Hark, Heini von Steier returned to his land.“'”
The eighty-ninth birthday of Dr. Ranke (December 21st) has excited interest throughout Germany, and elicited many expressions of the respect universally felt for him. The strength of the venerable historian defies the increase of years, and he works daily at his home in Berlin on the history which he hopes to complete.
Mr. C. E. Pascoe has issued a prospectus on the publication of English books in America. He says in effect that, though the lack of international copyright is one reason why English authors derive but little profit from the sale of their works in America, another and graver reason is, that as a class, they are in ignorance of the means for getting the best out of existing conditions. The usual method of procedure is for the English publisher to make proposals to an American publisher, or for the representative of an American firm in London to submit proposals to his principals in the United States. Mr. Pascoe points to the danger of losing a lucrative sale that this method entails. His prospectus, which is accompanied by letters from American publishers and some well-known English authors, is worth attention. Mr. Pascoe's address is 6 Southfields Road, West Hill, Wandsworth, S. W.
An early and hitherto unknown Arabic work has lately been added to the Museum Library. It is entitled “Kitāb al-Mohabbir”, and contains various historical notices and traditions relating to the ancient Arabs and to the time of Mohammed and his immediate successors. The author, Abu Sa'id al-Hasan al-Sukkari, lived in the third century of the Hijrah, and is well known as one of the earliest editors and commentators of the old poets, but the present work appears somehow to have escaped notice; it is neither mentioned in the Fihrist, nor by Ibn Khallikan or Soyuti. The two last-named authors state that Al-Sukkari died A.H. 275; but according to Ibn Kāni' (Leyden Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 8) he lived on to A.H. 290. The present work would show that the former date is decidedly wrong; for it contains a brief sketch of the Abbasides brought down by Al-Sukkari himself to the accession of Al-Mo'tadid, i.e., A.H. 279.
Among other recent additions to the Arabic collection, the following are especially deserving of the attention of scholars: the earliest extant history of the Moslem conquest of Egypt, Africa, and Spain, by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, who died A.H. 257, a twelfth century copy; “Zubdat al-Tawarikh,” a history of the Seljuk-dynasty, written shortly after its extinction, about A.H. 620, by Sadr al-Din Abul Hasan Ali Ibn Abul Fawaris Nasir Husaini, a fine and apparently unique copy of the thirteenth century; “Kitab al-Osul,” an extensive and hitherto unknown work on Arabic grammar by one of the earliest writers on the subject, Ibn al-Sarraj, who died A.H. 316, handsomely written, with all vowels, A.H. 651; a fine and valuable copy of the “Makamat al-Hariri,” written by a grandson of the author, A.H. 557 (i.e., forty years after Hariri's death), and consequently earlier than any copy of that standard work known to exist in European libraries.