On this page
-
Text (5)
-
Ijtbratpbe.1 THE LEAMB 667
-
LITERATURE.
-
LITERARY NOTES, ETC.
-
friHE statement of Messrs. Bradbury and ...
-
nians. M. Jules Oppert, who has been emp...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Ijtbratpbe.1 The Leamb 667
Ijtbratpbe . 1 THE LEAMB 667
Literature.
LITERATURE .
Literary Notes, Etc.
LITERARY NOTES , ETC .
Frihe Statement Of Messrs. Bradbury And ...
friHE statement of Messrs . Bradbury and Evans , as J- to the original cause of their difference with Mr . Dickens , which has try this time found its way through the whole country on the fly-sheet of . Punch , is the most prominent item in our literary news this week . In 1844 an agreement was entered into by which that firm' acquired an interest in Mr . Dickens ' works , and Household Words , for seven years , and they became upon terms of intimacy . In 1858 circumstances led to Mr . Dickens' publication of a statement on the subject of his conjugal differences , in various newspapers , including Household Words . The disclosure of . ' these differences took most persons by surprise , and was the subject of comments , by no means complimentary to Mr .
Dickens . " On the 17 th of June Bradbury and Evans learnt that Mr . Dickens had resolved to break off his connexion with them , because this statement was not printed in the number of Punch published the day preceding—in other words , because it did not occur to Bradbury and Evans to exceed their legitimate functions as proprietors and publishers , and to require the insertion of statements on a domestic , and painful subject in the inappropriate colurims ofa comic miscellany . " No other cause of difference is assigned , and Mr . Dickens bears his unsolicited testimony to the integrity and zeal of his former partners . "We think that the public generally will be inclined to think that the " unreasonableness ¦ " in this quarrel does not attach to the Whitefriars firm .
titled " Astro-Theology , " is preparing for publica tion . —A new work * entitled " Shakspeare ' s Medical Knowledge . " by Dr . J . C . Bucknill , author of the " Psychology of Shakspeare , " is in the press . —Sir J . E : Tennent ' s work on Ceylon , entitled , " Ceylon , an Account of the Island , Physical , Historical , and Topographical , " is in the press . —Mr . Thomas Bewin , M . A ., of Trinity College , Oxford , author of the Idfe of St . Paul , '' has in the press a new work on the " Two Campaigns of Julius Caesar in Britain . " In this work the place of embarkation and debarkation will be particularly discussed with reference to the Astronomer Royal ' s hypothesis that Caesar sailed from the . estuary of the Somme to
Peverisey . — A new work from the pen of the late Samuel Rogers will be published early in June , with the following title : " Recollections by Samuel Rogers ; being brief records by his own pen of personal and conversational intercourse with Charles James Fox , Grattan , Porson , Home Tooke , Talleyrand , Lord Erskine , Sir Walter Scott , I-ord Grenyille , and the Duke of Wellington . " These recollections form a single volume , foolscap octavo , edited by the author ' s nephew , Mr . William Sharpe . The circumstance that Mr . Rogers wrote a preface , which was found prefixed to these papers , sufficiently indicates to the editor the intention of his uncle that they should be published at a proper time .
A new practical work on . " falconry , its Claims , History , and Practice , " from the pen of Gage Earle Freeman , M . A . (" Peregrine" of the Field newspaper ) , and Captain F . H . Salvin , is preparing for publication . The following new novels are announced by Messrs . Saunders , Otley , and Co . for immediate publication : —" Chances and Changes , " by the author of "My First Grief ; " " The Confessions of a too Generous Young Lady ? " " Harriette Browne ' s School Days ; " and " The Northumbrian Abbots , " by R . B . Werberton , Esq .
The new serial . Once a Week , rumour states , will be brought out with extraordinary eclat , under the editorial auspices of Mr . Lucas , whose reviews in the Times newspaper are so well known . Mr . Thackeray ' s powerful assistance has been secured for the princely remuneration of 2 , 500 / . per annum ; and the illustrations will be confided to Messrs . J . 32 . MUlais , Tenniel , and Leech , assisted by Mr . H . K . Browne , and the whole artistic staff of Punch . "Variety will be studied both in the style and the contents of the new miscellany , which is to consist
of original essays , tales , and jeux d esprit . The municipal council of Paris has just voted a piece of ground as a gift to M . de Lamartine , in consideration of the services rendered by the poet to the city of Paris during the troubles of 1848 . A suitable habitation is to be built by the city , upon the same condition as that just presented to Rollin , viz ., that it is never to be alienated from the family , sold , or exchanged in any way ; to be held by the poet during his life , and to descend to his heirs at his death .
