Vol. VII.

CONTENTS.

POREIGN LITERARY INTEL-1 LIGENCE.

London Letter.

SCRIBNER, WELFORD & ARMSTRONG'S NEW IMPORTATIONS.

SCARCE AND CURIOUS BOOKS.
EDITORIAL.

The Devil in Literat ure.
Bric-a-Brac.

FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

LONDON, June 25, 1874.

RARELY has a duller month-as concerns the publishing world-passed, than that just ended. Indeed, scarcely any book of general interest has made its appearance during the time. The first volume of The Life of Napoleon III., by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, makes a handsome show with its store of portraits, fac-similes and all other necessary appliances for proving the authenticity of its statements and the authoritative exclusive character of its information. The author, though the editor of the most widely circulated London weekly newspaper, has for many years resided in Paris, and is therefore qualified to speak from experience of the rule and government of the sovereign to whose memory his book is devoted. The present volume carries down the biography of Louis Napoleon to his exile in America after the failure of his Strasburgh attempt. Dealing as it does with such names as those of Napoleon, Queen Hortense, the Empress Josephine, &c., and rarely affording much original information from family documents, the attraction of the book is undeniable, though few perhaps will share the enthusiastic admiration of the writer for his hero, called forth at every incident of his eventful career. The succeeding volume is promised for the coming autumn, and the completion of the work, in two more, next spring.

Essays: Political, Social and Religious, by Richard Congreve, M. A., formerly Fellow and Tutor

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.No. 10.

of Waltham College, Oxford, in one large octavo volume, demands notice. It contains the views of the positivist school, the English disciples of August Comte, as expounded by one of their leading men. Mr. Congreve is known to the classical world by an excellent critical edition of Aristotle's Polities. His powers as an English writer are shown by the contents of this volume to be very considerable. There are no half measures about his advocacy of Comte, and the thirteen or fourteen volumes of his works are regarded by Mr. Congreve as the Bible of Humanity-the future Scriptures of the race. He even adopts the new calendar proposed by the object of his admiration, and dates his preface Cæsar," instead of one of the ordinary months that serve the rest of the world. Such harmless pedantry might well suggest weakness in a writer, but there is nothing in the essays to carry out this impression. On the contrary, they are marked by a breadth of view in striking contrast to the insularity often alleged against English politicians by Continental writers, and an unswerving adherence to certain fixed principles without any regard to what depths of unpopularity they may carry their advocate. They are divided by their subject into "Political" and "Social and Religious " speculations. The former include, among other topics, "India," "Gibraltar," the policy of its retention or abandonment by England, "Italy and the Western Powers," "Ireland," &c., and under the latter head "The New Religion in its Attitude toward the Old," "The Propagation of the Religion of Humanity," &c.

Another book for thinkers has just appeared: The Philosophy of History in France and Germany, by Robert Flint, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy, University of St. Andrews, in one volume, octavo. The purpose of the author is to give an account of the principal attempts made in France and Germany, philosophically to comprehend and explain the history of mankind, with a careful

estimate of their value. The writer's plan requires another volume containing a similar exposition of the general philosophies of history due to Italy and England, and this is promised for the future. The book is one of a class now rendered absolutely necessary by the increasing extension of the field of study and the fertility of the writers employed in the cultivation of its various divisions. No man of intelligence would willingly be ignorant of the views of the greatest intellects on the Providential government of the world, or the laws of order continuously acting for the regulation of human affairs. But who except a professed student has time or opportunity for the acquiring at first-hand of such information? It is to guides like Professor Flint that he must be indebted for pilotage through two centuries of theories and speculations in various countries and languages, and a better guide than Professor Flint will rarely be found. The book is an eminently solid and substantial one, the fruit of extensive reading, and displays thorough knowledge of its subject. He commences with an introduction on the attempts of the Oriental and Classic nations, and also of the early Christians, to grasp the idea of what is now called with a definite meaning, "The Philosophy of History," before the revival of learning in Europe. A regular examination of the chief writers on the subject follows, from Bodin and the disciples of Descartes in France, through Bossuet, Montesquieu, Turgot, Condorcet, Bonald, St. Simon, Cousin, Jouffroy, Guizot, Comte, &c., down to the last democratic school of Michelet and Quinet, De Toqueville, Odysse-Barot and Laurent. The same plan is followed with Germany from the rise of historical philosophy with Leibnitz through the development of the idea by Lessing, Herder, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, Bunsen, Hegel, &c. The views of these great men are all explained and their systems weighed with an eye to the gradual process of enlightenment and the formation of a sound and rational system. To criticise the work would require an erudition as deep as that of the writer, but it bears every mark of careful study and will probably be regarded as an important addition to the English Library.

A proof of the popularity of historical studies as a leading branch of education in England is afforded by the numerous "Courses" or sets of books now announced or appearing. One of them, Epochs of History, possesses some novelty of plan. Its aim is to

present a complete picture of a short period as of more educational value than a mere skeleton outline of a larger train of events. The size of the series is small and unpretending and its price moderate. Two volumes have come out. The first, The Era of the Protestant Reformation, by F. Seebohm, is really a remarkable little book, extensive in its scope, and attractive in its treatment of what is regarded as the beginning of the great revolutionary wave still influencing the destinies of Europe and the human race. Volume II., The Crusades, by Rev. G. W. Cox, is a narrative, spirited and comprehensive, though the author is a little too prone to judge the men of the eleventh century by the spirit of the nineteenth. The third volume, The Thirty Years' War, 16181648, by S. R. Gardner (the Historian of James I.), will be issued on the 1st of July. The undertaking promises well.

