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OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
LONDON, 17th October, 1863.

THE great event of the last fortnight, in our publishing world, has been the absorption of the business of the well-known publishing firm of Parker, Son, & Bourn, into the leviathan house of Longman & Co. Since the lamented death of the younger Mr. Parker, last year, the surviving partners have been, it is said, not on the most sociable footing. By the present arrangement, Mr. Bourn receives a very handsome retiring pension, which must be quite satisfactory to him, and Mr. Parker, Sr., retires into private life, with the asset price of stock, copyrights, and goodwill. The copyrights include some of the most valuable in the trade, such as "Fraser's Magazine," and Froude's "History of England," of which Messrs. Longman & Co., in the "Reader" of to-day, announce vols. 7 and 8 as nearly ready to be published by them in Paternoster Row, being the 1st and 2d volumes of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," in which Mr. Froude has made great use of the Sinancas Manuscripts, with all the scandals they contain about "Good Queen Bess," many of which are only the repetition of those of Nicholas Saunders and Cardinal Allen, the latter of which appeared in Pollini's "Istoria della Schisma d'Inghilterra," published at Rome in 1594, and the former in the libeller's book, "De Origine Schismatis Anglicani," published several times at Louvaine before 1580, when Saunders died a miserable death, in Ireland, from famine, having joined the rebellion under Desmond. Other valuable copyrights are: Buckle's "History of Civilization," Stuart Mill's "Logic and Political Economy," Brewer's "Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles;" various works of Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Archbishop Whately, Dean Trench, Charles Kingsley, Dr. Whewell, Mr. Massey, Mr. Helps, and others; but it remains to be seen whether the future publications of Dean Trench, Charles Kingsley, and other kindred spirits will be intrusted to the publishers of Bishop Colenso.

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"Passages of a Working Life during Half-a-Century" is the title of Charles Knight's literary biography, which is announced by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. Having first appeared, as an author, in his own 'Quarterly Magazine," to which Lord Macaulay, in his youth, was a contributor, and, having originated the penny periodicals by the publication of the "Penny Magazine," and the "Store of Knowledge," Mr. Knight, in his old age, is amusing himself by placing on record bis experiences from that early period to the present, in which he has just completed his "History of England," a work sui generis, and well suited for the class of readers for whom it has been written, if not quite satisfactory to the student of English history. A man who has worked so hard, and so well, for forty years, in conjunction with some of the leading men of his times, cannot fail to have much to tell, which will not only interest the reader of to-day, but also furnish materials for the future writer of the literary history of the reign of William the Fourth, and Queen Victoria, the most prolific period, if not the best, of English literature.

secretary, and, naturally enough, being a travelling lecturer, he sticks to the title as a handle to his name. Other persons, besides the "three tailors of Tooley Street," have also been planning a commemoration of this Tercentenary anniversary, and wisely, all three, for there were three different associations for the purpose, have united forces and formed themselves into one, and of this one Mr. Hepworth Dixon is the honorary secretary. Now, Mr. Francis went into the provinces and posted bills on the walls of country towns, calling himself "Honorary Secretary of the Tercentenary Committee," which gave just offence to Mr. Dixon, whose enlarged views, at present, have made him oblivious of the past. Mr. Dixon forgot that it is just possible that Mr. Francis has as great a right to seek to rise in the world as anybody else; for he should not be ignorant that when he was employed to write-well, never mind whatfor Mr. Madden, Mr. Francis' status was quite equal to his own, if not above it. However, Mr. Francis' posters led Mr. Dixon to tell all the world, in print, that he was the only "Simon Pure," the only "Honorary Secretary," and that the Committee ignored all knowledge of Mr. Francis, whereupon Mr. Francis rejoined that his election was prior to that of Mr. Dixon's, and dated from the room above St. John's Gate, where Dr. Johnson used to screen his poverty and dine on scanty fare, whilst writing articles for Cave to put into the "Gentleman's Magazine." As the fun got fast and furious, up jumps a leader in the "Standard," beginning: "A Mr. Hepworth Dixon and a Mr. Francis," and strange reports float about, attributing that leader to one of the first writers of the day, whose daughter has recently made her debut as a successful novelist, but whose book was spitefully cut up in the "Athenæum." Mr. Dixon is off to the East, but whether or no this great A was the cause, deponent cannot swear.

