any human being-not more than five will be re membered in ten years. They while away idle hours or soothe the ennui of dull persons, just as a game of billiards or a cup of tea might do, but they neither stimulate nor instruct, they leave no trace on the mind, they do not touch the heart." While it is very certain that such pernicious trash does not instruct it undoubtedly does stimulate, and is a stimulant quite as deleterious in its effects as most of those sold at the average gin-mill. And it further leaves this trace on the mind, or that apology for a mind possessed by nine tenths of the silly girls and feeble young men who are the great devourers of this species of literature, that like other stimulants taken to excess it fatally weakens that organ. Novelreading frequently becomes a disease, sometimes an incurable one. We regret to learn that Mr. Hickcox is much discouraged at the apathy displayed by librarians, and other interested persons towards his "Monthly Catalogue of United States Publications." This catalogue contains a list of all the latest publications of the U. S. Government; full titles and descriptions of the publications of the Departments and Bureaus of Departments; of Commissions and Organizations which publish special works not included in the reports transmitted to Congress, and of all the docu⚫ments issued during the session of Congress. In addition the titles are given of all public and private Acts, Treaties, Maps and Charts. Each number is accompanied by a price-list, and a title-page, and index accompaning the last number of each volume. It is well-known that the applications of Librarians for printed documents are courteously received, and never refused if material is on hand; yet the shortsighted gentlemen who are pitchforked into positions of public trust in the various libraries throughout the country are too pigheaded to avail themselves of Mr. Hickcox's invaluable check-list, which is the only means whereby they can become acquainted with the enormous mass of valuable publications annually issued by the Government. We are informed that even the Clerk of the House of Representatives refuses to take a single copy on the ground that he has clerks enough to make Indices and that if he has not, he will hire morc. He will hire more at a cost of $1800 a year, each-in order to do work already more efficiently done than it is at all likely to be done by any number of Government clerks, and by paying $1800 avoid the expenditure of two. Truly a wise and altogether Washingtonian measure of economy. Mr. Hickcox performs his task in a thoroughly workmanlike manner; the titles are managed alphabetically in each number, and, as far as is possible, under author's names. At the same time the Departments, Bureaus, and Commissioners are credited with the works issued under their supervision, and, where the subjects treated of are of sufficient public interest, the titles are repeated under the topics referred to. Mr. Hickcox's catalogue has no competitor; it gives information which can nowhere else be found, and it must prove of the highest value to all those who use government pub lications, and to librarians and newspaper men it is simply indispensable. AMERICAN NOTES. Ticknor & Co. are publishing Red-Nosed Frost' translated from the Russian; the English and Russian versions of the poem being on opposite pages. Of Mr. James's Bostonians, the London Times says:-" It is feminine in grasp, style, and matter," but qualifies this by adding that it is "interesting and amusing." A new feature in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. The publishers of Webster have recently added to the Unabridged a “Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World, containing over 25,000 titles, briefly describing the countries, cities, towns, and natural features of every part of the Globe," It covers a hundred pages. Macmillan & Co., are bringing out a "cheap" edition of Henry James's novels in monthly 18mo., volumes at 50 cents each. The Portrait of a Lady was published last month, to be followed by Roderick Hudson this month, and The American in July. The cheapness is doubtful, for the first of these novels is published in 3 vols. and the others in 2 vols. each. Messrs. Roberts Bros., of Boston are issuing a second edition of Mrs. Dall's life of Shakspere. The "Voyages and Adventures of Sir John Maundeville" is one of the latest additions to "Cassell's National Library." "Mr. Appleton Morgan has undertaken to carry forward the Shakesperian bibliography which is one of the great features of Allibone's 'Dictionary of Authors.' His 'Digest Shakespeareanæ'-we must remark once more on the solecism of this feminine genitive singular-has begun to be published in the Papers of the New York Shakspere Society. Part 1 includes titles A-F, topically arranged, no author's names appearing in the alphabet. Mr. F. Marion