zincography. This manuscript was discovered in the year 1814 enclosed in a wooden box, together with a fine old crozier, built into the masonry of a closed-up doorway, which was re-opened while the old castle of Lismore underwent repair. Great interest was naturally excited among antiquaries of the time, and among them was a certain Mr. Dennis O'Flinn, of Shandon Street, Cork, a "professed" Irish scholar, but, as O'Curry said of him, "a very indifferent" one. O'Flinn, however, on the strength of such reputation, induced the Duke's agent to lend the manuscript to him. It was detained for a year, and during part of that time, according to the borrower's account, was in the hands of a copyist. From the time of its return until 1839, the precious volume remained locked up and unexamined; it was then lent by its noble owner to the Royal Irish Academy to be copied by O'Curry. The discovery was now made that the book had been mutilated, and that in such a way as to render what remained of the original almost valueless. Every search was made, but no trustworthy clue was got until the manuscripts of Sir William Betham, bought for the library of the Royal Irish Academy, were found to include copies of the missing portions. By means of a note attached to these copies, the holders of the originals were traced, and were induced to part with their somewhat doubtfully acquired property for the sum of fifty pounds. The whole volume has since been excellently repaired and handsomely bound by the present Duke of Devonshire. The contents of it include-ancient lives of Irish saints, written in very pure Gaelic; the conquests of Charlemagne, translated from Archbishop Turpin's celebrated romance of the eighth century; the story of St. Peter's daughter Petronilla, and the discovery of the Sibylline Oracle; an account of St. Gregory the Great; the Empress Justina's heresy; accounts of Charlemagne's successors, and of the correspondence between Lanfranc and the clergy of Rome; extracts from Marco Polo's travels; accounts of Irish battles and sieges; and a dialogue between St. Patrick, Caoilte, MacRonain, and Oisin, the son of Fionn MacCumhaill, in which many hills, rivers, caverns, &c. in Ireland are described, and the etymology of their names recorded.

THE work on English Gipsy Ballads by Mr. C. G. Leland, Professor Palmer and Miss Tuckey, which was announced some time back, is now completed and will appear in a few days. Messrs. Trübner and Co. are the publishers.

MR. EIRÍKR MAGNÚSSON and Professor E. H. Palmer, of Cambridge, are engaged upon a metrical translation of the lyrics of Runeberg, the celebrated Swedish poet.

the point has, however, been attended by this advan-
tage, that the work has now devolved upon an editor
who can be thoroughly trusted with the duties of this
undertaking, in whom nothing will be wanting which
perfect knowledge of his author, unceasing research,
and watchful care of superintendence can possibly
supply."

Mr. Bailey is printing the very interesting sermon
on Reformation as a specimen of the proposed

edition.

A SUNDAY Shakspere Society has been formed
in union with the New Shakspere Society, to meet
at the rooms of the National Sunday League.
The subscription is five shillings per annum, and
the Treasurer is Mr. W. Stafford, 83 Southwark
Bridge Road, S.E.

established a monthly periodical at Padua as its
THE new school of Economists in Italy has
organ, with the title Giornale degli Economisti,
of which the first two numbers for April and
May have been published, containing several re-
markable articles. The well-known German
economist, Wilhelm Roscher, is the writer of a
most interesting essay in the May number, on
"The Economic Position of the Jews in the
Middle Ages." Among the chief Italian contribu-
Signors Eugenio Forti and G. Boccardo. They
ters are Professor Luzzatti, Senator Lampertico,
treat political economy as a science of observation,
which has a wide field of enquiry and study before
it in history and actual life; and they reject the
notion that it consists simply of deductions from
the principle of individual interest.

WE are glad to hear that the Société des an-
ciens Textes Français has now over 300 members.
Its first text is to be a collection of fifteenth cen-
tury popular songs, which is considered a gem,
and will be edited by M. Gaston Paris.

MESSRS. CASSELL, PETTER AND GALPIN will shortly publish a Course of Sepia Painting, with plates from designs by Mr. R. P. Leitch. A new edition of Sketching from Nature in Water-Colours, by Aaron Penley, will be shortly issued by the same publishers.

MR. M. H. IRVING, late Classical Professor of the University of Melbourne, has been nominated to a seat in the Council. The formal election had not been completed when the mail left, but as no other candidate was nominated, only one result is possible. Mr. Charles Pearson had been placed on the Council a few weeks previously.