In fiction, since my last, we have had a whole host of trash, and, also, a few novels worth mentioning. Let us give the first place to Dutton Cook's "Leo," which, taken with allowance, is really a clever, well-written book. Anthony Trollope's "Rachel Ray" was, it is said, written for the "Sunday at Home," but it was not pious enough for the "Tract Society" standard. His keen satire continually crops up, and, though the least interesting of his novels, "Rachel Ray" is a very readable book. "Tara, a Mahratta Tale," by Captain Meadows Taylor, is likely to become popular with all acquainted with India and Hindoo manners. Parts of it are as humorous as that quaint book: "The Strange, Surprising Adventures of the Gooroo Simple, and of his five pupils, Noodle, Doodle, Wiseacre, Zany, and Foozle," but a deep purpose pervades the whole, which gives it a charm and interest of its own. Of graver literature, I have nothing to add since my last, but announcements promise plenty of material for my next.

Your obedient servant,

N.

OUR CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENCE. PARIS, October 2, 1863. Mr. Hepworth Dixon, the editor of the "Athe- ALFRED DE VIGNY and Jacob Grimm have departed næum," has only come off second best in an en- this life. One, like most of his countrymen, fell counter about the secretaryship to the Tercentenary prematurely; the other, like Humboldt, and de Anniversary Festival of Shakspeare's birth. It ap- Savigny, and Creuzer, and the majority of his felpears that a small fry of authors and artists have low subjects, gently declined during a period of formed themselves into a club, at a tavern adjoin-years which considerably exceeded the span of ing St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, and originated a threescore and ten years allotted man on earth, committee among themselves to raise subscriptions for a Shakspeare Testimonial, to be inaugurated on the coming anniversary of the poet's birth. They appointed one of themselves, Mr. Francis, honorary

and fell asleep rather than died-for the article of death raises in our minds ideas of struggles, and pains, and troubles, none of which found place in Jacob Grimm's last hours. As the child falls to

NOV. 16, 1863.

slumber in the secure arms of its nurse, so gently, so easily, so imperceptibly "mammy" herself cannot discover where consciousness ends and sleep begins, so Jacob Grimm sank to everlasting rest.

he was old enough to bear arms the Empire fell. He obtained through family influence (two of his uncles had emigrated and fought in the army of Condé) a place in the Royal Life Guard, and when the first of the Hundred Days drove Louis XVIII. to Ghent, Alfred de Vigny followed him to the frontier. After the imperial bubble burst, Alfred de Vigny re-entered the Royal Life Guards (in which young Alphonse de Lamartine was likewise enrolled), in which he remained until after the Spanish expedition (in which he in vain sought to take part); seeing that no laurels were to be gained during the Restoration, he resigned his commission, and devoted himself to literature.