Two important Technical Works are just published, Elements of Metallurgy, by John Arthur Phillips, Member of the Institute, &c., and an author of acknowledged scientific eminence, in a large 8vo volume. A general work on Metallurgy has long been wanting in English, and it has been the aim of Prof. Phillips to condense in this handsome and copiously illustrated volume the information at present only to be gathered from the perusal of many distinct treatises in different languages. In addition to the clear and precise accounts of fuels, metalliferous minerals, the methods of assaying the different ores, &c., the work has a peculiar value from its carefully compiled statistics of the annual production of each metal throughout the world, deduced, wherever possible, from official sources. The other work is A Handbook of Dyeing and Calico Printing, by William Crookes, F. R. S., large 8vo, with numerous specimens of dyed textile fabrics, and other illustrations. This also supplies an acknowledged want in the technological library, as no book on the subject is in the market sufficiently recent in its date to have kept pace with the rapid progress of applied chemistry in this department.

It is too early yet for the Autumn announcement of books to be made by publishers. We may mention however this, as in preparation:Primeval Life in Switzerland, by Dr. Oswald Heer, translated from the German by James Heywood, F.R.S., with 12 plates and 350 woodcuts. This will complete by additional information lately obtained the researches detailed by Prof. Keller in his (now very scarce book),

The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland. The other book is the Narrative of George Smith, of the British Museum, of his explorations in Assyria

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and Babylonia, undertaken in the interests of Biblical science, so frequently the subject of reference to the periodical press during the last twelve months. Mr. Smith's book will be beautifully illustrated by photographs from the actual objects themselves, inscriptions, &c., discovered by him, and in interest is expected to rival Mr. Layard's now classical work. The chief event in Bibliographical circles has been the dispersion of the library of Sir William Tite, the celebrated architect. The sale occupied sixteen days, including two days of autographs and engravings, and produced within a fraction of £20,000. The collection was a large and very miscellaneous one. It was formed by no means of what are called collection books, that is, choice copies as far as possible in their primitive state, but consisted in great part of books that seem actually to have been read. This was against all Bibliographical precedent, as a model book-collector would no more think of perusing his priceless volumes than an amateur of "Ceramics," (to make use of a new coined word,) would be capable of drinking tea from his £1,000 Sevres china cups and saucers. Sir William Tite had, of late years, bought freely at sales, but never attained the delicacy of taste and exquiste tact in selection that marks the live connoisseur. All the really fine books sold at high prices. The first folio Shakspeare was a perfect copy, but a very ordinary one, much cut down and short (an irremediable fault in a book); it was purchased for America at the handsome price of £440. The second, third, and fourth folio editions sold respectively for £45, £79, and £18-somewhat about the average range of prices, if such a thing can be predicated of a value which depends on many minute accidents of condition, &c. Most of the Shakspeare 4to plays were anything but fine copies, and therefore sold at prices below what had been formerly quoted for superior copies. The cheapest of these minor volumes was the Lucrece, first edition of 1594; this brought £110.

There was a curious fall in the price of many articles of Shaksperian and Elizabethan literature now almost for the first time noted, and it is clear that if it was not for the concurrence of America the late range of high prices could not be maintained. Thus, the scarce copy of The Lamentable Tragedie of Lucrece, 1595, was bought

at Mr Daniel's sale for £103 19s. It now produced only £45. Marocca's Extortions; or, Banker's Bay Horse in a Trance, 1598, a Shaksperian tract, sold at Mr. Daniel's for £81. and now went for just half the former price. Robert Chester's Love's Martyr, 1601, containing a poem by Shakspeare (Threnos), one of two copies known, (and Mr. Daniel's copy sold for £138,) was now secured for £68. The best and most perfect Caxton, The Boke called the Myrror of the Worlde, 1491, sold for £455; a copy of William by the author and sold by him for a few shillings, Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience tinted brought £64. The autographs sold remarkably we 1, showing that the taste for curiosities of this nature is on the increase.

THE BRIC-A-BRAC SERIES.

The first volume of the Bric-a-Brac Series has met with a most cordial welcome rom the their notices by numerous extracts. Indeed press, many papers reviewing it acc mpanying the short anecdotes furnished by it are just what are wanted to fill the empty corner of a newspaper in these dull times, and we are glad to see that some editors have discovered the fact.

In order, however, to give an idea of the hearty way in which the first volume has been received, we give below a few of the very many complimentary remarks with which the critics have favored it :

From the N. Y. Daily Times.

"One of the most compact, fresh and entertaining volumes of literary and artistic and that has lately been offered a public always eager for this precise variety of entertainment The editor has used his material with such admirable tact and skill that the reader glides insensibly from one paragraph into now instructed, but never another,,, now amused,

wearied."