MR. D. ELLIS COLNAGHI, our Consul at Florence, in an appendix to his annual commercial report from thence, gives an interesting little history of the art of engraving in Parma, which engraving Correggio's frescoes, which was first unconcludes with an account of the great work of dertaken by Paolo Toschi, of Parma. This artist returned to his country about 1819, after a long residence in Paris, where Bervic had taught him thirty years of age, Toschi was well known in his engraving, and Oortman etching. Although but profession, and soon received commissions to enhelp of his friend and colleague, Antonio Isac, grave classical works, which required not only the who died young, but the assistance of pupils who his teaching, to the number of sixty-five. In a crowded his studio, during the whole period of few years' time, surrounded by talented scholars and assistants, the master was able to carry out his conception above mentioned to engrave Correggio's frescoes-before time and neglect should have completely destroyed them. The difficulties of this enterprise-owing to the vastness of the compositions, the curved surfaces on which the frescoes were generally painted, the want of light, &c.-would have checked the ardour of less persevering artists than Toschi and his associates. State assistance was needed, however, to carry out the project; and at length Toschi, as Director of the Academy of Fine Arts, was commissioned by the government of Maria Louisa to copy the "The delay, long as it has been, in accomplishing frescoes in water-colours. He began the work

MR. J. E. BAILEY, whose recent Life of Dr. Thomas Fuller shows him to be best qualified for the task, has undertaken the congenial labour of collecting the sermons of the witty and wise divine. They are now difficult to obtain-some excessively rare-and no library can boast of having a complete set of them. Mr. Bailey proposes to print them in two volumes to range with the Oxford edition of the Church History. The work will comprise the "Prayer before Sermon," thirty separate sermons, six larger treatises on the Lord's Supper, Paedo-Baptism, and other theological subjects, all accompanied by introductions, notes, and indexes, and illustrated by drawings of churches, &c., from inedited originals by Hollar The important discourse, "Jacob's Vow," preached at Oxford, May 10, 1644, before Charles I., in reference to his own vow, will be printed from the unique original now in the possession of Edward Riggall, Esq. We are glad that, after two centuries of delay, the task of editing Fuller's Sermons has fallen to Mr. Bailey. In this respect we can heartily endorse the words of Mr. James Crossley, F.S.A. (one of the best of English bibliographers), who writes:

and other artists.

[MAY 22, 1875.

with Professor G. B. Callegari, C. Raimondi, and
others; and for several years the artists patiently
cupolas of the duomo and the church of S. Gio-
ascended the lofty scaffoldings placed under the
1844 the circular announcing the intended en-
vanni until the drawings were completed. In
graving of the frescoes was issued. For ten years
number, worked incessantly.
Toschi and his assistants, at one time eighteen in
In 1854, when
twenty-two plates had been published, the master
died very suddenly. The work now languished
1860, of a superior school of engraving at Parma,
somewhat, until the establishment, by decree of
under Professor Carlo Raimondi, the Cavaliere
Bigola (now professor at the Accademia Albertina
of Turin), and Professor Dalco. The total num-
ber of plates in the series will be forty-eight; of
these hardly forty had been completed last year.

OVERLAERER JAKOB LÖKKE, of Christiania, the author of several valuable linguistic works, has just published a handsome volume, Engelske Forfattere i Udvalg (Copenhagen: Hegel), being selections from the most prominent English authors, with biographical and critical annotations. The series begins with Shakspere, from whom is quoted the whole of the Merchant of Venice, and closes with Dickens. The work is characterised by extreme care and accuracy, and is the result of the labour of years.

Ir is announced from Grätz that the authorities have dissolved the greater number of the University clubs, societies, and other Academic associations, not excepting those which were generally assumed to have a purely literary character, as for instance the student-unions "Vendija" and "Sloga; " while all the more specially national societies have been summarily dealt with. Thus there is an end, for the present at all events, of the Carinthian student-associations "Ale

mania," and "Joannea," the Croatian "Hrovatski Adriatyk," the Serbian "Soko," and the Hungarian "Magyar Egylet.”

AT the voting for the chair in the French Academy vacant by the death of M. Jules Janin, M. John Lemoinne was elected with eighteen votes, M. G. Boissier obtaining fourteen, and M. Charles Blanc three votes. There was no election to the chair of M. Guizot, as no candidate obtained an absolute majority. M. Dumas, of the Academy of Sciences, was first on the list of candidates

with seventeen votes, sixteen being given to M. Jules Simon, and two to M. Laugel. The election was accordingly postponed for six months. M. Guizot's place in the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences has been filled by the election of M. Fustel de Coulanges.

DON GASPAR MURO has commenced in the Revista de España a biographical sketch of Ana afterwards Principe de Éboli. The first instalde Mendoza, the wife of Ruy Gomez de Silva, ment comes down to the period of her intimacy with Antonio Perez, and the sorrows and misfortunes of her later life have still to be related.

Revista Europea reviews the present condition of the study of Comparative Mythology, accepting and amplifying the method of Professor Max Müller, and promises to devote the next years of his life to carrying still further the meteorological explanation of myths. Signor Paolo Tedeschi

PROFESSOR DE GUBERNATIS in an article in the

contributes the first of a series of articles intended to defend the authenticity of Dino Compagni's chronicle against the attacks of Dr. Scheffer Boichorst and other critics who maintain that the chronicle is a forgery of much later date.