Count Alfred de Vigny was less blessed. Bedridden for two years, chained as it were to Death by knowledge that each minute might usher him into eternity, the victim of inexpressible pains at the vital point, at the mistress of the whole frame, he "faltered forth his soul" in long anguish. He died as Frédéric Soulié, as Pradier, as de Balzac, as Eugene Sue, as Scribe, as Romieu died-of a diseased heart. He died in consequence of a refusal to recognize the canons nature has decreed for the conditions of human life: those diversions of labor It had long been his solace. Whenever garrison and recreation, of watchfulness and slumber, of duties left him master of his time, he would hasten fallow and cultivation, which must succeed each to one of the public libraries of Paris, and study for other under penalty of death, or of-which is worse hours. Like all great writers, he did not intentionthan death-madness. No men more than literary ally make letters his profession. He was forced into men should reverently harken to the warning Fes- his avocation by a power which, though slow, was tina lente which nature breathes from her slow oaks irresistible. His first effort in verse was a paraand slower mountains. Alfred de Vigny mocked phrase of some passages of St. Augustine's "Conat her ordinances. He jeered: "The necessity of fessions," which made a deep impression on him. prolonged sleep is a paradox invented by fools who The lines fell under the Abbé Gaillard's eye, who, have nothing to say, and by sloths who have no- delighted with them, showed them to Madame de thing to do. Is it not robbing one's self, is it not Vigny. The mother's heart throbbed with joy, and swindling life of precious moments, to sleep long she hailed her son with-“ Alfred, you will be a hours?" He laughed at the sun and its effulgence; poet, won't you, darling?" The boy of thirteen for him the day had no hours except "the adored blushed: "A poet! I a poet, mother dearest? No silence of the dusky hours." She wreaked cruel-no-no-I mean to be a red lancer!" Glamis, vengeance upon him.

and Cawdor, and Duncan, and Banquo still lived, Alfred de Vigny was born at Loches, on the and the boy could not conceive the catastrophe by twenty-seventh of March, 1799. He issued from a which they should all disappear from the theatre of noble family, illustrated on the maternal side by human affairs. The boy could not then know that gallant deeds on the ocean (she was a daughter of a Waterloo was at hand which would close all fields Admiral de Baraudin, and a near kinsman of Admi- of military distinction and restore to French letters ral de Bougairville, the eminent circumnavigator of a de Lamartine, a Victor Hugo, and an Alfred de the world, who discovered the fate of La Peyrouse, Vigny, who, otherwise, had, like many other French and brought back to France many relics of this ill-youths, proved mere food for powder-the modern fated sailor), and on the paternal side by gallantry Moloch to whom so much blood is ignorantly sacrion the field. His father was a retired cavalry cap-ficed to make scheming politicians and crazed fanatain, who took a gallant part in the Seven Years' tics immortal! In 1815 Alfred de Vigny wrote two War. He was denied a father's care; the prema- imitations of Theocritus, which he entitled "La ture loss of her husband threw the whole burden of Dryade," and "Syméta." He caught, young as he her son's education upon Madame de Vigny. She was, a considerable portion of the grace and ingenufaithfully discharged the duties; for the excessive ousness of the original. These were followed (some zeal with which she pressed her son forward in his years, however, first elapsed) by "Le Bain d'une studies, although it may be censured as a lack of Dame Romaine;" "La Somnambule;" "La Femme judgment, was evidence of the interest she took in Adultère;" "La Neige;" "L'Ode au Malheur;” “La her boy's advancement. He was never out of mas- Fille de Jephté;" "Le Trappiste;" "La Prison," and ters' hands. When the school hours were over at "Dolorida." The more important poems, "Le M. Hix's Academy (long known as the best private Déluge," "Moïse," and "Eloa," came afterwards. school in Paris), the Abbé Gaillard or the drawing- He drew them from the Bible which, all his life master (who was nobody else than Girodet Trioson), long, was his favorite book. "I knew the Bible by or the fencing-master or the dancing-master took heart," he says somewhere. "This book and I were possession of him and kept him until late hours of so inseparable, that during my longest marches it the night. His mother excused herself, when never quitted me." "Eloa" is the brightest jewel warned by her family that she was killing the boy, of his poetical coronet; it is the story of the love of by sadly saying: "I know that excessive labor is an angel and a lost spirit; there are many beautiful wearing away his body and making his cheeks pale, passages in it. It and "Moïse," "Le Déluge," and but now-a-days a man must complete his education Dolorida" were written in 1823; they were not before his seventeenth year, since after this age the published until some years afterwards. "Héléna," Emperor takes him to his battle-fields, and books-"Le Cor," "Madame de Soubise," "La Frégate," and often his parents-never see him again." When one remembers Alfred de Vigny's youth and manhood, the wonder is, not that he died so early, but that he lived to attain his three-and-sixtieth year.

