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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, &c.
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LITERARY CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK . . . —¦— - ?—
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The Publishers' Circular ( assuredly an authority upon such matters ) solemnly assures us that " the past fortnight lias hardly equalled its predecessor in tlie production of important books , " and our own experience serves to confirm that opinion . The only book which has achieved anything like a great sale has been a volume of Sermons by Dr . Guthrie , one of the most popular preachers in Scotland . The subscription list to this piece of fashionable theology amounted to not less than eight thousand copies . The other books of importance during the week have been a pleasant , though , We fear , not
over-accurate " Memoir of Beckford , " the exquisite recluse of Font hill , by an anonymous hand , currently reported to belong to him that wrote the " History of Wine , " and is' about to trace the mental lineaments of his old friend and fellow-labourer , Thomas Campbell ; two volumes of personal and dramatic gossip from that good-natured and prolific , though not too powerful writer , Mr . Fitzball ; the third volume of Prcscott ' s " Life of Philip the Second , " and some passages from his Autobiography by Lady Morgan . A collection of original and unpublished papers illustrative of the life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens , collected and edited by W . Noel Sainsbury , of H . jVI . State-paper Office , has also been published , as also the second volume of Arago ' s "Popular Astronomy , " translated by Smith and Grant ; and a volume on " Naval Warfare with Steam , " by Sir Howard Douglas . Messrs .
Chapman and Hall have published a very ornamental volume on the " History of Bartholomew Fair , " by Mr . Morley , who wrote the " Life of Palissy the Potter , " - —pretty to look at ,.. as far as woodcuts and decorated binding are concerned , but may not quite satisfy antiquarian judgments . The editions de luxe of the week are three very beautiful ones from Mr . Murray—one an edition of " Childe Harold , " with a number of exquisite woodcuts by Mr . Percival Skclton ; a new edition of " Lockhart ' s Ballads ; " and an entirely new edition of Wordsworth ' s " Greece , " as beautiful as fine paper and good engravings can make it . Everybody now is talking- of the coming celebration of the Burns' Centenary Anniversary . The nroiected feasts and festivities are innumerable , and
verse , from the peii of the head master , Dr . Kynaston , was delivered by one of the senior pupils . The American mails brings news of the suicide of an unhappy man who went by the name of Edwin Dickens , and represented himself as a near relative of the author of " Pickwick . " It appears that after introducing himself as an influential contributor to most of the great papers aiid periodicals in England , Mr . Dickens failed to obtain sufficient work on the American press to support himself with credit . Reduced to poverty , from which apparently there was no escape , the poor fellow put a period to his career by a bottle of poison , in the upper room of a New York hotel .
Mr . Ingram notifies that he is about to move for a new trial , and deprecates all comment until the result be known . Be it so . We have no object but to sustain the dignity and purity of the order to wliich Mr . Ingram belongs , and it is our earnest hope that he will succeed in putting a new aspect upon the business . The book trade in America seems very brisk , and piracy thrives and thieves apace , in spite of Brussels Congresses . Of Mr . Carlyle ' s " Life of Frederick II . " 3000 copies were sold in less than a mouth . It must not , however , be inferred that the legitimate home trade is not equally successful . Of
Longfellow ' s "Miles Standish , " not less than 25 , 000 copies have been sold . Of important works forthcoming we note the long-promised " Critical Dictionary of British and American Authors , " by Mr . Alibone . . It is to . be published by Childs and Peterson , and will fill ten volumes in royal octavo . It is the work of a Philadelphia merchant , and has occupied him for many years . Judging from the specimens which we have seen , it will be the most complete work of the kind in existence , fully equalling in utility the " Bibliographical - Biographical Dictionary" of Octtinger . We also note a " Collection of Anecdotes of Love , " by Lola Montes and a new edition of " Blackstone ' s Commentaries , " by the Hon . George Sharswood .
each is to be garnished by its crown of small literary constellations who have promised their attendance . Some of the great Scotchmen of the day , Macaulay and Aytoun , will be present at Edinburgh ; Taut the hospitable board of Glasgow will not be left ungraced , for Alison , Colonel James Burns , and a host of good men and true have promised to be present . That ai > a $ audpStu , ohiefest of Scotland ' s sons , Henry Lord Brougham , denies , however , his presence to all these gatherings . uemes , nowevur , ms jjrusvuui ; lu mi uicac gai . iiuui ^» .
