Literature.

Literature .

NOTES ON LITEEATUJRE , SCIENCE , AND ART . Amongst the works suitable for the approaching season , Mr . Hotten will shortly publish a new Christmas hook hy Dudley Costello , entitled Holidays with the Hobgoblins ; A Garland of Christmas Carols , Ancient and Modem , including several never before in any collection ; a new edition of The Bigloiv Papers , with coloured illustrations by Cruikshank ; ancl a most quaint volume

by Balzac , Conies Drolaiinnes , containing a great number of most extraordinary ancl fantastic illustrations . Coventry Patmore , in his new book , Faithful for Ever , attempts to palm the following prosy slip-slop upon the public for poetry : — " For your sake , I am glad to hear You sail so soon . I send you , Dear ,

A trifling present ,- 'fc will supply Your Salisbury costs . You have to buy Almost an outfit for this cruise ! But many are good enough to use Again , among tlie things you send To give away . My Maid shall mend And let you have them back . " There is excellent domestic economy in the above extract ; but

-Coventry Patmore deserves to be " sent to Coventry " for perpetrating such miserable attempts at poetry . Nor is the following a whit better : — " I write to say Frederiek has got , besides his pay , A good appointment in the Docks ; Also to thank yon for the frocks And shoes for baby . "

We can assure the writer , that ifc will be better for himself , better for society , that he should black shoes and clean knives for an lionesfc livelihood , rather than impose such rubbish as the above on English readers for poetry . Signor Zobi ( whose able work on Tuscany during the Austro-Lorraine dynasty , published a few years ago , has taken high rank

amongst historical writings ) has published , at Florence , Memoirs Economical and Political ; or a Treatise on the losses inficled hy Austria on Tuscany , from 1737 lo 1859 , proved from Official Documents . It appears that , many re the pretence of the late Tuscan government to throw open the archives to all students , the important public documents on whicli Signor Zobi has founded

these Memoirs were jealously kept from literary men , until the flight of the present ex-Duke . The revelations of Austrian spoliation and perfidy are so incredulous , that the Cavaliere Anfconia Zobi has deemed it necessary to publish the documents themselves , in proof of the truth of his assertions . We hope the work will soon he made known to English readers , by means of a faithful translation .

James A . Brown , a private in the Koyal Artillery , has published a little work on The North-West Passaye and the Fate of Sir John Franklin , Ifc was at first delivered as a lecture to Mr . Brown's fellow-soldiers . The Alhenceuin in noticing the book says : "Independently of the precision and abundance of the information it contains , the hook is remarkable for the excellence of its style ,

whicli is at once clear and eloquent . " Mr . W . E . Hickson , in a letter to the AlhenaAV . m , dated October IGfch , writing of a Soiliic period , (" so called from Sit-ins , the Dogstar , for which the Egyptian name was Solids" ) says , that it may he of interest to notice auold and "serious mistake connected with this term , in reference to the nature of a Sochic period ,

which has commonly been described by historians , in a long succession , ( one writer copying the statement of another ) , as a cycle of 1461 years . No such cycle of years is known in astronomy ; but the figures have another ancl a very obvious origin . Head "days " for " years , " and we see at once What the Egyptians meant . A year consists of 305 i- days , ivhich , multiplied by four , gives the 1401 days of our " modern Bissextile or Leap Yen- cycl * . A Sothic . I

period , we may conclude , corresponded with an Olympiad ; and the primitive object of the Olympic , festivals , held every four years , was , we need nofc doubt , the intercalation and popular recognition of the day which we now , for the adjustment of solar time , add on every fourth year to the month of February . " Ancl the writer adds : —" This is one of the numerous facts that have led me to

respect the existence , on the part of the ancients , of a knowledge of the motions the heavenly bodies ( or such of them , ait least , as may he seen without telescopes ) , and , including the earth ' s rotation on its axis , much greater than has been generally supposed . " Mr . H . Jennings has in the press a work on tho Koslcrucians entitled Curious Things of the Outside World ,

Mr . Ymdlay ' s History ofthe Greek Revolution from 1 S 21 to 1813 is finished , ancl will soon be in the hands of the printer . Sir . James Hannay ' s contributions to the Quarterly Review will shortly appear in a collected form . Mr . Dickens is writing a [ new story for All the Year Found , to be commenced at the beginning of December , when Mr . Lever ' s

A Day ' s Side , a Life ' s ' Romance , will be concluded . A hundred aud seventy-two years after the mortal remains of the immortal tinker , John Bunyan , had been buried in the vault of his true friend , the grocer , Mr . Stradwick , in Bunhiil Fields burial grounds , ancl seven yours after , the publication of the carefully collated collected edition of his works by his indefatigable ,

biographer and editor , Mr . George Offar , the English reader will be surprised ancl delighted to learn that an hitherto unpublished poem of the great allegorist is about to be issued by Mr . Hatton , with editiorial notes by Mr . George Offar . We hope , in a future issue , to furnish some further particulars of this poem ; for every fact

connected with John Bunyan is interesting alike to the Christian , and to the literary world , " Bunyan , " says Macaulay , "is as decidedly the first of allegorists , as Demosthenes is the first of orators , or Shakspeare tho first of dramatists . Other allegorists have shown great ingenuity , but no other allegorist has ever been able so to touch the heart , and to make abstractions _ objects of terror , of pity ,

and of love . " A mezzotint engraving of Mr . John Philip ' s picture , A Prison Window at Seville , has just been finished . A new work , A Memoir of the late Joseph Watson , Esq ., is now in fche press , from the pen of the Venerable Archdeacon Churton , the able author of The Early English Church , and other works of

great research . The Rev . Herbert Haines , 31 . A ., has a work in the press which will be interesting to antiquaries , A Manual of Monumental Brasses , comprising an Introduction to the Study of these Memorials , and a list of those remaining in the British Isles . It is published under the sanction of the Oxford Architectural Society . Mr . Eichard Wright Procter , of Manchester , author of The

Barber ' s Shop , and for many years well-known , especially in the north of England , tor his genial writings , in prose and verse , under the signature of Sylvan , has issued a pleasant gossipping volume , entitled Literary Reminiscences and Gleanings , chiefly relating to Dr . Byrom , John Collier ( better known as Tim * Bobbin ) , Bolton Rogerson , Sam Bamford , J . C . Prince , and other Lancashire

celebrities . " Many of the facts ancl figures here recorded , " says the author , " have been searched out with diligence , as Old Mortality searched out the epitaphs of the Covenanters , and though lacking the picturesque white pony and blue bonnet , the mallet and the chisel , of that pious pilgrim , I have tried to restore some failing names to the memory ' of the public , so notoriously treacherous

and over-crowded . Our half-forgotten hards will be found blended with our established favourites ; tlie weak being thus supported hy stronger links of the same chain . " And he continues : — " Judging by experience , the graves most difficuft to find are those of authors and artists . Generally speaking , parish clerks do not know them ; and if by dint of questions put to obliging newspaper editors , and by patient research in silent consecrated acres , you succeed in finding the stone—if stone there be—which covers the departed man