Progression Constante de la Démocratie pendant soixante ans, is the title of a new Parisian brochure well noticed. Of the same character is the Le Mont-Saint-Michel, by Martin Bernard, a serial publication devoted to the details of the sufferings of Democratic martyrs. The author is now in exile, having shown himself too republican for the present Republic.
Victor Hugo's paper, L'Evènement, says of Louis Philippe's Gallery at the Palais Royal, which the heirs now wish to sell, that it has two paintings of Gericault's, the Chasseur and the Cuirassier, and that they symbolize the two phases of the Empire, victorious France and the Invasion. He hopes, therefore, that they will not be permitted to go out of France.
William Howitt is writing a life of George Fox.
Mr. Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature is reviewed in La Revue des Deux Mondes by Prosper Merimee, of whose recent travels in the United States we have had occasion to speak once or twice in The International. M. Merimee is the author of a Life of Peter the Cruel, of which a translation has been published within a few months by Bentley in London, and he professes to be thoroughly acquainted with Spanish literature, from a loving study of it while residing in Spain. Perhaps he had some thought of writing its history himself; he certainly seems to bestow unwillingly the praises he is compelled to give Mr. Ticknor, whose extraordinary merits he however distinctly admits. "The writer of this History," he says, "has gone into immense researches; he has applied himself deeply and conscientiously to the Castilian language and the Spanish authors: he has read, he has examined, every thing that the English, French, and Germans, had published on this subject. He possessed an advantage over the critics of old Europe—that of being able to treat literary questions without mixing up with them recollections of national rivalries." He concludes his article by saying, "This work is an inestimable repertory; it must be eminently useful in a library. It comprises very good biographical notices of the Spanish authors, and numerous abstracts which obviate the necessity of reference to the original authorities. The translations, which are copious, are executed with surpassing taste, to afford an idea of the style of the Spanish poets. Thanks to the flexibility of the English language, and the ability or command of the author in using it, the translations are of signal fidelity and elegance. The rhythm, the flow, the idiomatic grace and curiosa felicitas, are rendered in the most exact and the happiest manner."
By a letter in the London Times, signed Ernesto Susanni, it appears that M. Libri may be a very much wronged person. The readers of the International will remember his trial, a few months ago, and his condemnation to ten years' imprisonment (in default of judgment), and deprivation of the various high offices he held, for having, as was alleged, stolen from the Mazarine Library, besides others, the following volumes: Petrarca, gli Triomphi, 1475: Bologna, in folio; Pamphyli poetæ lepidissimi Epigrammatum libri quatuor; Faccio degli Uberti, opera chiamata Ditta Munde Venezia, 1501, quarto; Phalaris Epistole, traducte del Latino da Bartol: Fontio, 1471, quarto; Dante, Convivio: Florence, 1490, quarto; &c. M. Susanni alleges that the learned bibliographer, M. Silvestre, has discovered in the Mazarine Library that, contrary to the very circumstantial affirmation of the deed of accusation, the above-mentioned books are still in their places on the shelves of that library, from which they have never been absent, and where any one may go and see them, and verify the fact for himself. The persons employed to draw up the charges against M. Libri never appeared to understand that two different editions of a work were totally different things, and they have accused M. Libri of having stolen a work from a public library, simply because M. Libri possessed an edition of that work, though different from the one the library had lost, or, better still, which it had never lost at all. Considering all the circumstances, and the attention which was attracted to the case throughout the learned world, this is very curious: it will form one of the most remarkable of the causes célèbres.