A special meeting of the general committee of the Hoyal Literary Fund was held on Wednesday , liavinglregard to a proposition recently made through Mr . Charles Dickens and the Rev . Mr . El win , offering to the society the reversion , at the expiration of two lives , of a library , with 10 , 000 / . to be exclusively devoted to its support . It is stated that , after an interview with Mr . Dickens and Mr . Elwiri , the committee resolved , by a majority of thirteen to seven , that no sufficient evidence of any benefits to accrue to the charity was before them to justify them in recommending the adoption of the proposal to a special meeting of the society . The Lord Chamberlain , in his character of purist ,
lias lately been displaying a degree of activity-which at his time of life , we trust , may not prove injurious . Not content with shutting up the perfectly harmless entertainments of Passion Week , he has thought it incumbent upon him to display some care for the public morals by proscribing the drama of " Jack Sheppard , " which he considers calculated to affect the virtue of the Victoria Theatrp audiences . Now that his lordship is thoroughly awakened to his duties as censor morum , we may surely expect his injunction to be extended to that very objectionable young porson , La Traviata , at the two great opera Jiouses , and tjnat she will at length bo decently consigned to the tomb as the Athenanwn says , witli nor cough , her champagne , and her medicine chest . and till recentl
Mr . Biggs , the originator , y proprietor , of tho Family Herald , which was among tho earliest of tho respectable cheap and entertaining publications , died on Wednoschiy morning at his residence in tho Strand . Mr . Bentloy announces a work by , Mr . W . Colo , to bo called " Tho Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean , " containing a summary of incidents associated with tho English stago for tho last half contury . Mr . Colo , who now fills tho post of eocrotary to Mr . Kcan , was formorly , wo boliovo , tho lossoo of tho Theatre Royal , Dublin . Tho Messrs . Longman mako th , e following announcements : a nowodition ( tho third ) 0 f tho Uov . Cimon Mosoloy ' fl work on popular astronomy , on-
Nians. M. Jules Oppert, Who Has Been Emp...
nians . M . Jules Oppert , who has been employed by the Emperor of the French to copy the Assyrian inscriptions in the British Museum , does not hesitate to consider a large class of such inscribed slabs as having formed " a public library in clay * " and which he believes was inaugurated by Sardaoapalus V ., about the year 650 before the Christian era , expressly for the purpose of public instruction . In support of this opinion he translates the following sentence from one of these slabs : —¦
" Palace of Sardanapalus , Kmg of the World , King of Assyria , to whom the god Nebo and the goddess Ournist have given ears to hear , and eyes to see what is the . foundation of Government . They have revealed to the kings , my predecessors , this cuneiform writing . The manifestation of the godNebo * * , the god of supreme intellect—I have written upon tablets , I have signed it , I have put it in order , I have placed it m the midst of my palace for the instruction of my people . "
Mr . Edwards considers the study of these stonebooks as coming more within the province of the archaeologist than the bibliographer . We cannot subscribe to such a dictum . ¦ Nothing which tends to illustrate literary ; history , the mental progress of man , may be excluded by the- latter , the moment it assumes the shape of written language . It is true , in its most confined sense , bibuotheca , or its cognate librarium , does but express " a chest of books ; " but in its modern acceptation the word library has one of the most expansive definitions of any word in common use , tiie Imperial Library at Paris , the most extensive in the world , representing some 800 , 000 , volumes , equivalent to about N sixteen miles of bookshelves , and the British Museum some 600 , 000 volumes , or upwards -of twelve miles of bookshelving .