Though Franco will none of him as a citizen , ho yet apes the manners of a French seigneur , and hunts the boar at Cannes instead of encountering the same animal ovor the fair cWnncr-tables of his native land . Surely this most oratorical of Scotchmen owed something to that brother whose intellect God most brilliantly illumined with tho truo spark ofpoesy ! Talking of the Burns celebration , it is among the on dits in tlie literary world that the directors ol
tho Crystal X ' alace , failing to get Mr . Thomas Carlyle as tho arbiter of their poetical competitor , liavo secured the services of Mr . Peter Cunningham . A good and useful man went from among us when Cliarlcs-Jcan Dclillo gave up his life in pain on Monday morning ^ last . As a professor of French , holding such a multiplicity of appointments that lie might havo been called a pluralist if he had not fulfilled them all with conscientious industry and zeid , and as tho author of tho boat grammar and set « UIU ) U& 1 V 4 ( 40 I / IIW | . « UWUVIi Vfc V ** W * SWM V fak * IVI « A | aiV * t 1 « I 1 U UVW
of EVenoh olass-books in existence , M . Dolille will not be easily forgotten . His death , which was not unexpected , loaves open many valuable apnoiutments , such as tho French masterships of Christ's Hospital , tho City of London and ' St . Paul's Schools , the Examincrsnip of Eton , and other great public sominarios . Among tho Winter Speeches delivered at St . Paul ' s School on Thursday last , according to annual custom , an elegant tribute to tho memory of M , DcliUo , in tho form of Latin
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FOUR MONTHS IN ALGERIA . Four Months in Algeria , with a Visit to Carthage . By the Rev . Joseph Williams Blakesley , Vicar of Ware , Herts . Macmillan and Co ., Cambridge and London . We can readily imagine how , driven at short notice to seek health in the sunny South , Mr . Blakesjey , in whom we have little difficulty in recognising the " Hertfordshire Incumbent" of the Times , came to fix upon a tri p so full of interest to classical , geographical , and military student , as that to a land which has been peopled by nation after nation now obliterated , and has been trodden by the feet of armies from the remotest period of antiquity to the present day . All who remember tho running commentary of the " Incumbent" upon the events of the Crimean war will be prepared to find that neither the campaigns of Scipio , nor the forays of Cavaignac iu Algcria havo escaped his notice , and that heTias applied singular acumen and industry to the antiquarian researches hourly suggested to him during his visit . He seems to liavo lost little time ; lor . in four months—a space soon frittered away in a land
without railways or even decent highways—he made himself acquainted with the province from Bona on its Tunisian border to Orau on the side towards Morocco ; visited every French station ol importance ; got np the history of the French wars ; traced their military operations ; took a seavoyage to investigate the sieges and site of Carthage ; and took notes enough , in tho manner of every-day travellers , upon tho nppoiinmco and customs of Moor , Arab , Kubyle , Jew , and Frenchman , to add tho amusing cloment to a work which , independently , would bo ii valuable one
Tho classical feature of tho tour is , of courso , prominent . So rojplcto is tho province with antiquities and historical associations , that no scholar of ordinary attainments could have visited it without having his attention constantly drawn to them ; and to our author they of courso wore leading objoots of intcrosl ; . At Lambcssa , tho Lambcsis of tho Romans and tho site of one of thoir important fortified canips , formed probably about a . d . 109 , and now famous for its " Ponito » tinry " ho seems to havo made n discovery of marked interest . It
clearly appears , from an inscription over a hemi cycle or circular settle within the Prcetorium , that a club or association , existed among the subalterns of the army for the purchase of steps and theassurance of annuities to its members on their retirement from the service : — The inscription sets forth a resolution to which the members had come , on the occasion of furnishing their club with the statues of the reigning family , and of their tutelary deities ; and the purport of it indicates the possession of common funds of considerable magnitude . It was the practice in the Roman army to allow every centurion to select a sort of deputy , or , as we might say , lieutenant , who , in the times of the Empire , was called his " optib . "
