Literary Lines.

Evening Star, Issue 6915, 30 May 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Literary Lines.

A complete translation of the Babylonian Talmud (the first ever accomplished) is to be published shortly at Innspruck. Mr F. J. Fargus (Hugh Conway) was, when the moil left, lying at Monte Carlo seriously ill with typhoid fever. Ho had been spending a couple of months in Italy and was returning home when taken ill. M Lazarus in London ” is the striking title of a novel by Mr F. W. Robinson, now in . the press. The exhibition of Handel’s manuscripts at the British Museum is now completed, and may be seen in the MSS. department. " Poor papa !” is the title of a lively American story which Messrs Hodder and Stoughton are about to republish in the cheap form which has recently become so popular. Mr H. Sell’s “ Dictionary of the World’s Press,” which is mainly intended to instruct and to encourage advertisers, but is by no means devoid of interest to the general reader, makes this year a much larger, handsomer, and better illustrated volume than its predecessors. One of its features is a series of maps of all parts of the world in which newspapers are published, the places of publication being indicated by a red mark. It appears that London issues periodicals which have an annual circulation of about 1,017,000,000 copies. Paris, with its far smaller population, issues periodicals which have an annual circulation of 1,100,000,000 copies. It is estimated that the journalistic products of Paris amount annually to almost one-tenth of the : entire issue of the globe. New York and Brooklyn, with a population nearly twothirds that of Paris, produce publications with an annual circulation of about 510,000,000. Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, and Rome show a gradual diminution ; and St. Petersburg and Moscow may be said to come latest in the list of great circulations. Mr Sell’s Dictionary reprints the first English trade advertisement which appeared in a London uewsKper, and ran as follows:—“ThatExcelit and by all Physicians approved China Drink, called by the Chineans ‘ Tcha,’ by other nations ‘ Tay,’ alias ‘ Tee,’ is sold at the Sultanese Head Cophec House, in Sweeting Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.

Mr J. W. Davison, for many years musical critic of the ‘Times,’ died on March 24. The deceased was born in London, October 5,1813. He was an organist, a facile pianist, and composer of several songs and other works. He wrote in the ‘ Musical Examiner’ and later in the ‘ Musical World,’ He subsequently became musical critic of the ‘ Times,’ which post he held at least thirty years. He was also for some years musical critic of the ‘Graphic.’ In 1860 he married Madame Arabella Goddard.

Swlnburn's new volume will be a tragedy, on the subject of “ Marino Faliero. Great is the courage of tho man who thus boldly follows in the steps of Byron, The novel of April is the late Charles Beade’s “ A Perilous Secret,” which has not yet quite finished “running” in the pages of‘Temple Bar.’ “A Perilous Secret” is net unworthy to be the crowning production of tho most vigorous story-teller of our time.

Mr Edwin Arnold has succeeded in producing an English version of “Hadrian’s Address to His Soul,” which will probably strike all competent critics as very felicitous. Nothing, of course, can disturb the established fame of Pope's “ Vital spark of heavenly flame,” but those who have long wished for an English translation of the Address, at once faithful and poetical, will be delighted with Mr Arnold’s effort. As communicated by its author to the ‘National Review,’ that effort is as follows :

Soul of me ! floating and flitting, and fond ! Thou and this body were house-mates together Wilt thou be gone now, and whither?

PallM, and naked, and cold ; Not to laugh, nor be glad, as of old

Lady Martin will soon publish, in volume form, the elaborate studies of Shakesperian heroines (and plays) which she has been contributing from time to time to ‘ Blackwood.’