One word , in passing , about the latter , and the recorded ignorance of its contents in official high places . At the close of the late war there was to be an idle expenditure of gas and gunpowder , illuminations and fireworks . The question came before the House on the same evening that the supplies to be voted for the British Museum led to the discussion of the want of a printed catalogue of the printed books in the . library of that national collection . The Chancellor of the Exchequer , and one and all of the ex-chancellors of the J 0 xchequer , got up and spoke against it , pleading that the . library itself was inferior to many Continental collections , and even far below that of
MEMOIRS OF LIBRARIES , INCLUDING A HANDBOOK OF LIBRARY ECONOMY . By Edw . Edwards . 2 vols . 8 vo . ¦ Trubnei ? and Co . ¦ Whethee or no , on the authority of the founder of the Angelican Library at Rome , we are to believe in the existence of public libraries before the flood , is a question which may safely be left to Professor Sirnonides to solve , whose volume on the ancient inscriptions on the mountains of Lydia and Phrygia ; in the ; lost language of an early race , which were engraved in " Stewart ' s Ancient Monuments of Lydia and Phry <* ia , some sixteen years agois just published in Greek , and which
, for the first time attempts to decipher and translate those most ancient of all inscriptions . These mountains are of themselves stone-books , and as such they form probably the most enduring , as we are inclined to believe they are the earliest , Post-Nbachian library ever framed . Rocks themselves may fairly claim priority over slabs formed out of stone or clay ; and if the stone-books of Nineveh are placed before all other books produced on less enduring materials , we cannot be far out in giving precedence to these mountains of Lydia and Phrygia in the rank of public libraries . But it is not of such libraries that Mr . Edwards
speaks , though in one of his introductory chapters he introduces the reader to the Rameseium at Thebes , " the Dispensary of the Mind , " mentioned by Diodorus Siculus , which is more popularl y known as the Memnonium , and of which Sir Gardner Wilkinson gives a p lan , pointing out two inner chambers , one of which was most probably the " Sacred Library . " M . Champollipn places the date of this library fourteen centuries before the Christian era , and interprets the hieroglyphics which are on the jambs of the first of these two rooms , as " ThotJi , the Inventor of Letters , " and the Goddess Saf , his companion , the Ruler of Letters , and Presiding Genius of the Hall of Boohs . " ¦ '
Of the clay libraries of Assyria , our information is chiefly derived from Mr . Layard ' s researches . " The most oommon mode , " he tolls us , " of keeping records in Assyria and Babylonia was on proparod bricks , tiles , or cylinders of clay , baked after tho inscription was impressed . " It is curious how , in that remote period , tho disoovery of printing was nearly achieved . The characters appear to have been formed , by an instrument , or may sometimes have boon stamped , or sometimes merely produced by tho use ofa pointed tool , in illustration of which wo may refer to tho first verse of tho fourth chapter of Ezokiel , who prophesied near tho river Chobar , in Assyria . This art is woll ascertained to have boon practised both by tho Egyptians and Chinoso , as well as by tho Assyrians and
Babylothe University of Gottingen . As we believe the measure will be early resuscitated ¦ in the new Parliament , now about to meet , to enlighten the dark ignorance of the official mind we will place the following semi-authentic list of the numerical sequence of the principal public libraries on record : Bibliothique Imperiale , Paris , 800 , 000 volumes ; British Museum , 600 , 000 volumes : Imperial Library , St . Petersburg , 520 , 000 volumes ; Royal Library , Berlin , 500 , 000 volumes ; Royal Library , Munich , 480 , 000 volumes ; Royal Library . Copenhagen , 410 , 000 volumes ; Imperial Library Vienna , 365 , 000 volumes ; Gottingen , 360 , 000 volumes ; Breslau , 350 , 000 volumes ; and Dresden , 350 , 000 volumes . Probably , had it been kno-vyn that our own national library was but second in the world , even the author of " Coningsby" might have seen fit to pause before he blurted forth such a record of official ignorance , or wilful misrepresentation , as he did on that occasion ; and instead of squibs and rockets , gas and gunpowder , carrying the day , at this moment we might have been in possession of a perfect printed catalogue of the Library , which ¦ with anything like a * business-knowledge ofa proper subdivision of labour , could have been produced in
from the manuscript catalogue now m existence , less than two years . Mr . Edwaras ' s first volume brings together , for the first time , many curious scattered fragments respecting the libraries of the jinciente , carefully collected out pf tho writings of the Greek and Latin classics themselves : and no Iohb interesting are tho particulars furnished of their destruction and dispersion , and of tho researches made after their fragments , gathorod from ovpry variety of source ofmformation .
Out of the monastic orders arose tho libraries ot tho middle agos . At first , during the decline and fall of Imporial Rome , the persecutions of tho Christians took all kinds of forms , ono of the most memorable of which was tho edict of tho Emperor Julian forbidding thorn from reading tho Books of tho Gentiles . Out of that edict arose a now and .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1859, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28051859/page/11/
-