When he was twelve years old he could read Thucydides and Tacitus, spoke English and Italian, was a good historian, and no bad mathematician. In those imperial days mathematics were the royal road to favors, for the whole bent of education was to make military men.

Alfred de Vigny longed to achieve military distinction. He was destined to the army. But before

"Les Amants de Montmorency," and "Paris" were written between 1825 and 1831. His admirable novel "Cinq Mars" (from which Sir E. B. Lytton drew something of "Richelieu," as he states in the preface) he wrote in the Pyrenees; he had asked as a favor to be transferred to one of the regiments ordered to Spain during the armed intervention of France to restore the Bourbons to the Spanish throne; his regiment was, unfortunately for his tastes, placed in the reserve corps; to occupy the dull hours of camp life he wrote "Cinq Mars."

Just before he published this admirable picture (such it is, although Richelieu is painted with too

NOV. 16, 1863.

dark colors) of the reign of Louis XIII., Count Al- suaded this generous lover of letters so to modify fred de Vigny married an Englishwoman. She was his foundation as to make it bi-annual. A sum of a lady of gentle blood; one of her uncles was 3,000f. is now awarded, once in every two years to recently the Governor of Jamaica. French poets a deserving poet in distress. I should have menhave paid striking homage to the virtues of the fair | tioned that in 1833 Alfred de Vigny wrote a one sex of England. You remember that M. de Lamar- act comedy for Mme. Dorval's benefit. The theme tine's wife was an Englishwoman. Béranger was of "Quitte pour la Peur" was that the immoral deeply in love with an Englishwoman, and fled from husband has no right to punish the faithless wife. the town in which she lived to avoid marrying her This comedy was revived in 1849, to please the late -he was afraid of marriage. Chateaubriand would Mme. Rose-Cheri, who shone in the wife's part; have married an Englishwoman had he not been it was received with great favor, but, after running married. Gudin the painter's wife was an English- fifty-two nights successively, the government interwoman. Count de Montalembert married an Eng- dicted it on the score of immorality. "Chatterton" lishwoman. And as for the diplomatists, soldiers, was his last appearance as a candidate for dramatic and statesmen of France who have gone across the honors. Channel to find a wife, there is literally no end to their number.

It was not until after he had published "Cinq Mars" that he met M. de Lamartine and M. Victor Hugo. They were introduced to each other in the drawing-room of M. Alexandre Soumed. They were extremely cordial to each other, and the acquaintance ripened into an affectionate friendship, which lasted between all three of them until Alfred de Vigny's death. As they parted that night M. Victor Hugo said to him: "Je vous repète ici combien j'aime Eloa:- Et fratres Eloæ, lucida sidera."

Alfred de Vigny's next effort was to introduce Shakspeare to his countrymen. He translated "Othello," and it was played at the French Comedy, with a most wretched cast. The truth is, the French cannot play Shakspeare. They shine, for it suits with their genius, in comedy, which is but conversation in court dress, and at royal levee; but sparkling, babbling, shallow French nature shows nothing but the arid sands at bottom when it tosses by those passions which Shakspeare depicts. Alfred de Vigny translated the "Merchant of Venice," but, though it entered upon rehearsal at the Porte St. Martin Theatre, it was never played. | I believe the government vetoed it; I know not upon what ground of reason. He appeared at the Odeon Theatre with an original drama on the 25th of June, 1831; this was "La Maréchale d'Ancre" (Concini's wife, Leonora Galigaï). He next published "Stello," and, at Mme. Dorval's request, he dramatized the episode of "Chatterton" which was contained in it. The piece had great success, which was owing to the pathetic acting of Mme. Dorval (whose power over the springs of tears greatly exceeded that possessed by any modern French actress), and the then revolutionary excitement and craving for some vague ideal. It was a generous dream of society, that is, of government playing a parent's part to youthful poets, and giving them bread while they were mastering their lyre-as if poets had a blue spot on their foreheads to distinguish them from rhymesters of doggerel verse. The piece was revived four or five years ago at the French Comedy; it is true poor Marie Dorval was in her grave, and her successor did not fill her place; but even had the original Kitty Bell appeared I do not believe the audience would have found the piece less vapid and false. The play had one species of success which is rarely attained by any except religious works, and even by these rarely: it led to the foundation of a purse for the relief of a distressed poet. "I have just seen 'Chatterton,'" wrote M. de Maillé de la Tour Landry to one of his friends. "M. de Vigny is right. When a poet arises we should secure him his daily bread for at least one year, to give him the time to try his powers, to exhibit them, and to win public suffrage. I am just from my notary's office. I have instituted for that purpose a foundation of 1500f., which the French Academy shall award." The French Academy per

