The London _Athenaeum_ contains a very interesting letter from Mr. PAYNE COLLIER, in which he gives an account of the discovery of a copy of the second folio edition of Shakspeare, with numerous important corrections of the text, apparently by some learned contemporary actor, whose memory of parts, or access to original MSS., enabled him to restore all the readings vitiated by careless transcription or printing. Mr. Collier has such faith in these _errata_ that he does not hesitate to avow that he would have adopted a large portion of them in his own edition of Shakspeare, had they been known to him when that was printed. Of the several instances he offers, this will serve as a specimen:
"An embarra.s.sment meets us in the very outset of _Measure for Measure_,--where the Duke, addressing Escalus, observes, in the ordinary reading:
""Of government the properties to unfold Would seem in me t" affect speech and discourse; Since I am put to know, that your own science Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice My strength can give you: then, no more remains, But that to your sufficiency as your worth is able, And let them work."
--The meaning is pretty evident; but the expression of that meaning is obscure and corrupt,--as indeed the measure alone would establish. Various conjectural modes of setting the pa.s.sage right have been proposed; and perhaps what follows from my corrected folio of 1632 has no better foundation,--but, at all events, it restores both the sense and the metre, and may, for aught we know, give the very words of Shakspeare:
""Of government the properties to unfold Would seem in me t" affect speech and discourse; Since I am _apt_ to know, that your own science Exceeds (in that) the lists of all advice My strength can give you; Then, no more remains But _add_ to your sufficiency your worth, And let them work."
--How "that" in the old editions came to be printed for _add_ and how "is able" came to be foisted in, most unnecessarily and awkwardly, at the end of the same line, it is not easy to explain. The third line is also much cleared by the subst.i.tution of _apt_ for "put,"--which was an easy misprint: "Apt to know" is an expression of every-day occurrence."
SIR JAMES STEPHEN, whose excellent _Lectures on the History of France_ have been so well received, proposes to deliver, at Cambridge, a series of twenty lectures on the _Diplomatic History of France during the reign of Louis XIV._, comprising a review of the treaties of Westphalia, of the Pyrenees, of Breda, of the Triple Alliance, of Aix-la-Chapelle, of Nimeguen, of Ryswick, and of Utrecht.
MISS CHARLOTTE VANDENHOFF, whose professional tour in the United States will be remembered by old play-goers, has written a piece under the t.i.tle of _Woman"s Heart_, possessing considerable poetical merits, and herself sustained the character of the heroine in its representation.
MR. CARLYLE, is engaged upon a new work in history, but its subject is not disclosed, nor its extent.
MRS. ROBINSON, who left New-York several months ago to visit her relations in Germany, writes from Berlin to the _Athenaeum_, under date of February 2, as follows:
"A work appeared in London last summer with the following t.i.tle: _Talvi"s History of the Colonization of America_, edited by William Hazlitt, in two volumes. It seems proper to state that the original work was written under favorable circ.u.mstances _in German_, and published in Germany. It treated only of the colonization of _New England_: and that only stood on its t.i.tle-page. The above English publication, therefore, is a mere translation, and it was made without the consent or knowledge of the author. The very t.i.tle is a misnomer; all references to authorities are omitted; and the whole work teems with errors, not only of the press, but also of translation,--the latter such as could have been made by no person well acquainted with the German and English tongues. For the work in this form, therefore, the author can be in no sense whatever responsible.
TALVI."
From a more recent number of the _Athenaeum_ it appears that Mr. Hazlitt is not himself the translator of the original work; and the responsibility, not only of the translation, but of all the faults charged which might seem more especially editorial, is transferred by him to another. Mr. Hazlitt, we believe, is a son of the great critic of the last age.
There are connected with the newspapers a considerable number of weak-minded and absurd persons, who delight in strange coincidences and the most inconceivable relations, and who, for a certain consciousness they have of their own slight claims to consideration are anxious to find on every occasion, some indication of regard for their vocation, as if credit won by any journalist or writer were portion of a common fund of respectability from which they could draw a dividend. In no other way can we account for the thousand-and-one articles in which the appointments of Dr. LAYARD and Mr. D"ISRAELI have been referred to as "honor," "homage," &c., to literature. Dr. Layard was selected by Lord Granville to be an Under-Secretary of State, because he had shown himself in the admirable manner in which he discharged certain important diplomatic functions in the East, better fitted, in Lord Granville"s opinion, than any other person for the new duties to which it was proposed to summon him. Mr. D"Israeli has long been one of the most conspicuous and astute politicians in England, and owes his present office solely to his activity and eminence in affairs. There was as little of "recognition of the claims of literature" in either case, as there was praise of fiddlesticks or Carolina potatoes. It would not be a whit more ridiculous to say that the French people, remembering the happy genius displayed by Napoleon Bonaparte in his "Supper of Beaucaire," chose him to be their emperor.
