LITERARY GOSSIP.

Lady Herbert of Lee is translating the "Mémoires Inédits de Lamartine."

According to the Canada Bookseller, Prof. Goldwin Smith has undertaken the editorship of a new magazine that will, before long, be started in the Dominion.

"The Public Library at Penzance possesses a gift from Mr. J. O. Halliwell, of which the British Museum might be proud,-namely, a noble collection of volumes illustrative of the ancient English stage, its acted drama, its literature, and its history. Penzance is worthy of this donation. The spirited little town is the intellectual capital of Cornwall. The unanimity with which every effort is made there for local and for general good, is pleasantly attributed, by some of the inhabitants, to the fact that Penzance is exempt from the affliction of having to return a member to Parliament."-Atheneum.

At Helsingsfors there appeared last year a translation into Finnish of Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe," which has been followed this year by a translation of the "Legend of Montrose." The title of this in full is, "Wanha Tarina Montrosesta. Historiallinen Kertomus Walter Scott in Kirjoittama. Englannin Kielesta Kääntäyt J. Krohn. Helsingissä."

Another of the old London booksellers is gone. Mr. Strange, of Paternoster Row, died lately, at the age of seventy-one years. Mr. Strange for fifty years was principally engaged in the trade of a wholesale publisher. In partnership with Mr. Gowie, he published many years ago a satirical journal, known as Figaro in London, a paper that at one time reached a circulation of 70,000 copies weekly. About the same period Mr. Strange obtained the possession of a rare document, which gave in detail the names and amounts of a variety of unclaimed dividends lying at the Bank of England, as far back as the year 1802. This document was published under the title of "The Unclaimed Dividends of the Bank of England." It was issued at the price of 20s, and reached a sale of 30,000 copies within two years. In 1848 an injunction was laid against Mr. Strange for publishing copies of the private engravings referred to in a "Descriptive Catalogue of the Royal Victoria and Albert Gallery of Etchings." It was subsequently found that copies of these engravings had been purloined by one of the workmen employed by a printer at Windsor to take impressions for Her Majesty. On an appeal, before the Lord Chancellor, the judgment was confirmed. The heavy losses occasioned by this untoward event compelled Mr. Strange to make an arrangement with his creditors. He, however, recovered from the blow by his unwearied perseverance, and was much respected in the "Row."

Dr. Hill Burton, author of that amusing work "The Book-Hunter," has returned from a journey on the continent, in the course of which he has been collecting new materials for a revised edition of his well-known "History of Scotland."

The new work upon which George Eliot has been for some time engaged, a story of English provincial life, will be published in December by Messrs. Blackwood & Sons.

Mr. George Smith, of the Department of Orienta Antiquities of the British Museum, so well known to scholars for his faculty for deciphering the Assyrian writing, is about to publish a "History of Assurbanipal from Assyrian Sources." The book consists entirely of interlinear translations with the text from Assyrian Inscriptions, with a complete lyllabary of the Assyrian characters and will be of great service to the historian, and Assyrian scholars. The work is printed by Messrs. Harrison, with the same type with which they are printing Mr. Norris's Assyrian Dictionary.

In Sir T. Duffus Hardy's first Appendix to his Public Records Report of this year are many interesting illustrations of old English customs and laws. Thus, in 1361, the escheator of the Duchy of Lancaster is ordered to restore to widow Emma le Norreys her lands, which she had forfeited to the Duke because she had married one of his villains, or nativi; she had afterwards obtained a legal divorce. In 1355 the sheriff is ordered to pay the knights (or M. P.'s) elected for the commonalty of the duchy 24/. for their expenses in coming to the Parliament at Westminster. In 1382 a carrak, or small ship is wrecked on the coast, and, because the crew escape alive, proclamation is made that the goods of the ship are not to be seized In 1383 the sheriff is ordered not to put Adam de Prestall, of Salfordshire, on juries, because he is so deaf that he can scarcely hear a sound, &c.

In his Preface to the Alfredian Anglo-Saxon version of Gregory's Pastoral, Mr. Henry Sweet will give a short sketch of Anglo-Saxon lexicography, showing that Junius was the only original worker at the subject, and that succeeding English compilers have done little more than plunder him.

Joseph Skipsey, a heaver of coal, a genuine pitman of thirty-seven, who has been at work in the pit since he was five years old, and who taught himself to read, has just published a small volume of poems at Blyth, "printed by William Alder," which contains a few touching pieces on the accidents that a pitman is liable to.

The death is announced of M. E. Bertin, of the Débats.

Gilbert Banester's verse legend of Sismond, which is added to Chaucer's "Legende of Good Women" in the Additional MS. 12,524 in the British Museum, has been copied by Mr. Brock for the Chaucer Society.

