He

Memoir of John Edgar, D.D., LL.D. By Dr. W. D. Killen. (Belfast: C. Aitchison.) Dr. Edgar was born in 1798, in the north of Ire. land, where his father, the Rev. Samuel Edgar, provided him with an excellent education. very early in life began to take a part in religious and social movements. His first ministerial charge was in Belfast, where he soon became known as an active and enthusiastic advocate for improvement. His earnest face and eloquent voice were always recognised at public meetings, and his influence increased daily. Seeing the mischiefs that arose from the drinking habits of the people, he busied himself in appeals to friends and neighbours, and commenced an agitation against intemperance which soon spread far and wide. In fact, Dr. Edgar may be said to be the father of the temperance movement in Ireland. His biography, which is exceedingly interesting and carefully written, will, we understand, be followed by the publication of his sermons and addresses.

Sermons from the Studio, by Marie Sibree; with an introduction by the Rev. T. W. Aveling, of Kingsland (Jackson, Walford and Hodder), is an attempt to convey in words the lessons taught in pictures, of which Mr. Holman Hunt's "Light of the World," may be taken as a representative specimen. Art," says Mr. Aveling, "accomplishes its highest ends when it teaches its votaries to rise from the material to the spiritual; and he is divinely taught and led who, turning from all other exemplifications of humanity, looks to Him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead. The

love of art is perfectly compatible with the love of God; and he is the truest artist-whether painter, sculptor, or musician-whose soul, expanding to noble proportions by the enthusiastic love of his profession, aims, if possible, to discern the highest type of beauty-to embody his grandest conception, to realize his loftiest ideal; and these he can only find in the moral and spiritual world.”

Joseph's Party-Coloured Coat; and David's Heinous Sin, Hearty Repentance, and Heavy Punishment. A Poem. By Thomas Fuller. Edited by W. Nicholls. (Tegg). Fuller, the church historian, is not very well known as a poet, though "David's Heinous Sin" is supposed to have been his earliest essay in letters; being published in 1631, when he was in his twentythird year. Though," says M. Nicholls, "parts of it are rather juvenile in style and matter, yet it is well worth preserving, containing as it does many bright thoughts and quaint phrases, and bearing promise of the ready wit which afterwards gave to the name of Thomas Fuller an individuality as distinguished as that of Thomas Hood in our own age." The editor has done well in modernizing the old spelling to suit every-day readers, but the quotations which occur in 'Joseph's Party-coloured Coat," and the other sermons in this volume, are not made to conform to the authorized version of the Scriptures, because by such alteration many of the "points on which Fuller relied would be obliterated and lost." This reprint, with the advantage of the editorial supervision it has received, will tend to make modern readers acquainted with one of the most original polemical writers of the seventeenth century.

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Religious Opinion, a new weekly newspaper, is intended to present at one view an epitome of all the religious intelligence and editorial comments of the controversial press.

The Count de Gasparin's book on The Family; its Duties, Joys, and Sorrows, has been well translated, and forms a very interesting volume, published by Messrs. Jackson, Walford and Hodder. In France it has attained considerable popularity treating as it does on numerous topics of domestic interest, as the duties of husband and wife, the obedience due by children and dependents to those placed in authority over them; family joys, sorrows, and the evangelization of all the members of a household; and, doubtless, the issue of this well-printed edition will tend to similar results in the quiet homes of England.

Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode forward us a specimen of the Photographic Bible they will commence the publication of in December next. It is in large crown quarto, printed in bold pica type, with marginal references, and will be completed in twenty-four monthly parts, at 2s. 6d. each, containing three beautifully executed photographs, taken specially for the work, by Mr. Frank Good, under the direction of, and printed by, Mr. F. Firth.

A Book about Dominies (Nimmo) is a pleasant, anecdotical treatise concerning the life and labours of schoolmasters in general, and one Dominie in particular; a most interesting and graphic account of the struggles, pains and penalties, pleasures, holidays, and employments of those whose unthankful task it is "to rear the tender thought, and teach the young idea how to shoot." Once begin to read this volume, and you will go on to the end, interested and absorbed in spite of yourself. Indeed, we do not remember any volume of this character which possesses higher claims on the attention of both pupils and teachers.