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He wrote in 1836 his "Servitude et Grandeur Militaires," to demonstrate how fatal military institutions are to a nation's true glory and freedom. He was elected a member of the French Academy upon the death of Etienne. Count Molé replied to his "reception speech," and was deemed by his friends to have defended Richelieu's memory with unwarrantable asperity. Alfred de Vigny refused to pay to Louis Philippe the visit of usage paid by every new member of the French Academy. In 1843 he published in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" his "Poèmes Philosophiques," which were coldly received by the public. Their reception discouraged him, and he never published anything more. said he leaves a great many works in MS., which will now be published. He labored incessantly, chiefly at night; for years he never went to bed until sunrise. No author ever labored more assiduously than he did to secure authors' rights in their works; and a great deal of regret was felt in literary circles that his name did not appear in the recent proceedings, held under the auspices of the government, for the better protection of authors' property. He was then too ill to attend the meetings of the commission chosen to inquire into this subject; but it was felt that some reference should be made to the name of so long and zealous a laborer in the harvest of copyright. No man ever upheld the dignity of letters more pertinaciously than he did; literary men were his brethren; his purse, his advice, his influence were always at their service. It was he who procured M. Théodore de Banville a pension of $300 from the government. It was understood that the government was anxious to give him a seat in the Senate, but his work, "Servitude et Grandeur Militaires," is generally rumored to have stood in his way. He had the misfortune to lose his wife last year. He was most tenderly attached to her, and the pain of bereavement seemed doubly acute from their separation at these last hours. He was too ill to be moved to her dying chamber. No children issued from their marriage. He was buried without official speeches at the grave. There were few literary men at his funeral, and those who were there were the unknown young men of letters. This was shameful neglect; he made it a point of duty to attend the funeral of the humblest man of letters, even though the funeral was held at a hospital gate. Alfred de Vigny was every way a noble man.

M. Jules Janin has already appeared as a candidate for his vacant seat in the French Academy.

The length to which this sketch of the career of the late Count Alfred de Vigny has reached commands me to be brief in my mention of Jacob Grimm's life. There is no need of great space to tell the course he ran. German life is not that chronic fever which Paris life is. He was born on the 4th January, 1785; he died on the 20th September, 1863, at Berlin. Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, two brothers, devoted their whole lives to the eluci

NOV. 16, 1863.

dation of Folk Literature, to the preservation and comprehension of those legends of Germany in which so much of the past comes down to us. He-or rather they, for the two brothers were but onebattled stoutly and steadily until they reached a vantage ground and won possession of it. Their most powerful enemy was August Wilhelm von Schlegel, who regarded ancient German lore as his own estate, and challenged rudely enough the right of the new comers. They vanquished him, and extorted from him continual expressions of admiration, especially for Jacob Grimm: "I cannot name him without expressing my admiration for his greatness." If Schlegel opposed them, they were sustained by Frederick de Savigny, the eminent law writer and historian, to whom, indeed, they owed the direction given their studies. Jacob Grimm, speaking of de Savigny, says: "What can I say of de Savigny's course of lectures, unless it be that they had the most powerful interest to me, and that they exercised on my life and studies a decisive influence? In 1802 and 1803 I regularly attended his several lectures on The True Legal Method, Obligations, Institutes, etc. De Savigny then had the habit of proposing to his pupils the solution of some difficult point of law. He would examine the dissertation given him, and make a report on it at the next lecture.