In the new British ministry are an unusual number of book-makers. The most conspicuous in authorship is the now Right Honorable Benjamin D"Israeli, "the wondrous boy who wrote _Alroy_, in rhyme and prose, only to show how long ago victorious Judah"s lion banner rose." Sir Emerson Tennent, Sir Edward Sugden, Lord John Manners, Mr. Whiteside, the Earl of Malmesbury, Lord de Roos, are all known as authors, as well as politicians. The Duke of Northumberland also is favorably known as a zealous promoter of arts and learning.
The author of _Life in Bombay and the Neighboring Stations_, pays the following testimony to the abilities of the manoeuvring mammas of Bombay: "The bachelor civilians are always the grand aim; for, however young in the service they may be, their income is always vastly above that of the military man, to say nothing of the n.o.ble provision made by the fund for their widows and children. We remember being greatly amused, soon after our arrival in the country, at overhearing a lady say, in reference to her daughter"s approaching marriage with a young civilian: "Certainly, I could have wished my son-in-law to be a little more steady; but then it is 300 a-year for my girl, dead or alive!""
A volume of brilliant French criticism will be published in a few days by Charles Scribner, under the t.i.tle of _Anglo-American Literature and Manners_, by PHILARETE CHASLES, Professor in the College of France. Mr.
Chasles, in a book of five hundred pages, considers the literature and manners of the people of the United States--their inst.i.tutions, capacity for self-government, actual condition and probable future--with all the sprightly grace of a Frenchman, and with a great deal of cleverness prosecutes his industrious researches from the landing of the Mayflower to the present day. He finds in the United States neither an Utopia, nor a land worthy merely of ridicule. He does not simply condemn, like some travellers, nor give us universal and unreasonable praise, as our egotism and contentment lead us to desire, but takes a fair view of the country, its claims, position, and prospects. In the beginning of his performance he considers that the most essential thing for the founding of a new commonwealth, is moral force; this he finds in the Puritans, who possessed "sincerity, belief, perseverance, courage;" they could "wait, fight, suffer." Their energy, he thinks, comes from their Teutonic or Saxon blood; their indomitable perseverance is a fruit of Calvinism, added to which they are clannish, or mutual helpers one of another. This is the key to the philosophical, political and prophetic portion of his work. The literary part is honest criticism, freely spoken, by the aid of such light as happened to be around him. He begins with the landing of the Pilgrims, speaks of their literature, which, like all other American literature down to the present day, he regards as dest.i.tute of originality. Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and others, all lack this quality. The author of the _American Cultivator_ has the most of it; but Franklin is made up of Fenelon, Banyan, and Addison; Edwards partakes of Hobbes, Priestley, and in his better moments of the close reasoning Descartes. He gives us then a politician, a journalist, and a gentleman, "the American Aristocrat" as he calls him, Gouverneur Morris, our minister at Paris during the old revolution. Brockden Brown is characterized as a copyist of Monk Lewis; and he comes then to Washington Irving, but while all the charms of this delightful writer are thoroughly appreciated and minutely described, it is denied that he has originality. "In some square house in Boston, he sees in thought St.
James"s Park: in reveries he is led through the umbrageous alleys of Kensington--he talks with Sterne--he shakes hands with Goldsmith." "It is a copy, somewhat timid, of Addison, of Steele, of Swift." You would think of him as of "a young lady of good family, a slave to propriety, never elevating her voice, never exaggerating the _ton_, never committing the sin of eloquence;" "a refined continuation of the style of Addison," &c. Nevertheless a dawn of freshness appears in his writings when they treat of forest scenes. This dawn advances into day in Cooper, upon whom we have an admirable critique. The author of _The Spy_, M. Chasles thinks, has a native vigor unknown to Irving. Paulding is dismissed with but very little consideration. Channing occupies the critic longer, but is found to be an unsatisfactory and too general reasoner. Audubon furnishes the most attractive chapter in the book, which closes with what is called the First Literary Epoch of the United States.
The next division is of the _Literature of the People, and the falsely popular Literature of England and the States_. One thoughtful chapter is given to the infancy and future of America; the age and despair of Europe, of emigration, and colonization. Then, the popular movements in France and England are treated of, and the education of the ma.s.ses.
Crabbe, Burns, Elliott, Thomas Cooper and others serve as a text.