Messrs. Rock of Walbrook have published a pretty volume of steel-plate views of nearly all the chief points of interest in Paris. Quietly Messrs. Rock have been letting one half the world know how the other half live. They have done this by engraving-views of nearly every city and town in this country, and of some places abroad; also these views they have printed on the top of sheets of letter or notepaper, and thus friends and correspondents have been made acquainted with the beauties and the antiquities of a large number of places. This handsome book is made up of the series of views prepared for Paris, printed on fine plate paper and bound in red morocco. The common notepaper headings convey no idea of the manner in which the plates are engraved; but a glance at those in this volume will show that they are executed in an exceedingly creditable manner. For any one who has recently visited Paris, this will serve an agreeable and acceptable

souvenir.

as

Mr. Andrew Duthie, of Glasgow, has pro. duced a handsome volume of " Photographs of Dublin," with letterpress descriptions of the principal public buildings and places of interest. These include Sackville Street, Trinity College, the Bank of Ireland-formerly the Parliament House-the famous Four Courts, the Custom House, St. Patrick's Cathedral, both exterior and interior, the Exhibition Buildings, and Kingstown Harbour and town-a most interesting and graphic series of pictures of the Irish metropolis, photographed with a most commendable regard to the effects of light and shade.

All Blackwood's Diaries for 1868 have the novel feature of a map of Edinburgh, in addition to the useful sketch-map of the London postal districts, and the other usual contents.

C

Messrs. Bell & Daldy have produced, in one handy volume, the Biographies and Miscellaneous Papers of Washington Irving, who himself made some preparations for this collection. These scattered productions from the pen of the great American-English writer have, in accordance with his expressed wish, been collected by his nephew, Mr. Pierre Irving, and are now presented as a fitting addition to his works. Many of the biographical sketches, reviews, and miscellanies will be read with zest, for to the great majority of Englishmen they will possess all the charm of novelty.

According to rumour, the Daily News and the Express are each to be reduced to a penny; and a new daily paper, under the title of The Hour, is presently to make its appearance. From the same "authentic" source we derive the information that the Globe and the Sun are to be amalgamated.

A new monthly journal, advocating the inte rests of the employés at banking and other commercial establishments, and containing many interesting features, has been issued by Mr. Murby, under the title of the City Clerk.

Messrs. Cassell are about to produce, in two volumes, a work by Sir S D. Scott. on the Origin, Progress, and Equipment of the British Army, with illustrations of ancient and modern weapons, armour, &c.

In the Excursionist's Guide to the Environs of London, by Mr. G. R. Emerson, Messrs. Philip & Son have produced a very useful and compact little volume, full of topographical, historical, and biographical notices, accompanied by an excellent map: one of the best shilling's-worth a tourist or holiday-maker could possess.

Oliver Wyndham, a tale of the great plague of 1666, collected from the pages of "Our Own Fireside," in which magazine it appeared, and published by Messrs. Jackson & Walford, makes a welcome addition to the "seasonable" books prepared especially for young readers.

Sterne's Tristram Shandy forms the latest addition to Messrs. Routledge's Sixpenny Volumes, a series which already includes the best novels of Fennimore Cooper, Robinson Crusoe," and the "Vicar of Wakefield."

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The Civil Service Geography (Lockwood) is the title of a manual intended for the use of examination candidates and the higher forms in schools, by the late Lancelot Spence, and Mr. Thomas Gray, of the Board of Trade. It contains a large quantity of information well arranged, several skeleton maps, and a number of wood engravings.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. The Atlantic Monthly for October contains an article by Mr. Parton, of New York, upon the subject of International Copyright, in which the hardship and injustice inflicted upon American authors is shown, and we hope the paper will have the effect of awakening his countrymen, and inducing them to urge the Government to effect a treaty with England. It is needless to say that we, on our part, are ready to meet the Americans whenever the proposition is made.