One of my first dissertations was relative to the collatio, and I was fortunate enough to resolve the question. One may conceive the delight I felt, and how much encouraged I was to labor. These dissertations brought me in social commerce with de Savigny. I saw in his library, which even then was large and select, several works foreign to the science of the law; among others, Bodmer's edition of the German Minnesingers,' which were afterwards to occupy so large a share of my life."

Wilhelm Grimm says: "My brother and I were admitted to de Savigny's house, and we had the good fortune to be advised by him. He made us understand the value of historical studies, and the importance of method. These are kindnesses for which I cannot sufficiently express my obligations, as, were it not for de Savigny's kindness, I might never, perhaps, have given a good direction to my studies. In how many things did he not rouse our interest! How many books did he not lend us from his library!"

After the death of William, Jacob Grimm retired in a great measure from the world, but he did not abate his zealous labors. Death found him busily engaged in the preparation of his great "German Dictionary;" and although he lived to see it appear only as far as "Fromm," he has left so rich a store of materials behind him as to make the completion of the dictionary an easy task. He was a Liberal in politics.

Señor Rivadeneyra is on the eve of bringing out a new edition of "Don Quixote," edited by Señor, or rather Herr Hartzenbusch, a profound Spanish scholar, to whom the Peninsula is indebted for admirable republications with notes of the works of Calderon and of de Vega. He has collated the forthcoming edition with the first printed editions, and with some rare manuscripts to be found in the Escurial and National Library of Madrid. The forthcoming edition will be printed in La Casa de Medrano, at Argamasilla, a village of La Mancha, that is, in the very place where Cervantes was imprisoned, and where he wrote his immortal work. Señor Rivadeneyra has transported to this place a printing-office thoroughly appointed. The edition will appear in two sizes, and will be an exceedingly small one; every copy will be numbered.

It is with very sincere regret I copy the following note, which is going the rounds of the press here:

"The Ambrosian Library at Milan has just suffered a heavy loss. An entire case, containing the autograph correspondence of the Medici with the Dukes of Milan, from 1496 to 1510, has disappeared from the very study of Dr. Gatti, the keeper of the library. All the Milan newspapers have spoken of this robbery, committed with strange effrontery and address. It is impossible to say what has become of this packet of precious documents, but as it is probable they may be conveyed either to France or England for sale, I request of you to give, through your intelligent publication, notice to amateurs and dealers, who will certainly not suffer themselves to become accomplices in the theft. The directors of the Milan Library are determined to attempt the recovery of the autographs by all legal means. Please to apprise your brother of this fact. He will be the first to aid the directors of the Ambrosian Library in their researches. M. Panizzi, of London, will be on the watch on his side. I have just been informed of this deplorable incident by one of your constant readers, the Marquis d'Adda, of Milan, one of the greatest amateurs in Europe, whose library, certainly one of the most remarkable and richest in scarce and valuable books, I had the pleasure of visiting last year. Please, etc.