SIGNOR CESARE CANTÙ has brought out a work on the late history of Italy, which he calls Dell Indipendenza Italiana, Cronistoria (Torino). The book is divided into three parts. The first begins with the invasion of Giacobini, and contains an account of the struggle between Beauharnais and Murat. The second comprises the Austrian period, and takes the history to the surrender of Rome

and Venice. The third, which is to be called the National Period, is still to appear.

STUDENTS of the Wallon dialect will learn with pleasure that M. Auguste Hock has published a fourth volume of his Oeuvres Complètes. His sketches are interesting not only from the dialectal point of view, but also as literary works. He records with a skilful hand not only the quaint phrases of the folk speech, but the lingering folkfore, and many interesting social conditions, either disappearing or which have already disappeared from the Pays de Liége. The first volume, published in 1872, contained the Poésies; the second, Moeurs et Coutumes bourgeoises; the third, Croyances et Remèdes Populaires; the fourth, La Famille Mathat, which will probably have a sequel. THE following Parliamentary Papers have lately been published:-Report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the Administration of the Baroda State (price 38. 9d.); Correspondence respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Act, so far as regards British Columbia (price Is. 1d.); Reports by H.M. Secretaries of Embassy and Legation on Manufactures, Commerce, &c., Part II. (price 5d.); Twentieth Annual Report of Registrar-General on Births, Deaths, and Marriages in Scotland (price 6d.); Reports of Inspectors on Railway Accidents during February, with Plate (28. 4d.); Report of the Progress of the Ordnance Survey to December 31, 1874, with index maps, facsimile, &c. (price 38. 6d.); Reports from Select Committee on New Forest Deer Removal, &c., Bill (1851); Annual Report on Loan Fund Board of Ireland (price 24d.); Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of United Kingdom; Further Papers relating to the Laws, &c., of Monastic and Conventual Institutions in various Foreign Countries (price 1d.); Correspondence respecting the Macao Coolie Trade, 1874-75 (price 4d.); Copy of Mr. J. R. Wigham's Letter in reference to Mr. Douglass's Report on Signal Lights used on the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament; Reports of H.M. Consuls on Manufactures, Commerce, &c., Part III. (price 18. 4d.).

THE Correspondence of Orazio Lavezari, the last Venetian Secretary but one resident in England, contains, as may naturally be supposed, some interesting references to public affairs at the close of the last century. In turning over the copies of it sent to the Record Office by Mr. Rawdon Brown, the following items seemed more especially worthy of notice: A letter dated May 16, 1794, which reports the message from the King to the House of Commons about the eight members of the "Corresponding Society," and the Society "for constitutional information," does not allude to John Horne Tooke's having been originally in holy orders, but merely says he was "a coal merchant, a turbulent man, possessed of talents and of some fortune," and that his fellow prisoner, the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, was the chaplain of Earl Stanhope, opposition Peer and ferocious protector of French Jacobinism." On June 13, Lavezari sent a minute account of Lord Howe's victory on the 1st, and under the same date says the Americans were

❝ an

claiming damages from England to the amount of a million and a half of pounds sterling, on account of prizes, and they also complained of support given by the English authorities in America to the wild Indians in their attacks on the United States. In July we hear of the arrival of Jay, the minister extraordinary from America, to enforce these claims; while Sweden and Denmark were preparing to protect their own trade with a combined fleet of sixteen ships of the line, and a like number of frigates. On August 15, the Venetian Secretary informs the Senate that his illumination for the Prince of Wales's birthday cost him twenty guineas and nineteen shillings; and on the 22nd he tells of the death of Robespierre. In September he lodges a complaint with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in London, and with Lord Grenville at Dropmore, about the seizure of Vene

tian vessels by the " Anglo-Corsican " or " Paolist"
privateers; and after communicating this pro-
ceeding to his chiefs, he gives some particulars of
the Prince of Wales's debts, and his proposed mar-
riage to the daughter of the Duke of Brunswick,
necessitating a demand to Parliament for pecuniary
help. On October 3, an account is sent of the
conspiracy ridiculed by the Opposition under the
name of "The Pop-gun Plot;" but Lavezari was
of opinion that the two apprentices of the watch-
maker and the chemist had very serious intentions
to be shot at him from a tube when seated in his box
of murdering the King with a poisoned arrow,
at the theatre. On the public announcement of the
Prince's marriage all London was illuminated, and

in honour of the occasion the Venetian Secretary
was again lavish in his expenditure, the cost of illu-
mination this time reaching twenty-nine guineas
and nineteen shillings. The trial of the shoe-
maker Hardy is the subject of his first letter in
November; of this prisoner's counsel he writes,
"Il Sig Erskine si distinse in grado eminente.”

