"Every new work of interest as it appeared was furnished to the stalls, from Macaulay's 'England' down to Murray's 'Colonial Library,' and purchasers were not slow to come for all. Upon many good books, as well of recent as of more remote publication, there has been an actual run. 'Macaulay' sold rapidly, 'Layard' not less so. 'Stokers and Pokers,' a sketch of the London and North-Western Railway, published in Murray's 'Colonial Library,' sold to the extent of upwards of 2000 copies. Borrow's 'Bible' and 'Gypsies in Spain,' are always in demand, and St. John's 'Highland Sports' keep pace with them. Graver books have equally steady sale. Coleridge's works are popular on the rail. 'Friends in Council,' 'Companions of my Solitude,' and similar small books grasping great subjects, and written with high philosophical aim, are continually purchased. Poetry is no drug at the prosaic terminus if the price of the article be moderate. Moore's 'Songs and Ballads,' published at 5s. each; Tennyson's works, and especially 'In Memoriam,' have gone off eagerly; the same remark applies to the Lays of Macaulay and to the Scotch Ballads of Aytoun.
"The style of books sold depends more upon the salesman than on the locality; but there are exceptions to the rule. At Bangor, all books in the Welsh language must have a strong Dissenting and Radical savor. English books at the same station must be High Church and Conservative. School-boys always insist upon having Ainsworth's novels and any thing terrible. Children's books are disdained, and left for their sisters. 'Jack Sheppard' is tabooed at the North-Western, and great is the wrath of the boys accordingly. Stations have their idiosyncracies. Yorkshire is not partial to poetry. It is very difficult to sell a valuable book at any of the stands between Derby, Leeds, and Manchester. Religious books hardly find a purchaser in Liverpool, while at Manchester, at the other end of the line, they are in high demand."
A writer in one of the London literary journals presents a severe criticism of the "Bateman children," who are now performing at St. James' Theatre, under the auspices of our widely-known compatriot, Mr. Barnum. A part of his strictures is as follows, of which there is much more of the same kind:
"Mr. Barnum, the American monster-monger, has opened this theatre with an exhibition which it is disagreeable to witness and impossible to treat as a matter of art. Two American children, Ellen and Kate Bateman, stated to be six and eight years of age, are here produced in the respective characters of Richard the Third and Richmond in the fifth act of Colley Cibber's tragedy. Ellen, who performs the crooked-backed tyrant, carefully made up to look like Edmund Kean, has evidently been drilled by some one well acquainted with the style of that great actor, and elaborately wrought into a miniature resemblance of him. Not only the manner, but the voice has been tutored—tone and emphasis have been imparted, as well as gesture and deportment. To us, who recollect every phase of the style of the departed tragedian, this exact copy was something painful and revolting. Similar pains had been taken with the elder girl Kate—who, armed cap-à-pie, strutted and fretted as Richmond. The delivery of the children has been enormously exaggerated in their determination to produce effect. They are strained far beyond their natural powers—and the result is, an impression of caricature and burlesque."
The Dublin literary circles have recently lost the Rev. Dr. Samuel O'Sullivan—a political writer of much force and activity, and one of the leading contributors to the Dublin University Magazine. "His style was close and consecutive—and of late years was marked by a vein of reflectiveness not often found among Irish writers. He was abler in attack than in defense—like most polemic authors. The most valuable of his writings are, a series of elaborate biographical essays on modern Irish statesmen; which apart from their literary talent have the merit of originality of matter. For his papers on Lord Chancellor Clare and Mr. Saurin he was furnished with special facts; and his Chaplaincy to the Phœnix Park Military School gave him access to several persons high in office, whose acquaintance he preserved. He was an entertaining and instructive companion—fertile in curious original anecdote. His pen exercised much influence on the Irish Conservative press for several years: but with the merits or demerits of political controversialists we meddle not. We hear that it was Dr. O'Sullivan's intention to reprint, with additional matter, his excellent essays on Flood and Grattan: the best pictures left us of these Irish statesmen."
The Hakluyt Society have added to their very interesting publications, Richard Hakluyt's translation of the account of De Soto's Discovery and Conquest of Florida, with an additional account curiously corroborative of all its substantial details discovered and translated by the editor, Mr. Rye, of the British Museum. The expedition was not without valuable results of an accidental kind, though in its main objects it failed so lamentably; and the narrative now given is extremely vivid and striking.