F. FEUILLET DE CONCHES."

An interesting law-suit has challenged our attention. It was brought by the heirs of the late M. Moquin Tandon against M. Baillière, the wellknown publisher of works on medicine and natural science. M. Moquin Tandon was an able physician, an excellent naturalist, a writer of no mean powers, and his various talents won for him a seat in the French Institute and in the Academy of Medicine, and a professor's chair in the Paris Medical School. He was the author of a "Monographie des Sangues," and a "Histoire des Mollusques Terrestres et Fluviatiles de France," which have become standard works upon their respective subjects. He was the author likewise of a "Zoologie Médicale," and of "Eléments de Botanique," which met with a considerable sale. He delivered at the Marseilles Athénée the first course of lectures on comparative physiology given in France. When de Candolle, the eminent botanist, died, he designated M. Moquin Tandon as the fittest person in France to aid the former's son to terminate his "Prodrome du Règne Végétal;" the thirteenth volume of this great work is almost entirely from the pen of M. Moquin Tandon. You see this gentleman had attained a considerable position in the scientific world; he was an authority; he was one of the grave dignitaries of natural science. But in his leisure hours he amused himself by making excursions into the domain of letters, and, to shield the scientific mau from the old reproach of being "Jack of all trades, master of none," whenever he went gypsying in the Republic of Letters, he would muffle himself up in a thick domino, and pull down a good mask over his face—the domino and mask of pseudonym. His first literary adventure was piquant. A native of Provence, and familiar from his cradle with the langue d'oc, his youthful spirits relieved the exuberant flow in the composition of a mediæval chronicle, "Carya Magalonensis" (the Maguelonne Walnut-tree). Under this Græco-Latin title he published what purported to be a faithful contemporary chronicle in romance language of the manners, habits, and customs of the barony of Montpellier, in the early part of the fourteenth century. The imitation of the style, language, and ingenious, credulous prolixity of those old chroniclers was so perfect as to deceive even M. Raynouard. (who had detected the forgery in the poems attri

NOV. 16, 1863.

buted to Clotilde de Surville). The learned author | yet sold in sufficient numbers to cover their cost of of the "Romance Grammar and Dictionary" wrote publication, complained of his "deplorable idea” to M. Moquin Tandon a letter of the warmest con- to feign the discovery of "Carya Magalonensis," a gratulations upon discovering so valuable a trea- work "without interest or value;" so M. Moquin sure. The work appeared with the name of André Tandon's first literary effort was one of those acts Fredol de Maguelonne as its author. Whenever which, after having been turned to profit by MacM. Moquin Tandon gypsied in literary fields, it pherson, the editor of Ossian's pretended poems, was disguised as André Fredol. He contributed eventually covered him with deserved ignominy. above a hundred articles to reviews and magazines These are too common frauds. Have we not seen and articles innumerable in the newspapers with an actor (Rowley) hissed from the London stage this signature. He published "L'Histoire d'une pretend to discover a manuscript play of ShaksSouris Ecrite par Elle-même" over this signature. peare, and a pseudo German scholar give us the At his death he left the manuscript of a work ready complete catalogue of the Alexandrian Library ?1 for the press, and sold it to M. Baillière, entitled When M. Moquin Tandon was appointed to the "Le Monde de la Mer ;" and a question arose upon chair of botany in the Paris Medical School, this the author's name which should figure on the title- literary fraud raised great opposition to his appointpage. The family insisted that it should be André ment. "Le Monde de la Mer" was to have appearFredol. M. Baillière contended that it should be ed as an octavo volume of 400 pages, with 22 plates Moquin Tandon. Unable to terminate their differ- and 200 wood-cuts, and when suit was brought M. ences amicably suit was brought. This is the suit Baillière had expended on the book 22,859f. 45c., whose proceedings I would report to you. and was under contract for other work. It is folly to assert that M. Moquin Tandon desired to publish the work anonymously. There is but one really anonymous work in the world-" Junius's Letters;" but when Ovid, exiled by a tyrant's caprice, sent his melancholic verses to Rome, his name was known to every one