Crawford's new novel is called "Prince Sarracinesca." It will appear in Blackwood's as a serial. A poem, which bears the blood-curdling title of "Lilith, Prince of Ghouls," is now said to have been the production of Edgar Allen Poe. A. C Armstrong & Co. reprint under the title of "Mrs. Leicester's School and Other Writings in Prose and Verse," a number of fugitive productions of Charles Lamb, most of which were collected by J. E. Babson, and published in a single volume in Boston some twenty years ago. The editor of the present work has excluded some things in Babson's collection as unworthy of Lamb, and has added a few recently discovered pieces. The great fire which completely destroyed the Bancroft publishing house, in San Francisco will not seriously retard the issue of H. H. Bancroft's History of California. The next volume, which brings the record down to the eve of the gold discovery, will appear in July. The stereotype plates of most th evolumes in the series were at the Library while th remainder in the cellar are supposed to be injured. The Bancrofts will rebuild at once. Messrs. Harper & Brothers announce a "Portfolio of American Wood Engraving," which will represent the work of the Society of American Wood Engravers. Each contributor chooses his own subject and engraves it in his own way, and the prints from his block are made under his own supervision. Each block will contain not less than forty or more than ninety square inches, and an explanatory text will accompany the prints. There will be an édition de luxe, an artist edition, and one for popular circulation. Mr. Julius Ensign Rockwell, author of 'The Teaching, Practice and Literature of Shorthand ' published by the Bureau of Education is contemplating a new work upon the history and literature of shorthand which shall be a veritable Edition de Luxe. It will be printed in a superior style upon extra-heavy toned paper, will probably contain about four hundred pages, handsomely bound in cloth, and fully illustrated by portraits of prominent authors, reproductions of curious title pages and portions of rare volumes, specimens of systems, &c. Besides a historical sketch and a complete list of all works on shorthand in the English language issued from 1588 to 1887, there will be copious notes on the history of the art, on the present locations and values of book,s and other matters of interest. The price of the volume will be fixed at $3.00 postpaid to subscribers, and $5.00 to others, and this edition will be limited to 250 copies. From Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co. of New York we have received twelve cards, one for each month in the year, giving a very complete list of dishes in season, from which a Menu can be selected in a moment. The publishers state that these cards are intended to answer the question "What shall we eat?" Personally we can say that if we depended for our livelihood upon the American booksellers, the answer to that question would infallibly be "nothing." Charles Scribner's Sons will issue in the early autumn the second volume of the Cyclopædia of Painters and Paintings,' edited by John Denison Champlin, Jr., and Charles Perkins. The first volume, now ready, contains 105 outline views of the important pictures of the older masters, 182 portraits, 212 signatures, besides twelve full page photogravures (mainly) after works of the modern school. The arrangement of painters and pictures is under a single alphabet. There are to be four volumes in all, quarto, and the limit of the copies is 500. This important work has been in preparation for five years. A series of monographs on education, in preparation by Heath & Co.. Boston, will begin with a Biography of Pedagogical Literature,' compiled by Prof. Stanley Hall. Messrs. Cassell & Co. have published a volume of 'Representative Poems of Living Poets,' selected by the poets themselves. It is a handsome 8vo, containing nearly 300 poems, by 80 English and American writers. An introduction is furnished by Mr. George P. Lathrop. Messrs. Ticknor & Co., Boston, publish immedia tely "The Saunterer," by Charles Goodrich Whiting; "The Familiar Letters of Peppermint Perkins. The London Spectator of May 15th has a three column article on Oliver Wendell Holmes, whom it dubs "The American Montaigne." The writer is of opinion that no literary American-unless it be Lowell-occupies precisely the same place as Mr. Holmes in Englishmen's regard. They have the same feeling for him which they had for Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, and John Leech, in which admiration somehow blends into and is indistinguishable from affectionateness." FOREIGN NOTES. The Rev. Morris Fuller a descendant of Thomas Fuller has written on account of that "Worthy's" life, time, and writings. The Emperor of Germany has purchased for $5,000 the original MS. of the "Watch on the Rhine. L'Abbé Hyvernat, of Rome, the editor of the 'Coptic Martyrs,' has lately discoved in a MS. of the Vatican Library a Coptic and Arabic text of an apocryphal Assumption of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. A complete and accurate translation of 'The Decameron' has long been required. We are glad therefore to learn that Mr. Payne has undertaken the task, for the Villon Society. 