Lavezari acquaints the Senate on December 26
with Lord Grenville's reply to the announcement
of the reception given by the Government at
Venice to Lallemant, the envoy from the French
Republic; and we also learn that the cost of the
journey from London to Venice of the courier
who brought the news was 801. Anticipations
that Fox in the Commons, and Lord Stanhope
and the Duke of Bedford in the Lords, would
clamour for peace form the subject of the first
letter for 1795. In February, when noticing
Pitt's reply to the Opposition about the loan for
the use of the Court of Vienna, and the minis-
terial majority of eighty-eight, the Secretary
wrote that the eloquence of this remarkable man
was never susceptible of a summary from the in-
exhaustible rapidity of his ideas and arguments.
His May letters announce the acquittal of Warren
Hastings, after a seven years' trial which had cost
the country 150,000 guineas; and assure the
Senate that England is quite firm in her resolve

to continue the war.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

A ROUMANIAN Geographical Society has lately
been founded, and is to be represented at the
coming Geographical Congress in Paris.

THOSE desirous of following on the map the pro-
jected route of our Arctic vessels cannot do much
better than consult the new circumpolar map
issued by Messrs. Stanford and Co., of Charing
Cross. It is based on the Admiralty chart, but

India, in concert with the Surveyor-General of Ceylon, to unite the triangulations of the two countries. It had first been proposed to let the connecting triangles run across by way of Adam's Bridge, where the Straits of Manaar are narrowest, but this idea was given up, as the islets composing the "Bridge" proved to be mere sand hillocks, often covered at high water, and altogether unsuited for stations for observations. The linking stations will accordingly probably be erected on Kachi-tivu, an island of coral and sandstone, about Very acute angles will thus be necessitated, which a mile in diameter, to the north of Adam's Bridge. will be measured by instruments belonging to the Indian Survey, as these are extremely accurate, and superior to those of Ceylon.

Berlin Geographical Society we observe that it FROM the last Proceedings (January 2) of the now numbers 496 ordinary members, 31 extraordinary foreign, and 144 corresponding and honorary members. Baron F. von Richthofen is again President, and this is certainly a matter of congratulation to outsiders, as apart from the worthy baron's scientific qualifications and fame as a traveller, he has carried out a most useful Proceedings. Among the articles is a resolution reform in the prompt publication of the Society's passed by the President and Council on a communication received from the German Arctic Exploration Society in Bremen, asking for their co-operation in a renewal of Polar research. The Berlin Society are of opinion it would be best to wait till the Swedish and English expeditions shall have achieved some discoveries and then

Herr

step in and complete these with the renewed vigour of a fresh enterprise. They also suggest that in order to ensure national support, the plan of operations are approved by the best scheme will require guarantees that the route and scientific authorities, and that the leadership is in competent hands. When matters are in a more forward stage, the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Admiralty will be asked to lend their aid. In the same number of the Proceedings there occurs a paper by Herr Neumayer on "Recent Exploring Doings in Australia," in which the author notices the journeys of Warburton, Gosse, Giles, Ross, and Forrest, and recommends the erection of stations at intervals along a line advancing into the interior, as the best plan for a systematic exploration of the unknown parts of the continent. Neumayer also gives an explanation of the great difficulties under which his survey of Heard and M'Donald Islands in the Indian Ocean was carried there are numerous and useful additions. The out in 1857, and defends himself from an attack names of "Arctic worthies" are inserted in conmade upon him by Dr. Petermann in his Mittheilungen (No. XII. of 1874), on this subject. spicuous type in the places with which their Baron von Richthofen also contributes a "pernames are most intimately associated. The list of these has been very carefully drawn up on the sonal explanation," but of a more important chawhole, but we miss the names of Sir Hugh Wilracter than those with which English readers of loughby and Richard Chancellor, whose voyages Parliamentary debates have been so familiar during to Northern Russia have lent so much historic the present session. The Abbé Armand David interest to the bleak coasts of Lapland and Archhad expressed his opinion that the population of China amounted to about 300,000,000, and in angel. Old Hackluyt, as our readers may remember, compares their discovery of "a sea beyond communicating his views to the Paris Geographithe North Cape and of a convenient passage into cal Society took occasion to contest Von Richtthe huge Empire of Russia by the Bay of St. hofen's views that the population could not possiNicholas and the river of Dwina," in point of imbly exceed 100,000,000. The Baron now explains that this statement of his views is founded on a portance with the discoveries of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese, and of America by the misconception, and after entering fully into the Spaniards. We also miss the name of Baffin. pros and cons of the question, arrives at the conOn the other hand, we observe with satisfaction clusion that the present numbers must amount to that the proper name of Wiche's Land (misprinted about 420,000,000. The fact of Von Richthofen's bergen; the lame attempt to claim its discovery as Winhe's Land) is given to the island east of Spitz-being one of the foremost Chinese travellers of the due to Messrs. Heuglin and Zeil and to the Norwegians Altmann and Nilsen having now been quite exposed. The map is altogether a useful one, and the best one of those we have seen which profess to illustrate the regions lying around the North Pole.