"Few of us are aware of the extent to which American works are now reprinted in England. We noticed, the other day, in an English publication, a page of advertisements containing the titles of thirteen volumes announced to be sold at "ls." or "1s. 6d." Twelve of the thirteen were American. Among them, we remember, were Mrs. Stowe's Little Foxes, Dr. Holmes's Humorous Poems, and Mr. Lowell's Biglow Papers. The cheap publication stores of Great Britain are heaped with such reprints, the sale

of which yields nothing to the authors. We have even seen in England a series of school writingbooks, the invention of a Philadelphia writingmaster, the English copies of which betrayed no trace of their origin. Nor have we been able, after much inquiry, to hear of one instance in which an English publisher has paid an American author, resident in America, for anything except advance sheets. Mr. Longfellow, whose works are as popular in England as in America, and as saleable, has derived, we believe, considerable sums for advance sheets of his works; but, unless we are grossly misinformed, even he receives no percentage upon the annual sale of his works in Great Britain.

"And the aggravating circumstance of all this spoliation of the men and women who are the country's ornament and boast is, that it is wholly our fault. We force the European publishers to steal. England is more than willing, France is more than willing, Germany is quite willing, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia are willing, to come at once into an international arrangement which shall render literary property as sacred and as safe, in all civilized lands, as tobacco and whiskey. All the countries we have named are now obliged to steal it, and do steal it. Who would have expected to find the Essays of Mr. Emerson a topic in the interior of Russia? We find them, however, familiarly alluded to in the Russian novel Fathers and Sons, recently translated. If authors had their rights, a rill of Russian silver would come trickling into Concord, while a broad and brimming river of it would inundate a certain cottage in Hartford.

"How many modest and straitened American homes would have new parlour carpets this year, if henceforth, on the first days of January and July, drafts to their addresses were to be dropped in the mail in every capital of the world which the work done in those homes instructs or cheers! Nor would new carpets be all. Many authors would be instantly delivered from the fatal necessity of over-production, the vice that threatens literature with annihilation.

"The worst remains to be told. It is bad to have your pocket picked; but there is something infinitely worse, it is to pick a pocket. Who would not rather be stolen from than steal? Who would not rather be murdered, than be a murderer? Nevertheless, in depriving foreign authors of their rights, it is still ourselves whom we injure most. The great damage to America, and to American literature, from the want of an international copyright law, is not the thousands of dollars per annum which authors lose. This is, in fact, the smallest item that enters into the huge sum total of our loss.

It

"This business of publishing books is the most difficult one carried on in the world. demands qualities so seldom found in the same individual, that there has scarcely ever been an eminent and stable publishing house which did not consist of several active and able men. Failure is the rule, success the rare exception. The shores of the business world are strewn thick with the wrecks of ventures in this line that gave every promise of bringing back a large return. It has been proved a task beyond the wisdom of mortals, to decide with any positive degree of certainty whether a heap of blotted manuscripts is the most precious or the most worthless of all the productions of human indus. try. Young publishers think they can tell : This is so old publishers know they cannot.

true, that for a publisher to have a knowledge of the commodity in which he deals is generally a point against his success as a publisher; and it will certainly ruin him, unless he has a remarkably sound judgment, or a good, solid, unlearned partner, whose intuitive sense of what the public wants is unbiassed by tastes of his own.

It is this terrible uncertainty as to the value of the commodity purchased which renders pub. lishing a business so difficult, precarious, and unprofitable; and the higher the character of the literature, the greater the difficulty becomes. Publishers who confine themselves chiefly to works of utility and necessity, or to works professional and sectarian, have an easy task to perform, compared with that of a publisher who aims to supply the public with pure science and high literature. If any business can claim favourable consideration from those who have in charge the distribution of the public burdens, surely it is this. If in any way its perils can be justly diminished by law, surely that protection ought not to be withheld. We believe it could be shown that the business of publishing what the trade calls 'miscellaneous books,' i. e. books which depend solely upon their intrinsic interest or merit, yields a smaller return for the capital and talent invested in it than any other.

*

**

*

"It was the intention of the founders of this Republic to give complete protection to intellectual property, and this intention is clearly expressed in the constitution. Justified by the authority given in that instrument, Congress has passed patent laws which have called into exercise an amount of triumphant ingenuity that is one of the great wonders of the modern world; but under the copyright laws, enacted with the same good intentions, our infant literature pines and dwindles. The reason is plain. For a labour-saving invention, the United States, which abounds in everything but labour, is field enough, and the inventor is rewarded; while a great book cannot be remunerative unless it enjoys the market of the whole civilized world. The readers of excellent books are few in every country on earth. The readers of any one excellent book are usually very few indeed; and the purchasers are still fewer. In a world that is supposed to contain a thousand millions of people, it is spoken of as a marvel that two millions of them bought the most popular book ever published one purchaser to every five hundred inhabitants.

