had joined the society since last gathering, were read. The first paper on this occasion was read by Mr. F. D. Matthew, "On Two Plays of Shakespeare's, the Versions of which, as we have them, are the Results of Alterations by other Hands: 1. 'Macbeth;' 2. 'Julius Cæsar,' ,"" by the Rev. F. G. Fleay. The second paper was "Mr. Halliwell's Hint on the Date of 'Coriolanus,' and possibly other Roman Plays," communicated by Mr. Furnivall.

Columbus died at Valladolid, May 20, 1506 (Ascension Day), and was buried in the Convent of San Francisco. In 1513 his body was transported to the Carthusian Monastery of Las Cuevas, at Seville. His son Fernando is buried in the cathedral of that city, and it is on his tomb that the well-known

motto

"A Castilla y à Leon

Mundo nuevo diò Colon,"

is inscribed. In 1536 his body, with that of his son Diego, was removed to St. Domingo, and there interred; but on January 15, 1796, his bones were brought to Havana, and deposited in an urn covered by an erect monumental slab on the left hand side of the entrance to the choir of the cathedral. The inscription beneath the bust of the discoverer, which forms a portion of the monument, is as follows:

"O Resta se Imagen del Grande Colon !
Mil siglos durao guardados en la Urna

Y en la remembranza de Nuestra Nacion !"

Among some books and manuscripts sold at the rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, was a rolled manuscript of the Hebrew Pentateuch, acquired a few years ago from a synagogue in Palestine. This manuscript was written in the twelfth century, on sixty skins of leather, and measures one hundred and twenty feet in length by two feet two inches in breadth.

We learn that Prof. Hiram Corson has printed for private circulation some "Jottings on the Text of Hamlet." Prof. Corson is a defender of the First Folio against the Quartos, and his "jottings" are a commentary on a remark of the editors of the Cambridge edition, that in "Hamlet," as they had computed, the Folio differed from the Quartos for the worse in forty-seven places, and "for the better in twenty at most." Prof. Corson's most considerable verbal discussion is on the phrase "a good kissingcarrion" (2. 2. 180, 181), and, whatever else it may be, is an excellent specimen of "conservative surgery."

Hogg, Wordsworth and Byron.-Hartley Coleridge used to relate a good story of Wordsworth and Hogg. The Shepherd was staying at Rydal Mount, and Wordsworth showed him all the lions of the vicinity. On one of their long walks Hogg got rather tired, on