ARRANGEMENTS have been made by the Superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of

present day is enough to constitute him a standard authority on such a point. The last article of note is a memorandum by Herr Odebrecht on the Upper Itajahy in Brazil.

PARIS LETTER.

Paris: May 14, 1875. The Chamber recess is always a happy time for thefriends of literature. Then the endless discus

will be a cause of rejoicing to the lovers of fine style and clever thought. As everyone knows, Mdme. de Sévigné's autograph letters were destroyed by her granddaughter Mdme. de Simiane, when, from having been a worldly and frivolous woman of fashion, she turned dévote and thought she could atone for the sins of her youth by burning the letters of her grandmother—a grandmother who, as it happened, was far more virtuous than she, but whose freedom of speech alarmed her tardy piety. The copies we have of the correspondence of the amiable marquise are far from being accurate and complete. M. Capmas' discovery adds greatly to the riches we already possess, and is a help in many instances towards correcting faulty readings. The amusing thing is that certain words contained in preceding editions, supposed to be coined by Mdme. de Sévigné herself, are now found to be simply misreadings.

error of giving vent to his indignation too often, and above all of wilfully misinterpreting all the actions of the Emperor. But he has made a careful study of his subject; he does not confine himself, as M. Thiers has done, to narrating the battles and the diplomatic negotiations: he examines the conditions of social and moral life in France and Europe; he goes below the surface of actual facts in search of their hidden causes. The volume just published contains a remarkable picture of the political situation which Europe, and England especially, occupied just at the outbreak of the Spanish war, and the state of men's minds at the time. M. Lanfrey is besides a very talented writer, a writer who puts life and colour into everything that he tells. It must be owned that as a military historian he wants clearness; M. Thiers has spoiled us in this respect and it is a dangerous experiment to try to compete with him. While the First Empire has formed the subject of M. Lanfrey's studies, the history of the second has been written by M. Taxile Delord, with less talent it is true, but with a zeal that is worthy of all praise. The sixth and last volume of his large work is just coming out (Germer Baillière). It contains the history of 1870, beginning with the formation of Emile Ollivier's ministry on January 2, and ending with the catastrophe of September. The effort to be impartial, and the conscientiousness which M. Delord has shown in this Histoire du Second Empire are

doubly praiseworthy in a republican writer, and one who had to suffer from the severity of the

Imperial régime.

Besides these historical works I must direct your attention to a book belonging to the domain of fiction which has just appeared, a novel called La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, by E. Zola (Charpentier). M. Zola is a most exaggerated representative of what is called the Realist School. He wants to paint life, I will not say, as ugly as it really is, but as ugly as it appears to him, which is very nearly the same thing. Long trains of madmen, idiots and monsters defile before us as we read his novels, fools particularly-vapid insignificant creatures, of whom, as the author pretends, the larger portion of mankind really consists, and who have, therefore, to be painted in their true colours. Moreover M. Zola has scientific pretensions; he is a materialist and a fatalist, and believes that he has a mission to write the real modern novel and to place it on a level with the latest discoveries of physiology. His most important work is Les Rougon-Macquard; Histoire Naturelle et Sociale d'une Famille sous le Second Empire. One volume of the series, Le Ventre de Paris, made some sensation on account of a minute and wonderfully true description which it contains of the Halles in Paris. La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret is the fifth of the series. It contains fewer horrors than M. Zola's preceding novels; there is no description of the Morgue, and no horrible murder, and it even contains one sentimental and emotional scene that might almost be called poetical; but a certain mystical sensuality pervades the book, and this produces an unhealthy and painful impression. M. Zola has literary talent, his style is vigorous, energetic, and highly-coloured, but his system is false, and his ambitious pretensions prevent him from writing anything that is both simple and harmonious.

In the way of expected literary novelties, a new volume in verse by Victor Hugo has been announced, Francs et Germains. Will it be a part of the Légende des Siècles? Will it be a continuation of the Année Terrible? I cannot tell. In any case it will be a work worthy of interest, for if Hugo the prose-writer has greatly fallen from his ancient glory, Hugo the poet still has those flashes of genius which put him beyond all comparison with his contemporaries.

A very interesting literary curiosity has just been published by Messrs. Lemerre. Jules Breton, our great landscape painter, has brought out a

volume of verse entitled Les Champs et la Mer.
It would be an insult to the painter to say, with
some of his critics, that his pen is equal to his
pencil; yet in his verses there breathes the same
subtle and vigorous grasp of sea and country life
which has won for him his high rank among
our modern masters of landscape. G. MONOD.

OXFORD LETTER.

Oxford: May 18, 1875.

