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Leader (1850-1860), 28th May 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 667, Untitled Article

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    • LITERATURE.
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      Untitled Article

      " " THE statement of Messrs . Bradbury and Evans , as to the original cause of their difference with Mr . Dickens , which has by 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—hi 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 columns of a 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 publication . —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 Iiewih , M . A ., of Trinity College , Oxford , author of the " Life 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 Pevensey . — - 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 , Person , Home Tooke , Talleyrand , Lord Erskine , Sir Walter Scott , Lord GrenviHe , 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 . E . Millais , Teiiniel , 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 ' esprii .

      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 cityy 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

      Royal Literary Fund was held on Wednesday , having ] regard to a proposition recently made through Mr . Charles Dickens and the Rev . Mr , Elwin , 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 . Elwin , the committee resolved , by a , majority of thirteen to seven , that ijo 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 , has 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 Theatre audiences . Now that his lordship \ & thoroughly awakened to his duties as censor vwrum , we may surely expect his injunction to be extended to that very objectionable young person . La Traviata , at the two great opera nouses , and that' she will at length be decently consigned to the tomb as the Athenaeum says , with her coughher champagne , and hor medicine chest .

      , Mr . Biggs , the originator , and till recently proprietor , of the Family Herald , which was among the earliest of the respectable cheap and entertaining publications , died on Wednesday morning at his residence in the Strand . Mr , Bentley announces a work by Mr . W . Colo , to be called " The Life and Thontrical TJrnos of Charles Koan , " containing a summary of incidents associated with tho English slago fur the lust half century . Mr . Colo , who now fills the post of secretary to Mr . Kcan , was formorly , avo boliovo , tlio lossoo of tho Thcatro Royal , Dublin . The Messrs . Longman make tho following announcements : a now edition ( the third ) of tho Rov . Cnnou Mosoloy ' u work on popular astronomy , ow-

      Untitled Article

      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 Sardanapalus 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 , King 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 god Nebo * * , the god of supreme intellect—I' have written upon tablets , I . have signed it , I have put it in order , I have placed it in 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 , bibliotheca , 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 , the Imperial Library at Paris , the most extensive in the world , representing some 800 , 000 , volumes , equivalent to about sixteen miles of bookshelvesj 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 ah 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 ^ Exchequer , got up and spoke against it , pleading that the library itself was inferior to many

      Conti-MEMOlfiS OF J . IBKARIES , INCLUIMrNG A HANDBOOK OF LIBRARY ECONOMY . By Edw . Edwards , 2 vols . -8 vo . Trubncr and Co . "Wh , eth : eb 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 lef t to Professor Simonides to solve , whose volume on the ancient inscriptions oh 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 Phrygia , some sixteen years ago , is just published in Greek s and which V »» . 4-Vtn fii * a +. timo attpmtits t . n flfifiinlifti * n . nd 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 ai * e the earliest , Post-Noachian 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 Thebea , " the Dispensary of the Mind , " mentioned by Diodorus Siculus , which is more popularly known as the Mcmnonium , and of which Sir Gardner Wilkinson gives a plan , pointing out two inner chambers , one of which was most probably the " Sacred Library . " M . Chainpollion 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 " Thbth , the Inventor of Letters , " and the " Goddess Saf , his companion , the Ruler of Letters , and Presiding Genius of the Hall of Boohsr

      Of the clay libraries of Assyria , pur information is chiefly derived from Mr . Layard ' s researches . " Thofaost ooinmon mode , " he tells us , " of keeping reoords in Assyria and Babylonia was on prepared biicks , tiles , or oylinders of clay , baked after ho inscription was impressed . " It is curious how , in that remote period , the discovery 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 of a pointed tool , in illustration of which wo may rofoi' to the first verse of the fourth chapter of Ezokiul , who prophesied near the rivor Ohobar , in Assyria . This art is well ascertained to have boon practised both by the Egyptians and Ohiuoso , as well as by tlxe Assyrians and

      Babylonental collections , and even far below that of the 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 numer ical 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 known 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 , aa 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 of a

      proper subdivision of labour , could have been produced from the manuscript catalogue now in existence , in less than two years . ¦ Mr . Edwards ' s first volume brings together , tor the first time , many curious scattered fragments respecting the libraries of the ancients , carohUly collected out of tho writings of tho Greek and Latin classics themselves ; and no less interesting are tho particulars furnished of their destruction and dispersion , and of the researches made after their fragments , gathered from every variety of source of information . _

      Out of tho monastic orders arose tho libraries of tho middle agos . At first , during the decline and fall of Imperial Rome , the persecutions of tho Christians took all kinds of forms , one of tho most memorable of which was ( die edict of the Emperor Julian forbidding them from reading tho Books of the Gentiles ., Out of that edict arose a now and

      Literature.

      LITERATURE .

      Untitled Article

      LITERARY NOTES , ETC .

      Untitled Article

      Literature . ] THE . LEADER 667

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1859, page 667, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2296/page/11/