The advocate of counsel for the family showed the great favor the pseudonym had enjoyed in modern times. Rabelais disguised himself under his anagram Alcofrybas Nasier; the monk Folengo placed the pseudonym Merlin on the title-page of all of his satirical or light works; the Lancelot, Arnault, and other recluses of Port Royal published their excellent works of erudition and philology under arbitrary initials; so did the Benedictines and Oratorians; the grave President Montesquieu would never have published "Les Lettres Persanes" had he been unable to eclipse himself behind the philosophical Usbeck; Walter Scott for years, indeed until the Ballantynes' bankruptcy tore the disguise off of him, was only "The Author of Waverley;" Sterne reserved his name for his sermons, and gave Yorick to the title-page of his lighter works; President de Brosses published his admirable letters upon Italy without any name upon the title-page; de Touy wrote over the Signature L'Ermite de la Chaussée d'Antin; Mme. de Girardin concealed herself under the pseudonym of the Vicomte de Launay; M. de Cormenin, under the pseudonym of Timon. Indeed, so wide-spread is the use of pseudonyms that Barbier says in the Discours Préliminaire of his "Dictionnaire des Pseudonymes:" "It cannot be denied that good writers have disdained to place their name on the first of their vigils, and eminent scientific men whom we still have the good fortune to possess have published nearly all of their works anonymously. would be easy for me to demonstrate that in every library composed of useful works at least one-third of its contents are without the real name of the author." Is there any crime in publishing a work anonymously, or with a pseudonym? None whatever. Lalande, the eminent astronomer, said: "If an anonymous work is successful, it owes its success to real merit; it is the odor of the violet which rises from the grass-hidden bank." M. Moquin Tandon was extremely anxious that his work "Le Monde de la Mer" should appear under the pseudonym of André Fredol. He wrote to a friend, M. Berthelot, the French Consul at Canary Islands, with whom he had written "La Flore des Iles Canaries," to excuse himself for not dedicating his new book to him, the former, saying: "When one does not sign his name to a book, one dedicates it to nobody." He wrote to another friend: "I desire my pseudonym may prove of good fortune to my work, and that it may be regarded in thirty years from now as a masterpiece." The counsel of M. Baillière, after complaining that M. Moquin Tandon's "Histoire Naturelle des Mollusques,” and “La Zoologie Médicale," and "Les Elémens de Botanique Médicale," had not

It

Ut titulo careas ipso noscere colore,
Dissimulare velim, te liquet esse meum.

M. Moquin Tandon's family offered to repay M. Baillière up all the money he had expended on the work upon condition that he should annul the contract between him and the late author. Just as the cause was about to be left in the hands of the court of decision, M. Baillière accepted the offer, and the suit came to an end. It is reported that Messrs. Hachette & Co. will publish the work.

You may have some idea of the immense number
of plays which are annually written here by the
number brought out at the different theatres; but
had you any conception that we have twelve thea-
trical copyists with ten scribes each, and together
able to turn out (and they rarely turn out less)
43,800 acts a year?
S.

Yours, sincerely,

AUTHORS AT HOME.

AUTHORS IN BERKSHIRE.-"It argues an insensibility," in Elia's phrase, to enjoy Nature without remembering Humanity; and whoever can dwell, at this auspicious season, amid the radiant but fading glories of an autumn in Berkshire, and not sometimes think of the intellectual benefactors associated with the scene, lacks the very key-note to the harmonious festival of the year; for, in the last analysis, it is as the inspiration of the poet and the thinker that nature's appeal becomes significant and divine. It was in a gorge of these autumntinted hills that Bryant's "Murdered Traveller" was found; and "Monument Mountain," a rocky precipice, now wreathed with yellow chestnut boughs and crimson creepers, whose Indian legend he has immortalized, looms in the distance. Near by this delightful village is Fanny Kemble's once beloved cottage; while at different points among the hills and along the valley may be seen the past or present abodes of those who "live in the land's language."

At Sheffield, a little agricultural town just within the borders of Massachusetts, dwells the Rev. Dr. Dewey, in the old farm-house of his childhood. Since he retired from active professional life to the salubrious air and quiet sequestration of Berkshire,

This is most unwarrantable severity. Did the learned counsel never hear of Michel Angelo's pseudo antique statue? M. Moquin Tandon's was a mere bit of sport.

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