LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8082, 24 September 1887, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

It is anticipated that the Life of Charles Darwin, by his sons, will be published in Ootober.

A complete set of original editions of Dickens was sold recently to an American dealer for £240.

Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have in preparation sermons by the late Bishop of Manchester, to be published in two volume?. A monument is shortly to be erected at Jena to the memory of Fritz Reuter, the most original humorist of modern Germany. Messrs. Chatto and Windus will publish shortly a new volume by Mr. W. Clark Russell, entitled "A Book for the Hammock. "

Augustine Birrell, whose two volumes of " Obiter Dicta " have been received with so much favour, is to write Charlotte Bronte's life for the ''Famous Women" aeries.

Under the title of " Pagan Pearls," Mr. Elliot Stock announces a collection of precepts concerning the conduct of life, taken from the writing of non-Christian teachers. Archdeacon Farrar is engaged on an introduction to Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather," and it will appear in a new, edition of that work, to be printed by Messrs. A. and C. Black, of Edinburgh. Baron A. do Rothschild has given to the Musee at Vannes, Morbinan, M. Laurent Gsell'a picture representing M. Pasteur in his operating room, whioh occupied a conspicuous place in the last Salon. A " Walt Whitman Society" iB mooted in America. The objects proposed are the collection and preservation of Whitman litera ture, the cultivation of interest in and knowledge of Walt's writing, and the general building ap of a cult on the Browning pattern.

The French historical painter, M. A. Colas, is dead. tie was born at Lille (where he died) in 1818, and exhibited an important pioture of the erection of the Cross in the Salon of 1849 ; be deeorated the cupola of the ohuroh of Notre Dame at Roubaix with paintings in grisaille, and otherwise enriched churches at Esquelbec and Warcoing. M. Lucien Doucet has presented his lifesize nudity in pastels, of a damsel dressing her hair before a Psyche, to the Mute a founded by the late Cointesae de Caen. M. Doucet, as a holder -of the Grand Prix de Rome, benefited by the Comtease's endowment of 4000 franca annually, and was called upon to present a work to her Mus£o. The fourth volume of the " History of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland," by Mr. John T. Gilbert, will, we understand, be issued in about four mouths. In it will be published for the first time a large number of letters and papers of the Roman Catholics in Ireland in 1644 exhibiting their position at that period, and detailing the views whioh they entertained in relation to their civil rights as subjects of the Crown of England.

Mr. Willian Lucas Sargent, the Birmingham manufacturer, whose writings on social questions first attracted attention as long ago aB 1856, is now going to break the silence he has maintained since 1874 by the publication of a book entitled "Inductive Political Economy," which is to a great extent an attack npon the ultra-individualism of Mr. Herbert Spencer. It will iorm a volume of about 340 pages, and will be issued immediately by Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co The roar of cannon and the rattle of bullets, on paper, are a boy's delight. Such a book was Creasy's "Decisive Battles of the World." An appendix to this historiograph is in the press. It has been brought together by Colonel W. Knox, and is entitled " Decisive Battles Since Waterloo." The accounts are built up from official documents and from records set down by eye-witnesses. Some of the more famous fights described are those in the Netherlands, Mexico, Russia, India, Egypt, Austria, Italy, Germany, France, and America. Plans are to be given.

At a recent sale by Messrs. Pattick and Simpson a copy of the first edition of Milton's great poem was disposed of. It was printed in old Roman letter, and strongly but not artistically bound in calf, quarto: " Lond. Printed and are to be sold by Peter Parker, etc. 1667." The specialty about this "first edition," which is a clean and pefect copy, is that it differs from that described by Lowndes inasmuch as it has the first title-page, but with the seven leagues of argument and errata immediately following. The volume was started at £10; the biddings running op rapidly until they reaohed £35 10s, at which sum it was secured by Messrs. Robson and Kerslake.

''The Bronte Country" iB the title of a wore by Mr. J. Erakine Stuart, to be published by subscription. It iB the author's intention ,to trust exhaustively not only of the physical features, but also of the antiquarian and general aspects of the country either associated with the birth an dupbringing of the Brontes or immortalised in their novels. There will be twelve engravings. As a corollary to this part of the subject there will be added a chapter entitled "Collectanea, Bronteana," or "Riddlings from Bronte Bibliography." The writer, having access to several undoubtedly trustworthy sources of information, is in a position to bring to light many curious anecdotes and stray sketches connected with this celebrated family.

Work is going forward rapidly on' the Gambetta monument in the Place da Car» rousiel, Paris. The architectural part of the monument is quite finished, and the statue of the dictator is almost complete. Gambett a is represented at restoring to life his country with his genius* The figure is a work of remarkable power. The other half of the monument, which is of an emblematic character, is more open to objection. It represent a gigantic symbol of the Gallic cock crowing, with crowns of laurels and oak at his feet. Behind the bird are arms piled, and a hand whioh I bears the inscription, " Compulsory military service" and " Education for aIL" It is expected that the monument will be completed by the end of September. Respecting the characters iu " Pickwick," a correspondent writing in "Notes and Queries" says i—During my boyish days, when Dickens always stayed at Broadstairs, near Ramsgate, it was generally remarked among bis friends and acquaintances that he had taken all the names of the characters in . 'Piokwiok' from persons residing inßamsgate. There was Welier, the straw and hat manufacturer and hosier in High street, near the market; Mr, Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass lived higher up; Mrs. Bardell alto lived near; and mora names than I can now remember were Inhabitants either of Ramagate or Broadstairs. Dickens hardly ever laid his friends under contribution either for ridicule or notoriety. When he found earnest men doing good work unobserved he might draw aside the veil of obscurity to depiot the " silver lining" to the black cloudt of life, such aa in the case of the Brothers Cheeryble; but daily life and peregrinations at midnight famished him with snch a world of incident that hia task was mere the work of a oheerfnl historian than of an imaginative novelist.