An address to the Hungarian ex-president, from the citizens of Bath, was headed by the signature of Walter Savage Landor. His letter, in reply to Kossuth’s acknowledgment, is worth recording, as a memorial of one so well known in the world of letters: “Sir—The chief glory of my life is, that I was the first in subscribing for the assistance of the Hungarians at the commencement of their struggle; the next is, that I have received the approbation of their illustrious chief. I, who have held the hand of Kosciusko, now kiss with veneration the signature of Kossuth. No other man alive could confer an honor I would accept.”
In a notice of Springer’s Forest Life and Forest Trees (published by Harper and Brothers), the London Spectator suggests a singular comparison between the population of England and the United States, as afforded by the social position of the respective countries: “The volume will be found interesting from its pictures of hardship, exertion, skill, and adventure, in a country little known to the English reader even from books. It has also an interest of a deeper kind. It is impossible to look at the willing labors of these men, and to consider them as only a portion of the rural population of the United States, without seeing what a raw material they possess for war or enterprise. It is the tendency of a dense population and a high civilization to dwarf the physical powers and energies of men in two ways—by congregating large numbers of men in cities, and engaging them in pursuits which if not absolutely injurious to health, are destructive to hardihood; and by removing from the face of a country those natural obstacles which call forth energy and readiness of resource. In England, the working agriculturist is the most helpless of men out of his routine, from his having nothing to contend with: the ‘navvies,’ miners, and mariners, are almost the only classes trained to endurance and great physical exertion in their regular business, except the navy and perhaps the army, as special vocations.”
The London Examiner pronounces Layard’s abridged edition of Nineveh (just re-published by
Harper and Brothers), “A charming volume, to which we may safely promise a circulation without limit, and as unbounded popularity. The great feature of the Abridgement is, the introduction of the principal biblical and historical illustrations (forming a separate section of the original work) into the narrative, which, without sacrificing any matter of importance, makes the story more compact, useful, and, indeed, complete in its abridged, than it was in its original form.”
Sheriff Alison, the historian, has been re-elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University.
In a recent synodical letter of the Bishop of Luçon, among the books denounced as immoral and dangerous, are Anquetil’s “History of France,” Thiers’s “History of the French Revolution,” Lemaistre de Sacy’s “Translation of the New Testament,” “Le Bonhomme Richard,” and, lastly, “Robinson Crusoe!” Facts like these require no comment.