Prince B. Giustiniani has placed in the hands of the Pope, in the name of his friend Lord Ashburnham, a precious manuscript from the library of Ashburnham House. It contains letters by Innocent III. written during the years 1207 and 1209, and taken from the archives of the Holy See when at Avignon at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The letters are fully described in the Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes.
One of the late General Gordon’s minor contributions to literature is a brief memoir of Zebehr Pasha, which he drew up for the information of the Soudanese. General Gordon caused the memoir to be translated into Arabic, and we believe that copies of it are still in existence. It was written during the General’s first administration of the Soudan.
The memoirs of the late Rector of Lincoln will appear shortly, Mrs. Mark Pattison having finished correcting the proofs. Much difficulty has been experienced in verifying quotations, frequently made without reference or clue to authorship. In one or two instances only the attempt has been reluctantly abandoned in order not indefinitely to delay publication. Mrs. Mark Pattison leaves England in February for Madras, where she will spend next summer as the guest of the Governor and Mrs. Grant Duff at Ootacamund. Her work on industry and the arts in France under Colbert is now far advanced towards completion.
A “national” edition of Victor Hugo’s works is about to be brought out in Paris by M. Lemonnyer as publisher, and M. Georges Richard as printer. The plan of this new edition has been submitted by these gentlemen to M. Victor Hugo, who has given them the exclusive right to bring out, in quarto shape, the whole of his works. The publication will consist of about forty volumes, which are each to contain five parts, of from eighty to a hundred pages. One part will appear every fortnight, or about five volumes a year, and the first part of the first volume, which will contain the Odes and Ballads, is to appear on February 26, which is the eighty-third anniversary of the poet’s birth. The price will be 6 frs. per part, or 30 frs. per volume, so that the total cost of the forty volumes will be close upon £50. There will be also a few copies upon Japan and China paper of special manufacture, while the series will be illustrated with four portraits of the poet, 250 large etchings, and 2,500 line engravings. The 250 large etchings will be by such artists as Paul Baudry, Bonnat, Cabanel, Carrier-Belleuse, Falguière, Léon, Glaize, Henner, J.-P. Laurens, Puvis de Chavannes, Robert Fleury, etc., while the line engravings will be by L. Flameng, Champollion, Maxime Lalanne, and others.
The festival at Capua in commemoration of the bi-centenary of the birth of the distinguished antiquary and philologist, Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi, which should have been held last autumn, but was postponed on account of the cholera, was celebrated on January 25. The meeting in the Museo Campano was attended by a large number of visitors from the neighboring towns and from Naples, and speeches were delivered by the Prefect (Commendatore Winspeare), Prof. F. Barnabei, and several others.