Of literary work this Term there is not much to be said. Theory and practice are currently supposed to be anything but good neighbours, and we have been so violently practical of late as to have but little spare energies left for the theoretical. Possibly, too, the seductive influences of spring weather and lady visitors have made us too languid or seraphic for severe study. Mr. Wallace, of Worcester College, has published a useful little pamphlet on the Philosophy of Aristotle, which compresses into a few analytic pages the outlines of that philosopher's system under the three heads of "Logic and Metaphysic," of the "Philosophy of Nature," and of the "Philosophy of Mind." In a vigorous preface Mr. Wallace remarks: "Were colleges, instead of their present indiscriminate almsgiving, to undertake works" like the translation of Aristotle's remains, or at least secure that their contributions should be applied to some

66

such definite object, the reproaches brought
against them might lose to a great extent their

force." Aristotle has been called the Oxford

Bible; but I suppose Oxford in this case means
the University and not the Colleges.
Strangely
enough, our trying climate seems to have more
effect upon natives than upon foreigners. At all
events it has not prevented Mr. Vigfussón, the
editor of Cleasby's Icelandic Dictionary, from
working hard at a volume of Sagas, collected
chiefly from MS. sources, which he is bringing
out for the Clarendon Press; or Dr. Neubauer, in
spite of his visit to the MSS. of the Vatican, from
having his Rabbinical commentary on Isaiah liii.
nearly ready for publication. The first part of
the work, containing the texts, is already printed
off; the second part, giving the translations (in
which the editor is being helped by Mr. Driver),

is much advanced. It will be remembered that
the book is being published at the suggestion and
expense of Dr. Pusey.

Progress is being made with the cataloguing
of the MS. treasures of the Bodleian. Two-
thirds of Mr. Macray's catalogue of the Rawlinson
MSS. is now printed, and Mr. Edkins, who will
shortly return to Pekin, has finished in manu-
script the catalogue of the Chinese books. Dr.
Baehrens of Jena, the editor of the Panegirica
and the Argonauticon of Valerius Flaccus, has
been collating certain MSS. of Catullus and the
"poetae minores" for forthcoming editions of
those classics; and Dr. Eduard Müller has been
beholden to the library for the use of some
Prakrit texts. Among its recent acquisitions
must be mentioned a collection of small Mid-

rashim, some of them unique, including a Chaldee
text of the Book of Tobit, and a commentary
upon the Targum on the prophets. A complete
copy of Kapsali's History of the Turkish Empire
has also been obtained, as well as the second part
of a hitherto unknown work by Joseph Katiyah,
beginning with Mohammed and going down to
1643, and chiefly valuable for the light it throws
on the history of the Jews in the Turkish Empire.
While the library has been thus adding to its
stores, the Academic world has been much exer-
cised in spirit as to where they shall be deposited.
The basement rooms of the Bodleian are at pre-
sent used for examination purposes; but learning
and examinations, it seems to be considered, do
not agree very well together, and one of the two
will have to make way for the other. The govern-
ing body of the University has once more turned
its eyes towards the gap in the High Street which

has now become one of the standing sights of Oxford, and in a moment of desperation Convocation has determined to see if it may not be filled up by appointing a delegacy to submit plans and estimates for two buildings, one ornamental in the shape of a front, and the other useful in the shape of schools. This curious illustration of a house divided against itself was adopted, according to the decree, "in the hope that possibly a plan for well-arranged Schools might be accepted, even if architectural opinion be against the plan proposed for the front hall." Considering the consummate knowledge of architecture displayed by Convocation, few architects are likely to venture upon submitting their plans to so critical and experienced a body.

If Convocation is a master of architectural

science, Congregation is equally a master of natural science. The representatives of natural science wished to introduce a change in their department of study, which they were so foolish as to believe would be to its advantage. The classical members of the University, however, showed them their error and threw out the proposed statute, the ultimate object of which was to secure undivided attention to one subject at a time, instead of lumping such heterogeneous sciences as chemistry and biology together. Even a smattering of philosophy, it seems, gives us a sort of omniscient insight into all subjects under the sun, and makes us better qualified for deciding upon the way in which they ought to be studied than the special experts themselves.

Apropos of science, the new Observatory has cost more than was anticipated. Builders have a way of running up unforeseen bills, and the University finds itself unexpectedly more than 1,000. out of pocket. The Savilian Professor, too, cannot manage with the 2007. a year for five years allowed him by Convocation for observing the stars, but wants an annual grant of 3007. Large telescopes are something like white elephants, and if the University once commits itself to the cause of scientific research its funds for feeing examiners and assisting indigent rectors are likely to be diminished. Science and telescopes, however, have been thrown into the background by the allimportant question of balls and suppers. As everybody knows, the theatre has been deprived of the glory of the Encaenia and blue bonnets by the misbehaviour of the undergraduates, and the Hebdomadal Council determined to strike a further blow at the Oxford Carnival by advising the colleges to forbid all festivities, and send their men down as soon as the lecture season was over. A few poor scholars have been misguided enough to force an entrance into what all the world is aware ought to be the peculiar preserve of the rich; and the Council, being so old-fashioned as to retain its faith in the paternal theory of college government, imagined that a term spent in cricket and boating, in entertaining lady visitors, and in picnic parties to Nuneham, was as much as was good for the undergraduate, and that the usual legalised dissipation which ushers in the Vacation might easily be dispensed with. Newspapers without and members of Congregation within, however, soon taught the Council its mistake, and revealed to the public the great discovery of the nineteenth century, that the end and object of a University is to examine, to row, and to dance.

