The Scotch Journals announce the death of one whose name is familiar to many of the scholars of this country, Mr. George Dunbar, professor of Greek Literature in the University of Edinburgh.
The Rev. Dr. Sadleir, Fellow and Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, died suddenly on the 14th of December, He was a man of liberal views and charitable feelings, and although in a society not remarkable for catholicity of spirit, his advocacy of all measures of progress and freedom was uniform and zealous. He was appointed to the provostship by the Crown in 1837.
Among recent deaths of literary men, we note that of Basil Montague, best known as the editor of the works of Lord Bacon. He was an illegitimate son of the famous Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, by the unfortunate Miss Reay, who was assassinated in 1779, by the Rev. Mr. Hackman, her betrothed lover. The tragic story is told in all the London guide-books, as well as in collections of celebrated trials. Mr. Basil Montague studied for the law, and rose to a high standing in the profession. He was called to the bar by the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn, in 1798. On the Law of Bankruptcy he published some valuable treatises, the reputation of which gained him a commissionership. With [pg 427] Romilly and Mackintosh he worked diligently for the mitigation of the severity of the penal code. On capital punishments he wrote several pamphlets, which attracted much public notice. Besides his edition of Bacon, with an original biography, he published Selections from Taylor, Hooker, Hall, and Bacon. He died at Boulogne, on the 27th of November, in the 82d year of his age.
From France we can expect no more literature for some time, and we must think ourselves fortunate that Guizot's two new works reached us before “society was saved,” as the man says who has earned the execration of the world. These two works are Etudes Morales and Etudes sur les Beaux Arts. The former contains essays on Immortality, on the state of Religion in modern society, on Faith, and a lengthy treatise on Education. The second is interesting, as showing us Guizot criticising Art.
A curious work, entitled, Les Murailles Revolutionnaires (Revolutionary Walls), has been published in Paris. It contains the proclamations, decrees, addresses, appeals, warnings, denunciations, remonstrances, counsels, professions of faith, plans of political reconstruction, and schemes of social regeneration, which were stuck on the walls of Paris in the first few months' agitated existence of the Revolution of 1848. At that time the dead walls of la grande ville presented an extraordinary spectacle. They were literally covered with placards of all sizes, all shapes, all colors, all sorts of type, and some were even in manuscript. Several times in the course of a day was the paper renewed; and so attractive was the reading it offered to every passer-by, that it not only put an end to the sale of books, but nearly ruined circulating libraries and salons de lecture, in which, for the moderate charge of from two to five sous, worthy citizens are accustomed to read the journals. Louis Napoleon has changed all that. Among other wondrous decrees that have issued from his barracks, is “Bill-Stickers Beware!” The usurper sees danger in the very poles and paste of an afficheur!