'Good Queen Anne; or, Men and Manners, Life and Letters, in England's Augustan Age,' is the title of a work by Mr. W. H. Davenport Adamsf dealing with the drama, music, art, and literatu ie o the times, which will shortly be published by Messrs. Remington & Co. The new volumes in 'Bohn's Libraries' (George Bell & Sons) include Talfourd's 'Letters of Charles Lamb; Hazlitt's 'Spirit of the Age:-and other volumes of acknowledged value. A new volume of poems by Victor Hugo, entitled 'La Fin du Satan,' and containing 6,000 verses has been published in Paris. The work was written between 1854 and 1860. Among Mr. Murray's forthcoming publications will be Mr. Hayward's Letters, being a Selection from the Correspondence of the late Abraham Hayward, Q. C., from 1834 to 1884. The work will be edited by Mr. Henry E. Carlisle, who will supply notes and an introductory account of Mr. Hayward's early life. Mr. Murray will also publish Mr. Percy Greg's History of the United States, from the Foundation of Virginia to the Reconstruction of the Union' This work will be in two volumes. In the new edition of Mr. John Morley's works now being published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. the 'Critical Miscellanies' will occupy three volumes, instead of two as originally announced, and will include several essays not previously collected Among these will be those on W. R. Greg, George Eliot, Carlyle, and Mark Pattison, which appeared in Macmillan's Magazine during Mr. Morley's editorship, and the essay on Emerson which formed the introduction to Messrs. Macmillan & Co's. recent edition of Emerson's works. A new Life of Heinrich Heine.' by Robert Proelss, has just appeared. It is founded on memoirs which have already seen the light, but has the advantage of being illustrated by some extremely interesting portraits. The letters which Mr. Edwin Arnold contributed to the London Daily Telgeraph during his recent journey in India and Ceylon, with additions descriptive and poetical, will shortly be published by Trübner & Co. A new 'Biographical Dictionary of Musicians,' by Mr. James D. Brown, Assistant Librarian of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, will be published this month. Special features of the work will be large space allotted to living musicians, particularly to those of England, the information being in nearly every case furnished by the subjects of the articles; a bibliography of English writings on music, classified according to the various branches of the subject; and a list of musical periodicals, past and present. Under the title of "Greater Greece and Greater Britain" the Macmillans will presently bring out the lecture delivered at Oxford by Professor E. A. Freeman-its original title being "George Washington, the Expander of England." They have also in the press another volume by Professor Freeman"The Methods of Historical Study." The same firm announce a new novel by the late Hugh Conway the remarkably appropriate title of which is 'Dead or Alive' a question we have for some time past been vainly asking. At any rate if Mr. Conway be dead the publishers are alive enough. Admirers of that most admirable of draughtsmen, most genial of humorists, John Leech will learn with pleasure that his inimitable "pictures" are about to be issued, in monthly parts. by Bradbury & Co. The size will be a royal quarto. The collection will be made as inclusive as it can be. Messrs. Meehan of Bath, Eng., offer a for-sale in their last catalogue the original pencil design for Miss Pecksniff, drawings for some of the characters in Dombey & Son, Pickwick, & Martin Chuzzlelwit, thirty two drawings by Hablot K. Browne (“Phiz”). Mr. Swinburne's ardently expected volume of prose miscellanies is at last about to appear, and will no doubt afford infinite delight to the admirers of the poet's magnificent prose style. It will be an important addition to the prose literature of our time, consisting of all his literary contributions to the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' (except the articles on Chapman and Marlowe), his monograph on Mary Stuart, his account of Lamb's manuscript notes on Wither, and his criticisms on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespere's sonnets, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Congreve, Prior, Wordsworth, Byron, Landor, Keats, Tennyson, Musset, Emily Brontë, Charles Read, and others. Mr. F. A Brockhaus, of Leipzig, has just completed, by the publication of the 80th