It would appear from the inscription that this appointment conveyed with it some sort of claim to succeed the chief when a vacancy occurred , but that it was necessary for the claimant to procure a confirmation to his appointment from some superior , possibly the legate of the province , as the representative of the emperor . Appointments in all ages have involved the payment of bribes , or their successors , fees ; and , apparently in . reference to this necessity , the resolution in question determines that every member , on setting out for securing the object of his expectations , " ad spem' suam
confirma-ndam , " shall be paid 8000 sesterces ( about 621 . 10 s . ) . If any one reaches the limit of military service , and is discharged , he is to be paid , every 1 st of January , " ring money" to the amount of , 6000 sesterces ( 46 / . 17 s . 6 d . ) . Now this phrase is very remarkable , for Septimus Severus , whose name appears on the engaged column of the " Prsetorium , " is the very emperor who bestowed upon every Roman solclier the much-coveted right to wear a golden ring , or , in other words , gave him the social status of a gentleman . The " ring money , " therefore , is in fact the pension enabling the veteran to keep up this position . The names of sixty-three " optiones" are inscribed on the pilasters of this hemicvele ; and , as the author says , " nothing
could more strongly mark the immense importance wliich the profession of arms had acquired under the despotic government of the Roman emperors . " At Carthage Mr . Blakesley was quite in his element . He set himself enthusiastically to the determination of the site of the harbour and the reproduction of the great siege , of which , he says , " the defence of Carthage was in many respects an anticipation of that of Sebastopol . In both cases the assailants were masters of the sea , and at first only of a few points on the land , while the besieged defended themselves by means of fortified camps established in commanding positions outside of the town . " -
With regard to the former point , it was the opinion of Dr . Shaw , as quoted by Gibbon , that the port faced the west , and that " the isthmus , or neck of the city , is now confounded with the continent ; the harbour is a dry plain ; and the lake , ovstctgnum > no more than a morass with six or seven feet of water in the mid channel . " Chateaubriand totally repudiated this theory , and was satisfied that , the vast remains still apparent along tho sea-board of tho Bay of Tunis accounted sufficiently for the site of both city and port . Without entering into his arguments , or travelling over ground which Appian , Strabo , Potybius , Hollin , Sliaw , Chateaubriand , and De Blnquiore have still left cncuniborcd , wo may briefly say , that Mr . blakesley is of tho Shaw party , and believes that tho oity stood as it ; woro upon a broad promontory , connected with tho main laud by a kind of isthmus or neck of land two-and-a-half miles across . Tho
ancient harbour was , ho is convinocd , on the western side of this , and formed a sea-lock of groat cxtont , which subsequent changes havo filled up and converted into n , tract of marshy ground . I ho events of tho siogo by Scipio aro compiled into a narrative , and comment oil on by our Iournocl author with groat scholarship ami ingenuity , llus division of the work will bo rend by olassical students with pcouliar interest ; political readers will find enough to engage llioin m tho sound political views expressed upon tho colonisation nud oraigrationand adn . inislralivo systems of Algeria , while tho general reader will »»»« ui h » P « 8 ° 3 » o lftck of pretty word pictures and anecdotes . Four Months in Algeria would , of course , havo
Literature, Science, Art, &C.
LITERATURE , SCIENCE , ART , &c .
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No . 456 , December 18 , 1858 . ] THE IEADEB , 1379
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 18, 1858, page 1379, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2273/page/11/
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