To turn from such serious topics to professorial lectures may seem a bathos, but I cannot refrain from noticing the course of biological instruction given in the Herbarium at the Botanic Gardens by Professor Lawson and Mr. Ray Lankester in daily lectures on the leading features of plants and animals; or the lecture, delivered to a crowded audience by Professor Monier Williams, "On some Points of Contact and Difference between the principal Religions of the World as represented in India." Considering our large possessions in the East, it is almost a pity that more interest is not taken here in Oriental matters. It is thought

desirable to study one half the Bible in its original tongue, but not the other and larger half; and we seem to conclude that if India will not adapt itself to our English customs and ideas, so much the worse for India. It is hopeful, therefore, to find the University at last proposing to found a course of instruction for candidates for the Indian Civil Service, and to give them the opportunity of substituting a residence in Oxford for the stimulating social atmosphere of a London "crammer's."

I have left to the last a history of the abortive issue of the attempt to make the colleges aware that such an institution as the University actually exists and has claims upon them. The colleges have returned their answers to the Vice-Chancellor's question whether they had the will or the power to devote any of their funds to University purposes, and, speaking generally, a singular unanimity may be observed among them. Those that have the will have not the power, and those that have the power have not the will.

SELECTED BOOKS.

A. II. SAYCE.

BARROT, Odilon, Mémoires posthumes de. T. 1. Paris: Charpentier. 7 fr. 50 c.

BOROVY, C. Libri erectionum archidioecesis Pragensis saeculo xiv. et xv. Liber I. (1358-1376). Prag: Calve. ELLIOT, Sir H. The History of India, as told by its own Historians. Ed. Prof. J. Dowson. Vol. VI. Trübner. GUILHERMY, F. DE. Inscriptions de la France du ve au xviiie siècle. T. 2. Ancien diocèse de Paris. Paris: Imp. nat. KLOPP, 0. Der Fall d. Hauses Stuart u. die Succession d. Hauses Hannover in Gross-Britannien u. Irland im Zusammenhange der europ. Angelegenheiten von 1660-1714. Wien Braumüller. 15 M.

But to come nearer our own time. Here is a passage which I extract from that fascinating book of adventure, The Hunting Grounds of the Old World, by the "Old Shekarry" (see chap. vi., p. 99).

66

Thus armed I clutched the supposed animal by
the hair and shouted to M. and the rest to come
up when the thing I was holding began to moan
and struggle, and shortly a curious kind of paw, with
huge claws, emerged from below and fastened on my
hand, and it was only by repeated blows with the
handle of my knife that I could prevent them from
At that moment I was not sure
tearing the flesh.
whether I had got hold of some kind of chimpanzee
or ourang-outang, and I shouted out lustily for help.
M., the shekarries and coolies soon got up into the
tree, and with their assistance I dragged up from a
hollow in the trunk two most extraordinary creatures
in human shape. One was old and wrinkled, the
other quite a child, and both belonged to the weaker
sex, but whether of the genus man or monkey I was
not at all sure. . . . We looked at them for a long
time before we were quite sure whether they were
human. I fancied at first that they were some kind
of hybrid, for I never saw such strange objects. The
nose was nearly flat, the mouth most capacious, and
full of large yellow teeth."

I cannot extend my quotation any further, but
must refer those who are interested in the subject
to the book itself, where they will find an account
of these wild men filling several pages. I may
add that they wore no clothing whatever, and
spoke in "curious grunting sentences." Their
habitat was 66
the Chettagunta jungles."

R. C. CHILDERS.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

Merstone, S.W.: May 16.

The letter of Mr. Moy Thomas on the subject of
international copyright, while recognising the
tinction between authors' rights and publishers'

claims (failure to recognise which has been the
chief obstacle hitherto to a copyright treaty be-
tween the United States and England), does not
seem, any more than previous comments on this side
of the water, to take account of those rights of vested
interests in commercial undertakings, even where

MAZADE, CH. DE. La Guerre de France, 1870-1-71. Paris: they were originally based on wrong and usurpa

Plon. 16 fr.