part, the People's Edition of a great work, entitled 'Bilder-Atlas der Wissenschaften, Künste und Gewerbe.' It comprises illustrations of 10,000 different obiects on steel, wood, and stone, forming three octavo volumes. There is a separate volume of descriptive letterpress. Charles Dickens is once more discussed in the April numɔer of Le Livre which contains a full ac-count by R. Du Pontavice, of the second residence of Dickens in Paris 1855-56, accompanied by a full page etching after "Phiz's" full length seated sketch of "Boz." In the Bibliographie Moderne the editor M. Uzanne gossips in his usual and delightful manner of current bibliographical topics. The mother of Dante Gabriel, William Michael, and Christina Georgina Rossetti died in London, on April 8th aged eighty-six. Her father, Gaetano Poeidori, was, in early youth, secretary to the poet Alfieri, and her brother, Dr. John Polidori, in 1816 accompanied Lord Byron as his travelling physician. Her husband was Gabriele Rossetti the Neapolitan poet political exile and the well known commentator of Dante. A Bibliographie Parisienne' is announced for publication by P. Rouquette. The work has been compiled by M. Paul Lacombe, and will include a preface by M. Jules Cous n, the Librarian of the Bibliothèque de la Ville de Paris. It will be devoted to the manners and customs of the Parisians as described by contemporary native writers as well as by foreign travellers from the commencement of the seventeenth century to the present time. Edvard Collin, the well-known friend of HansChristian Andersen, died at Copenhagen on the 12th of May, at the age of seventy-eight. Collin was for forty years a prominent civil servant, but he found time not merely to cultivate the friendship of all the leaders of Danish literature, but to write some charming books himself. Anonyms and Pseudonyms' and Andersen and the House of Collin' are the best known of his volumes. His death removes a central figure from the literary and musical world of Copenhagen. 6 It has been resolved to place a tablet on the house, No. 17. Auf dem Berg,' in Nuremberg, where the bookseller Johann Philipp Palm resided shortly before his cruel execution by command of Napoleon L.. On the 80th anniversary of Palm's death, April 26th the tablet was to be inaugurated. The house is now occupied by a bookbinder. The Rev. Richard Harris Dalton Barham, the eldest and sole surviving son of the author of "The Ingoldsby Legends," lately died in England. He is said to have inherited much of his father's mental activity and humor, and previous to the failure of his health had written a Life of Theodore Hook. the Life of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham, a novel entitled "A Rubber of Life," which was afterward dramatized for a London Theatre, and at different. times a few inetrical stories of the character of his father's Legends. At a recent sale by auction in Berlin some letters of literary and other celebrities fetched the following prices;-Five holograph letters of the Lessing. family, 1,222 marks or 305. dollars; a letter of Adolf Menzel, containing pen sketches by that artist, 210 marks or 52 dollars; one of Schopenhauer, 250 marks or 62 dollars; one of Marie Antoinette, 200 marks or 150 dollars; one of Mauguérite de Valois' 222 marks. or 55 dollars. "Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh" said the preacher. What would he say now when the literary output in Paris alone amounts to 200 volumes a week? well might Mercier, looking forward to the 25th century, picture a new Tower of Babel, composed of milliards of volumes, solemnly burned in the name of common sense, so as to save the city from the danger of becoming one vast library. "But" says Louis Ulbach, in his preface to Paul Ginisty's 'Année L. Héraire, 1885' (Paris Giraud), "There is always some grain among this mass of chaff!" and to prevent this from being lost is the aim of a book of which Octave Uzanné's introduction "Le Livre à Paris," is a brilliant bit of fun pleasantly poked at bibliophiles. M. Ginistry's plan is to analyze the publications of each month, adding occasionally, some of the criticisms they call forth. the M. Calmann-Levy has published the eighth volume of M. Schérer's Etudes sur la Littérature Contemporaine,' which consists of nineteen papers. The Publisher's Circular mentions as most likely to attract attention of those on Journal Intime of Ameiee on Baudelaire, Renan, George Eliot, Guizot and Jules Simon. Cherbuliez,and Victor Hugo. The essay on George Eliot is founded on the life by Mr. Cross, and occupies rather more than a sixth part of the volume. M. Scherer regards George Eliot's novels, with one or two exceptions, as the most perfect works of fiction which the world has ever seen; but he does not admire the volume called Theophrastus Such.' Mr. Washington Moon who with his 'Dean's English' demolished Dean