At the gathering of gentlemen interested in literature and science which recently met in Devonshire, under the presidency of Canon Kingsley, Sir George Cornewall Lewis's "Astronomy of the Ancients" was denounced by one of the speakers as the most absurd book that ever was written !

CORRESPONDENCE.

Tom Paine Nails.-Wrought iron shoe nails, impressed with the letters T. P., were formerly in great request, but have now become quite obsolete, being superseded by other patterns and varieties. But old veterans, followers of St. Crispin, "stuck to the last" in upholding their favorite nails. till no more could be obtained for "love or money." In connection with this subject, the following tale is traditionally recorded: It is said that nails so marked first originated through the high feeling of detestation in which Tom Paine (author of The Age of Reason," &c) was held by the people, and that these nails were especially manufactured and impressed with the initials of his name, so as to allow the people the trifling satisfaction of knowing that in the wearing of them they were thus treading, ideally, the infidel under foot and crushing out the very name of that pernicious reasoner! I believe it to be a fact that Paine's works are now as little thought of, at the present time, as the once popular "T. P.'s."

J. PERRY.

Jasias. I cannot help smiling at the new clue to the authorship of "Junius" which has been discovered by the united labors of Mr. Lilly and Mr. Bates. Surely the bare idea (stripped of Porson's witty addition) of one work being read when another is forgotten, is so exceedingly commonplace that it might have occurred to many men, many women, and many children; but, granting it to be brilliant and recondite, I cannot see what would be gained by proving that Sir Philip Francis was acquainted with "The Toast," unless it was established at the same time that the other Junius claimants had never seen it. I observe that Mr. Bates gives May, 1811, as the date of the first appearance of Porson's joke, but it was certainly quoted by Lord Byron in the note to page 16 of the third edition of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," which appeared in 1810, and most likely in the first and second editions which were published in the previous year. It is quite possible, however, that the saying may have come from Porson's lips before it proceeded from his pen, and that Byron heard it on one of those occasions when he describes him as reciting or rather vomiting pages of all languages, and hiccuping Greek like a Helot."

CHITTELDROOG.

Portrait of Henderson.-I wish to ascertain who possesses the portrait of this actor, painted by Gainsborough, and shall feel obliged by information on the subject. CHARLES WYLIE.

[It is certain Gainsborough painted more than one portrait John Henderson. See Fulcher's "Life of T. Gainsborough," ed. 1856, p. 222.-ED.]

Lockhart's Life of Sir W. Scott.-Amidst the distraction of many books and the rival claims of many favorites, book-loving men have often amused themselves by considering what their choice would be if by circumstances (captivity, shipwreck, &c.) they should be reduced to a very limited number-say half a dozen. I believe there are many persons of my mind, who would choose Boswell's Johnson and Lockhart's Scott among the foremost of the half

dozen.

Those who value the book would have gladly seen Scott's centenary marked by a new and enlarged edition of his "Life" instead of the empty noise and bustle of a vapid ceremonial.

Scott's "Life" was published so soon after his death that many details and narratives, as well as many letters and MS. records of the greatest interest, were obliged to be suppressed. See, for instance, what Lockhart says of Scott's Diary:

"The reader cannot expect that any chapter in a diary of this sort should be printed in extenso within a few years of the writer's death. The editor has found it necessary to omit some passages altogether, to abridge others, and very frequently to substitute asterisks or arbitrary initials for

names.

Thirty-five years have elapsed since the publication of the "Life," and there is probably no one now living on whose account any matter need be suppressed which may be fairly desired for publication And who could be found in every way more suitable to complete this great national work than Mr. Hope Scott? 2. 2.

Mr. Gilbert A Beckett.-It is hazardous to dispute Mr. Shirley Brooks's dictum respecting the staff of Punch; nevertheless when he says that Mr. Mark Lemon was from the very first the "sole" editor of that periodical, I am inclined to question his accuracy. I have in my possession a copy of the original edition of a book I dare say he well knows-A Shilling's Worth of Nonsense-and the title-page states it to be by the "Editors" of Punch. It may be necessary to add, for the sake of many of your readers, that the book I refer to came out in the earliest days of Punch. As to the authors of the brochure, I can only make guesses, like any other outsider.

Mdlle. Violette-Mrs. Garrick.-Lord Strafford, in a letter dated March 27, 1746, calendared in "Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts," Second Report, mentions the first appearance of the new dancer, Violetti, afterwards Mrs. Garrick:

"She surprised the audience at her first appearance on the stage, for at her beginning to caper she showed a neat pair of black velvet breeches with rolled stockings; but finding they were unusual in England she changed them the next time for a pair of white drawers.' C.