"We say, then, to those members of Congress who go to Washington to do something besides make Presidents, that time has developed a new necessity, not indeed contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, yet covered by the Constitution; and it now devolves upon them to carry out the evident intention of their just and wise predecessors, which was to secure to genius, learning, and talent the certain ownership of their productions. We want an international system which shall protect a kind of property which cannot be brought to market without exposing it to plunder,-property in a book being simply the right to multiply copies of it. We want this property secured, for a sufficient period, to the creator of the value, so that no property in a book can be acquired anywhere on earth unless by the gift or consent of the author thereof. There are men in Congress who feel all the magnitude and sacredness of the debt which they owe, and which their country owes, to the authors and artists of the

time. We believe such members are more numerous now than they ever were before,much more numerous. It is they who must take the leading part in bringing about this great measure of justice and good policy; and, as usual in such cases, some one man must adopt it as his special vocation, and never rest till he has conferred on mankind this immeasurable ! boon."

We regret that want of space prevents our quoting the article at greater length. We think the author has made a mistake when he says that no English publisher has ever paid an American author anything except for advance sheets. One case has been mentioned to us, that of Mr. John Henry Parker, of Oxford, who, some twenty years ago, reprinted a little volume of American poetry, and unasked, sent £20 to the author, the present Right Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe. This, we hope, is no solitary instance.

say," asked Pen, "that we are to praise no books that Bacon publishes; or that, if the books are good, we are to say, that they are bad?". "My good young friend," returned Captain Shandon, "for what do you suppose a benevolent publisher undertakes a critical jour- | nal, to benefit his rival?"

The conversation from which the above lines are extracted will be remembered by all readers of Thackeray's "Pendennis.' The speakers are Arthur Pendennis, then a young and enthusiastic reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette, and Captain Shandon, its slashing and by no means scrupulous editor. It is hardly necessary to add that the ideal Pall Mall Gazette was started by the great publisher, Bungay, in opposition to the Whitehall Review, the property of Bacon, his rival; and that Shandon, the talented, whiskey. drinking, debt-contracting Irishman, was rescued from the Fleet Prison in order to conduct it. Nor need we remind our readers that the rivalry existing between the firms of Bungay and Bacon induced the one to issue the Londoner, and the other to launch the Westminster Magazine as its opponent; and that in all literary affairs it was their policy to heartily abuse each other.

What Thackeray so amusingly described in fiction has in these latter days been translated into prosaic fact. The Pall Mall Gazette, a "newspaper written by gentlemen for gentlemen "- -as Captain Shandon tersely put it-has long been recognised as an ably-conducted but somewhat censorious journal; and two or more monthly magazines, similar in size, price, and general contents, are addressed to exactly the same class of readers.

Under such circumstances, it is not by any means surprising to find the Newspaper attacking the Magazine and its writers, and the Magazine returning the compliment, with interestthe public, who are not supposed to know anything of the private affairs of either, enjoying the fun;-for, in all literary warfare, there is

nothing so thoroughly delightful as a little personality.

For some months past the Pall Mall Gazette has made a dead set at Miss Braddon and the novelists of the Belgravia magazine; and, not to be behindhand in the sport, Blackwood for September last contains a scorching article on "Novels," in which it holds up the modern writers of fiction to something worse than ridicule, and openly accuses Miss Braddon of stealing her plots from contemporary writers, and of writing that which no pure-minded girl can read without a blush. It is particularly severe upon lady-novelists of the new school, and unfavourably contrasts their works with those English novels which, from the days of Sir Walter Scott, have "held a very high reputation in the world, not so much, perhaps, for what critics would call the highest development of art, as from a certain sanity, wholesomeness, and cleanliness unknown to other literature of the same class."