Popular literature is found to be less anarchical in America than in Europe. We have a chapter on Herman Melville; and then the Americans are viewed through the spectacles of Marryatt, Trolloppe, d.i.c.kens, and their exaggerations are noted. The force of public opinion and of the press conclude the section. Our poets have two chapters: I. Barlow, Dwight, Colton, Payne, Sprague, Dana, Drake, Pierrepont; Female Poets; and Street and Halleck. II, Bryant, Emerson, and Longfellow. _Tom Stapleton_, by an Irish Sunday newspaper reporter, and _Puffer Hopkins_, by Mr. Cornelius Matthews, one chapter; Stephens, Silliman, and others represent the travellers; a chapter is dedicated to Arnold and Andre; Haliburton"s _Sam Slick_ concludes the criticism; and the book ends with _The Future of Septentrional America and the United States_--what a "Bee" is, how an American village is got up, the aggregative principles of Americans, the Lowell Lectures, Democrats and Whigs--and then, far-seeing prophetic talking, conclude what the author has to say about us.
The well-known school book publishers of Philadelphia, THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT, & CO., have just published a large duodecimo of five hundred and fifty-eight pages. _The Standard Speaker, containing Exercises in Prose and Poetry, for Declamation in Schools, Academies, Lyceums, and Colleges, newly Translated or Compiled from celebrated Orators, Authors, and Popular Debaters, Ancient and Modern; a Treatise on Oratory and Elocution; and Notes Explanatory and Biographical_--by EPES SARGENT. This book bears abundant evidences of editorial research and labor. The original translations would form a volume of respectable size, and they are all strikingly adapted to the purpose of elocutionary practice. Some pa.s.sages of fervid eloquence from Mirabeau, Robespierre and Victor Hugo are given. Ancient eloquence is also well represented in new and spirited translations. The department of British Parliamentary oratory, shows extracts from Pym, Chatham, Barre, Wilkes, Thurlow, Grattan, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Curran, Canning, Brougham, O"Connell, Sheil, Macaulay, Croker, Talfourd, Palmerston, Cobden, and many others, and in nine instances out of ten the exercises are compiled originally for this volume. The American department is quite rich, and while the old masterpieces of Patrick Henry, Ames, Randolph, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Hayne, and others are retained, a large number of fresh and striking pieces are introduced from the eloquence of Congress and the American lecture room.
In its dramatic and poetical novelties the work is of course amply supplied. Mr. Sargent"s editorial experience here has enabled him to add much that other compilers have entirely overlooked. In the adaptation of the exercises, great discrimination has been shown. They are of the right length, pithy, and calculated to engage the attention of the young. A new and valuable feature of the work is the introduction of notes, biographical and explanatory. In the instances of authors not contemporary the dates of their birth and death are given. An introductory treatise, comprising much practical information on the subject of elocution, gives completeness to the volume. Such is the Standard Speaker; and while it will be found to justify its t.i.tle in the retention of all the standard specimens of rhetoric suitable for its purposes, it presents in its large proportion of new exercises of a high character, fresh and enduring claims to popularity.
_The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli_, by RALPH WALDO EMERSON, WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, and JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, published a few weeks ago by Phillips, Sampson & Co., of Boston, are generally praised in the critical journals, but in this country, where the subject was generally known in literary circles, there is a common feeling of surprise at the artistic and successful _exaggeration_ of her capacities and virtues.
The book, however, is in parts delightfully written, and the melancholy fate of the heroine gives it a character of romance apart from its merits as a biographical and critical composition. The _Athenaeum_ thus refers to some additional _material_ for her memoirs, which, it strikes us, should have been communicated to the custodians of her reputation at an earlier day:
"We have received permission to state that poor Margaret Fuller, on the eve of that visit to the Continent which was to prove so eventful and disastrous, left in the hands of a friend in London a sealed packet, containing, it is understood, the journals which she kept during her stay in England. Margaret Fuller--as they who saw her here all know--contemplated at that time a return to England at no very distant date;--and the deposit of these papers was accompanied by an injunction that the packet should then be restored with unbroken seal into her hands. No provision was of course made for death:--and here we believe the lady in possession feels herself in a difficulty, out of which she does not clearly see her way. The papers are likely to be of great interest, and were doubtless intended for publication; but the writer had peremptorily reserved the right of revision to herself, and forbidden the breaking of the seals, on a supposition which fate has now made impossible.
It seems to us, that the equity of the case under such circ.u.mstances demands only a reference to Margaret Fuller"s heir, whoever that may be; and with his or her concurrence, the lady to whom these MSS. were intrusted--and who probably knows something of the author"s feeling as to their contents--may very properly const.i.tute herself literary executor to her unfortunate friend."