The interesting account of these aborigines in last week's ACADEMY is by no means, as it is stated, the first detailed account of them that has been published. In Gladwin's translation of Ainn i Akbari will be found the following passage (p. 89):—

"The bunmanis is an animal of the monkey kind. His face has a near resemblance to the human; he has no tail and walks erect. The skin of his body is black and slightly covered with hair. One of these animals was brought to his Majesty (Akbar) from Bengal. His actions were very astonishing."

That the author supposed these creatures to be human beings is clear from his placing "the jargon of the Bunmanis" among the dialects of Hindustan. Bunmanis would in Sanskrit be Vanamanushya, “wild man.”

[MAY 22, 1875.

not content to refuse copyright in the United States because the Custom House regulations in that country continue to be illiberal towards the importing country, and injurious to the interests of American readers." It is the American reader who profits by the present state of things. Amecan authors and publishers have long been quite willing to put the English author at home in America, but the former can scarcely be expected to put him in a better position than he himself enjoys, nor is the American publisher willing to accede to a convention which shall leave both American and English authors at liberty to print and publish their books in whatever corner of the world they can get them done most cheaply, and paralyse at once a trade in which millions of dollars and thousands of operatives are engaged. Justice is always, in the abstract, justice, but done at the wrong time may work infinite injustice.

English authors have only their own government to deal with, and their own publishers against them. I don't think that American authors are much interested in the matter, and American publishers have long shown the leading English authors that they are ready to go ahead of the law. W. J. STILLMAN.

MR. GAIRDNER'S "HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND
YORK."

May 19, 1875.
In a review of my Houses of Lancaster and
York which appeared in the ACADEMY of May 8,
it is suggested that I have been a little too credu-
lous in adopting stories which do not come from
the best contemporary writers. The same criti-
cism, I am bound to say, has been made in other
dis-quarters; and if I could accept it as a true prin-
ciple in writing history to omit all anecdotes
which rest merely on the tradition of a later age, I
must own that there are several things in my little
volume which ought to have been cut out. Indeed,
I was warned by some friends, even before going to
press, against admitting into my narrative the re-
ceived account of Henry V.'s youth, and the well-
But, on the other hand, it was very judiciously in
known story of his menacing Judge Gascoigne.
which my volume appeared, while omitting needless
my opinion-made a part of the plan of the series in
detail, to call attention to everything characteristic
of the age or of leading persons in the story; and
as I saw no substantial grounds for disbelieving
these anecdotes, I repeated them as others had
done before me. I admit, the testimony on which
they rest is in itself slender enough; but we must
be content with scanty testimony for a great many
facts in the fifteenth century which we cannot
possibly ignore and have no sufficient reason to
impugn. Moreover, as to the particular story
Judge Gascoigne, let it be supposed for one
moment that it is true, and I think there is no
great difficulty in understanding why it should
not have been committed to writing for a century
after it occurred. For one generation, at least, it
would have been imprudent to write such a thing;
in the next there was
an extreme scarcity of
chroniclers.

tion, which English law universally respects at
home. The fact is, but seems not to be generally
known, that an author's copyright treaty was
offered to the English Government by the Ameri-
can several years ago. This would have given the
English author every substantial privilege which
the American enjoyed; but it was refused by the
English Government apparently because it would
not have protected the interests of the publishers.
What the English negotiators insisted on was that
the copyright in England should extend over the
United States, so that a publisher in possession of
an English copyright should be able to control its
publication there also. The equity of any such
claim is open to debate-the expediency of conced-
ing it in the face of the fact that such a concession
would bankrupt our publishing trade cannot be
even argued. When the American Government
offers to the English author every privilege which
the American enjoys, there remains neither ground
of complaint to the former, nor room for the flippant
abuse of "American copyright piracy" which
certain English journals are so fond of indulging
in. The further question of publishers' rights is
one which, will they nill they, must be postponed
until we in America have settled the general ques-
tion of free trade and protection on wider grounds
than the admission of books, free or otherwise;
and if the English Government continues to
insist on a publishers' copyright or none, it will be
none, probably, as long as any present copyright
exists. Mr. Moy Thomas says very justly "that
even if the principles above laid down were fully
recognised, their application in a mode satisfactory
to conflicting trade interests must always be a
matter of great difficulty;" but my American
perceptions are not acute enough to see the rele-
vancy of the sentence that follows" they are

66

of

Another point on which your reviewer thinks I have accepted fabulous history as genuine is the celebrated anecdote of Queen Margaret and the robbers. This, he says, comes only from the possible date, and places the scene of it in Hainault." Continuator of Monstrelet, who puts it at an inI do not know whether your reviewer considers that "Angleterre" meant Hainault in the days when the Continuator of Monstrelet wrote, but I have the original authority, and I make "Angleterre simply translated the passage in my book from England.

As to the date, the Continuator of Monstrelet places the incident in 1463, which seems to me not at all impossible, but perfectly consistent with the facts of history.

JAMES GAIRDNER.