These attacks the proprietor of Belgravia has thought fit to answer; and, as the champions of Miss Braddon and Mr. Babington White, 'has enlisted the services of Mr. George Augustus Sala and Captain Shandon-the latter called from Hades especially for the genial task. Mr. Sala's article, the "Cant of Modern Criticism," is most charmingly characteristic. He remembers when he, as a little boy-some eight and twenty years ago-started a magazine of his own; how he worshipped Fielding, Sterne, and Scott, and tried his feeble pen at imitations of the immortal Michael Angelo Titmarsh; how he loved Peter Simple and Mr. Chucks the boatswain; and what faith he put in “Old Ebony,” and the incomparable Christopher North! and now, when Time takes him by the ear, and whispers, "Behold how stupid Blackwood's Magazine has grown!" he cannot but lament the changes which the said inexorable Time has wrought.

And then he goes seriously to work to anatomise "this once brilliant but now decrepit magazine," and especially to controvert all that its critic has said against Miss Braddon's novels. Of course he finds fault with the reviewer's grammar, and falls foul of his French; and presently-upon the tu quoque principleproves to demonstration that the principal novelist of Belgravia is no worse than her neighbours; and that in the matter of "sanity, wholesomeness, and cleanliness," she is at least equal to her contemporaries.

·

Thus he talks of "dirty, droll old Smollett,' the lewd old doctor who wrote Roderick Random;'" the "wild, ghastly, immoral" novels of Harrison Ainsworth, who made Jack Sheppard fashionable, and won undeserved popularity for Turpin Dick the highwayman. Then he goes on to ask whether Lord Lytton's "Pelham," "Devereux,' Eugene Aram," "Paul Cliford," "Ernest Maltravers," Alice," " Night and Morning," and "Lucretia," can be consi

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dered "cleanly and wholesome" novels. Pursuing his task, he inquires whether the " coarse, brutal, but amusing novels of Theodore Hook;" the "flimsy, vicious novels of the Countess of Blessington;" or the tales of "poor old Mrs. Gore can be praised for "sanity, wholesomeness, and cleanliness." He does not deny the delicacy or refinement of Mr. Disraeli's pen, but he questions the "wholesomeness" of "Venetia," Coningsby," and "Henrietta Temple," and declares that any student, unacquainted with the fact that Mr. Disraeli has been Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, could arrive at no other conclusion than that the author of "Sybil" and "Tancred', must have been "stark-staring mad ;" and pro. nounces the "Widow Barnaby," "Jessie Phillips," and other novels of Mrs. Trollope, to be

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so revoltingly coarse in tone, in thought, and in language, that no publisher of the present day would dare to print them."

In like manner, he adduces "Jane Eyre," "Adam Bede," and other popular novels, as evidence of the "sensational" style which modern readers love; and asks what there is objectionable in "Aurora Floyd," "Lady Audley's Secret," ," "Birds of Prey," and other fictions by Miss Braddon, if the tales of the writers he has named are to be accepted as true pictures of life. Marryatt," he says, 'was habitually coarse, and sometimes ribald," but "had I a daughter, I would rather she read 'Midshipman Easy' than the 'Disowned.'" This may be considered to be a sort of begging the question; but "the whole question," says Mr. Sala, "may be summed up in one dictum-that novels are written for grown people, and not for babes and suck. lings." There is no need for me to take

up the cudgels in defence of Miss Braddon; she is quite strong enough and quite cunning enough of fence to hold her own, and to chastise this canting man of Edinburgh town.

It is

not a case of murder, I suppose, or arson, or forgery, to assert that the monthly instalments of Blackwood are tedious, prosy, and jejune. Toryism is objectionable enough under any circumstances; but stale Toryism! and stale Scotch Toryism! Did you ever try to munch an ancient 'scon'-a stale Scotch bun? Dead-Sea apples are succulent and juicy compared with that diet. I resolutely decline to listen to Edinburgh Conservatism, either in the 'aibstract' or in the concrete. I know that it is twelve o'clock-high noon; and it is in vain that the wise men of the Modern 'Awthens' endeavour to persuade me that it wants just three-and-twenty minutes to eleven. I don't think the Scotch gentleman has ever read 'Aurora Floyd;' but this would only be quite consonant with the cant of modern criticism. 'Incapable duffers' are only permitted to review books, because somebody must review them, and people who write books are generally too busy or too honest to criticise those of others;" and so on, for a dozen pages. To outsiders, this is certainly very amusing.