Of BAYARD TAYLOR _The Tribune_ said a few days ago:
"By the Niagara"s mail we have had the pleasure of receiving letters from our friend and a.s.sociate Bayard Taylor,--or as he his known among the Arabs, Taylor Bey,--dated at Khartoum, the chief city of Sennaar, situated at the confluence of the White and the Blue Nile, about half way between Cairo and the Equator. He arrived there on the 12th of January in excellent health and spirits, after a journey on camels across the Nubian Desert, during which he had sundry fortunate adventures, and received every friendly attention from the native chieftains. He was the first American ever seen so far toward Central Africa, and like a good patriot never slept without the stars and stripes floating above his tent. Every where good luck had attended him,--in truth he seems to have been born to it,--but at Khartoum especially he was received with unexpected honors.
The governor of the city had presented him with a horse, and had entertained him in a banquet of genuine Ethiopic magnificence, while the commander of the troops had stationed a nightly guard of honor around his tent. In company with Dr. k.n.o.blecher, the venerable Catholic missionary bound for the equatorial regions whom he had overtaken at Khartoum, and of Dr. Deitz, the Austrian Counsel, Mr. Taylor had also attended a banquet at the palace of the daughter of the late king of Sennaar, a very stately and ebon princess, who entertained her guests chiefly upon sheep roasted whole. Others of the first families among the Ethiopian aristocracy had also welcomed the strangers with distinguished civilities. Mr. Taylor expected to reach Cairo on his return about the 1st of April, though we should not be surprised to learn that he had changed his mind, and, in company with the Jesuit mission, plunged still farther into the mysterious country about the equator and the sources of the Nile."
Several new works by our literary women are on the eve of publication.
Redfield has nearly ready _Lyra and other Poems_, by ALICE CAREY--a book containing more ill.u.s.trations of unquestionable genius than any other written by a woman in America; and he will also publish soon, _Isa, a Pilgrimage_, a romance by Miss Caroline CHEESEBRO", which is likely to attract a great deal of attention. Putnam has in press, _The Shield, a Story of the New World_, by Miss FENIMORE COOPER, whose _Rural Hours_, last year, commanded every where so much well-merited praise, and a new story by Miss WARNER, of whose _Wide, Wide World_ (edited in London by a "Clergyman of the Church of England"), a recent number of the _Literary Gazette_ says:
"This American tale has met with extraordinary success across the Atlantic. Within a very short time several large impressions were disposed of, and the sale still continues to be rapid. Of the causes of this popularity, there is one which will rather operate against a similar run of favor on this side of the water. A large part of the book refers to "the old country," and American readers eagerly seek what pertains to English life or history. But the book has many merits, apart from the incidents of its scenery and character. The auth.o.r.ess writes with liveliness and elegance; her power of discriminating and presenting character is great; in describing the feelings and ways of young people, she is especially happy, and an air of cheerful piety pervades the whole work. We shall not attempt to give any idea of the story, or of its princ.i.p.al personages, but content ourselves with commending it as a book which will please and instruct others than the young, for whom it is chiefly intended. The auth.o.r.ess seems herself young, and if so, we may expect other works from a spirit so lively and communicative. Who the editor is we have no knowledge, but he has taken liberties with the original not always warranted, and to an extent greater than can be approved without previous consultation. On the whole, however, he has done his part well, and in his prefatory note justly characterizes the merits of the writer, of whom we shall gladly hear more."
Miss Warner"s new book is ent.i.tled _Queechy_--the name of its scene, we suppose--and it is said to be very different in character from her first production.
Dr. DUNGLISON"S _Medical Dictionary_, of which a new and much enlarged edition has been published by Blanchard & Lea, is one of those professional works which are almost indispensable in a gentleman"s library. Every person has sometimes occasion to consult a work of this kind, and there is no other in English so masterly in treatment, or so perspicuous in style. Dr. Dunglison keeps up with all the departments of the literature of his science, and, through his quick, comprehensive, and practical understanding, we have in this volume the best results of the world"s experiment and study in medicine down to the beginning of the present half century.
A new and complete edition of the Poetical Works of GEORGE P. MORRIS will be published in October, amply and most elaborately ill.u.s.trated with engravings after original designs by Robert W. Weir. The distinction of Gen. Morris is, that he is a great song writer. The naturalness, simplicity, unity, and pervading grace of his pieces, do not so much const.i.tute their characteristic, as the exquisite music of their cadences, justifying the praise of Braham, that they sing themselves. The new edition will surpa.s.s any other in completeness, and in artistic execution will not be inferior to any volume ever published in the United States.
Mr. C. L. BRACE, who has tasted in person the sweets of Austrian rule, by his imprisonment in Hungary, has in press a book of Hungarian travels, and observations upon the political situation and prospects of that country. The personal history of an American in Hungary, who enjoyed rare opportunities of intimate intercourse with the inhabitants, will be a very valuable addition to our literature, and will make a most readable and seasonable book. Of the quality of Mr. BRACE"S ability, and of the faithfulness of his observation and record, his letters to the New-York _Tribune_ are satisfactory evidence. (Scribner.)