The French papers state that Lord Brougham, in his retreat at Cannes, is preparing a work to be entitled France and England before Europe in 1851.
Don Juan Hartzenbusch has commenced, in Madrid, a reprint of the works of her most distinguished authors of Spain. From the earliest ages to the present time. It is entitled Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, and it is a more difficult undertaking than things of the kind in western and northern Europe. Since many works of the principal authors never having been printed at all, the compiler has to hunt after them in libraries, in convents, and in out of the way places—whilst others, having been negligently printed, have to be revised line by line. Hartzenbusch has brought to light fourteen comedies of Calderon de la Barca, which previous editors were unable to discover. The total number of Calderon's pieces the world now possesses is therefore 122; and there is reason to believe that they are all he wrote, with the exception of two or three, which there is no hope of recovering.
The first and second volumes of the Grenville Papers—being the correspondence of Richard, Earl Temple, and George Grenville, their friends and contemporaries, including Mr. Grenville's Political Diary—were published in London on the 18th of December. We have before alluded to this work, as one likely to illustrate some points in American history, and possibly to furnish new means for determining the vexed question of the authorship of Junius. Among the contents will be found letters from George the Third, the Dukes of Cumberland, Newcastle, Devonshire, Grafton, and Bedford; Marquess Granby; Earls Bute, Temple, Sandwich, Egremont, Halifax, Hardwicke, Chatham, Mansfield, Northington, Suffolk, Hillsborough, and Hertford; Lords Lyttleton, Camden, Holland, Olive, and George Sackville; Marshal Conway, Horace Walpole, Edmund Burke, George Grenville, John Wilkes, William Gerard Hamilton, Augustus Hervey, Mr. Jenkinson (first Earl of Liverpool), Mr. Wedderburn, Charles Yorke, Charles Townsend, Mr. Charles Lloyd, and the author of the Letters of Junius.
The fifth and sixth volumes of Lord Mahon's History of England, embracing the first years of the American war, 1763-80, were also nearly ready. We regret that the earlier volumes of this important history, edited by Professor Reed, of Philadelphia, and published by the Appletons, have not been so well received as to warrant an expectation that the continuation will be reprinted.
Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France, is an exceedingly interesting work, of which we hope to see an American edition. The author is well known in this country, by the largely circulated volume of his Miscellanies, published in Philadelphia, a few years ago. The present work consists of discourses delivered by him as professor of History in the University of Cambridge, and though not of the highest rank among systematic histories, it is inferior to very few in occasional grouping and character painting.
The third volume of Mr. Merrivale's History of the Romans under the Empire; the ninth and tenth volumes of Mr. Grote's History of Greece; and a seventh edition of Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, are among the most interesting English announcements in historical literature.