Alford, is about to publish under the title Ecclesiastical English,' a series of criticisms showing the Old Testament revisors? violations of the laws of language, illustrated by more than a thousand quotations. The house in Dumfries in which Robert Burns died has been recently repaired in consequence of its dilapidated condition. For some reason or other, the woodwork of the bedroom in which the poet breathed his last was removed. This has been secured by Mr. Elliot Stock, who proposes to bind in it the fac-similes of the first edition of 'Burns's Poems' which he is about to publish, and of the surplus to make cabinets in which to issue the large-paper copies of the reprint. The Shakspere Society of the University of Adilaide, South Australia, now publish a creditable little journal, the first Antipodean venture of the kind. Mr. Matthew Arnold arrived in New York in the Aurania on the 13th of April. M. Georges Ohnet, has just published another novel, "Les Dames de Croix-Mort," and 40,000 copies of the work have, it is stated been disposed of in two days. This leaves the most transcendant successes of even Zola and Miss Braddon a long way behind. From a short sketch of his career with which M. Ohnet has favoured a journalist we learn that his popularity was of slow growth, and that he ha his full share of failures and disappointments to endure at the outset of his career. He dabbled in journalism for a time, but never made his mark in it; and though he tried writing for the stage in his spare hours, his experience as a dramatist did not encourage him to persevere in that fiel 1, and he tried his hand at fiction. His first novel, “Serge Panine," was retused by publisher after publisher; and he was seriously thinking of renouncing the literary career altogether, when his friend M. Dreyfus persuaded M. Paul Ollendorff to bring out the novel. Its sale was extremely slow at first; but it happened to attract the notice of the Academicians, who awarded its author the "Prix Jouy:" a distinction which made the fortune both of the Look and the writer. Walt Whitman will visit England next autumn as the guest of Swinburne. The admirers of the venerable American poet contemplate a banquet in his honor which will also be made the occasion of presenting to him a handsome subscription. The Shelley Society have begun the p eparation of a concordance of Shelleys's works The united efforts of fourteen well-known litterateurs will be employed in the task, which is expected to occupy two years in its completion. The editing will be under the supervision of Mr. Forman, the biographer of S. elley. Mr. James Russell Lowell has been invited to be present at the forthcoming performance of the 'Cenci," Browning, Tennyson, George Meredith and a host of other leaders in literature and art uniting in the request. The English Publishers' Circular of May 1st contains a portrait and obituary notice by his partner Mr. Marston of the late Sampson Low the founder of that pe riodical. The Book of Hours used by Mary Queen of Scots on the scaffold was sold at Sotheby's at the end of last month. We shall be curious to hear what this highly interesting relic brought at the hammer. Mr. Arthur Gyles, of Waterloo Crescent,Nottingham, Eng., has issued a Directory of Second-hand Booksellers in the Principal Towns of the United Kingdom.' It does not pretend to completeness, but gives very many names and is interleaved for additions. Some curious statistics may be drawn from its pages. Aberdeen has thus twenty-three second-hand booksellers, and Bradford only five, Carlisle three, and Manchester, with many times the population of Aberdeen, only nineteen. Wolverhampton has only two, and York no more than three. London, of course, heads the list with nearly two hundred. Brother George Clulow was duly installed on April 2nd as president-" His Oddship"- of the ette of Odd Volumes. The retiring president Brother J. P. Brown was presented with a copy of Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Cpemicum' the double of the binding bearing the symbol of the Stte with the presentation in script, and the fac-similes of the members, in gold, on the oppisite page. The Longfellow biography is received with graceful appreciation by The London Times. It declares that much of the poets's popularity" on both sides of the ocean was due to the success with which he, a NewEnglander, assimilated Europe. With the single exception of Washington Irving, no American man of letters had up to that time written about the cities and regions of the Old World with insight and eloquence. Longfellow, when thirty years of age, did this, and his success both there and here was great and instantaneous. Any one can do it now; but the reward is not the same. Longfellow had the good fortune to come at the moment when naivete, enthusiasm, openness of mind, and the command of a simple style were just