Mr. Gladstone has published the third volume of his translation of Farini's History of the Roman State. This volume carries on the story from the flight of the Pope, to the landing of General Oudinot at Civita Vecchia. "The narrative is interesting," says the Leader, "but, like the two previous volumes, narrow and peevish in its spirit. One regrets more than ever, on reading these volumes, that Margaret Fuller's History of the Italian Movement has been lost to the world; it would have told the story of the Roman Republic in so different a spirit from that of the crabbed Farini, who, though he writes well enough, is precisely one of those men who would act like vinegar in any cause, souring all, and helping nothing. By-the-by, Saffi, Mazzini's young and gifted colleague in the Triumvirate (one of the few men of whom even Farini speaks well, and who is precisely the man to win golden opinions from all sorts of people, and what is more, to deserve them), is writing a History of the Roman Revolution of 1848-49. We believe part of it is already written, if not published by the Italian press of Switzerland."
Mr. Moxon has called in the Shelley Papers, in two volumes, published in January last, it having been discovered that the whole work was a collection of ingenious forgeries, deceiving alike publisher, editor, and public. The first suspicion raised of their genuineness was by a correspondent of the Literary Gazette drawing attention to the singular identity of whole paragraphs of some of the letters, with an article in the Quarterly on "Fine Arts in Florence" in 1840, and contemporaneously, Mr. Palgrave discovered the embodiment of a whole article of his father's, contributed to the Edinburgh Review. This led to further examination and strict inquiry, and there appears at the present time, says the London journals, but little reason to doubt that the letters which were purchased at auctions for high prices can be traced to the "George Gordon Byron, Esq.," whose projected publication in England, some years since, of some alleged secret unpublished papers of Lord Byron was prohibited.
We believe it has not yet been stated, with reference to these forgeries, that they were made, not to impose on autograph collectors, for which purpose their value, in relation to the time and pains spent in their fabrication, would offer no inducement; but they were produced to authenticate a new memoir of Lord Byron, but this publication having failed, and the author falling into distress, was compelled to part with his alleged "original MSS."
The London Critic says that the Messrs. "Routledge have presented to the British lovers of poetry the collected works of James Russell Lowell, one of the foremost in local fame of the poets of America, but who is less known in England than some of his brethren of lesser merit. This reprint, at a trifling price, will, we trust, introduce him to the better acquaintance of our readers, who can not but be pleased with the vivid imagination, the fruitful fancy, the exquisite transcripts of nature, and the lofty sentiment that pervades his productions."
We learn from the Athenæum that Margaret Fuller, on the eve of that visit to the Continent which was to prove so eventful and disastrous, left in the hands of a friend in London a sealed packet, containing, it is understood, the journals which she kept during her stay in England. Margaret Fuller contemplated at that time a return to England at no very distant date; and the deposit of these papers was accompanied by an injunction that the packet should then be restored with unbroken seal into her own hands. The papers are likely to be of great interest, and were doubtless intended for publication; but the writer had peremptorily reserved the right of revision to herself, and forbidden the breaking of the seals, on a supposition which fate has now made impossible. The equity of the case under such circumstances demands only a reference to Margaret Fuller's literary executors.
Lord John Russell is engaged in the preparation of a Life of Charles James Fox. The materials, collected by Lord Holland and by Mr. Allen, have been long since placed at his lordship's disposal, and the work might have been ready but for the public duties which occupy so much of his attention and time.