what was wanted to secure success for the young traveller who should visit Europe and reveal it to America," All Germany mourns for the great poet Scheffel, whose funeral has just been celebrated at Carlsruhe with great pomp and ceremony. The b'er was covered with flowers and laurel wreaths, and among them was a hndso e tribute of the San Francisco Deutscher Verein. The army, Reichstag, art, literature and studentdom were all represented in the funeral cortége. Many eyes were dimmed as Dr. Wilkens spoke this last farewell at the poet's grave:- May the earth lie lightly on him who sleepeth here, whose memory shall be ever green." The London Standard holds the self-satisfied opinion that "Longfellow was a European poet-something more than English poet-born in America. His American birth freed him from insularity, and he strove hard to invest himself with lo al color as with a garment; but his soul was European, and not American. This is, however unconsciously, brought out in his biography." Of Longfellows's "beautiful temper," The London Daily News says some pleasant things. "One can see," it declares," that he only smiled to himself at Poe's endeavors to decry him. Poe was always accusing him of plagiarism, but what really rankled in the true poet's heart was his own evil temper and evil luck, and poverty and seedy life of expedients. Naturally he was conscious of a genius compared to which Mr. Longfellow's is as milk and water to haschish and absinthe. Yet Poe was starving, disreputable, torn by bitter indi nation, and envy, aud desire, while Mr. Longfellow, not to be compared with him for genius, was rich, respected, virtuous and happy. It was not strange, then, that Poe turned o Longfellow. Thou thyself art heaven or hell,' says the Persian; and Poe ma e his own hell, while Longfellow's sweet and loyal nature was its own heaven.' " Mr. J. R. Findlay has published some Personal Recollections of Thomas De Quincey (Edinburgh, Black), which are of no great moment, but they are pleasantly written, and contain characteristic traits, such as: "At dinner Mr. Russel asked him why he lived in town at this season when he had such a nice place in the country. He said,The convenience consists in this; that there seems less criminality in disappointing printers when they send only to the next street, than when they come seven miles.'. He said he seldom rose till four or five; for though uncomfortable everywhere, he was less uncomfortable in bed than anywhere else. I asked him if he had heard from his daughters. He said not lately, and that he could not expect to do so, for he bad not written to them, or rather he had never despatched his letters to themfor he had written any-and that there were probably thirty or forty pages of unsent notes to them lying somewere about his room." Some bitter remarks on Wilson might as well have been omitted. Wilson had serious faults, but he was not the contemptible person De Quincey would make him out to be. By far the best estimate of Wilson's character is that of Carlyle which is at once true and generous. The condition of the book trade-or at least that branch of it which devotes its energies towards circulating good literature in ten and fifteen cent volumes -is apparently beyond any hope of improvement until the houses themselves see the uselessness of trying to sell books at cost. A canvass of the firms who do the largest business in this cheap form of bookmaking reveals the fact that it is all done in the cause of liter ature. The publishers of "The World's Library.'' "The National Library” and “ The Franklin Square," and Handy Volume" series all bear testimony to the fact that the sale yields them no profit question. The fact then arises: Why dissipate the taste of re aders by all ill-made and unsubstantial volumes? A Timid Brave. The Story of an Indian reprising by William Justin Harsha, New York Funk & Wagnalls is a romance built upon the wrongs sustained by the Indians at the hands of Indian agents, soldiers and stockmen. The cattle of the hero, Noah, a civilized Indian, are stolen; his wife is outraged and kills herself and a general uprising of the Indians follows, with the usual result. The book is a protest against the ranchman's axiom that there is no good Indian but a dead Indian." The story is dramatic and is powerfully told. CATALOGUES RECEIVED. Dealers issuing Catalogues will confer a favor by sending copy to each of the addresses in the department of Cataloques Wanted. Favor both EDITOR and PUBLISHERS with copies. All Catalogues received will be entered in this list, with address of firm issuing them. For any additional notice desired 10 cents per line will be charged. Avery. Edward London, Eng. Baer, J. & Co., Frankfort-on-Main, Germany. Collins, W.P., London, England. Douglass & Foulis. Edinburgh, Scotland. Davie, W. O. & Co. Cincinnati, Ohio. Fawn, James & Son Bristol, England. |