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Literary Notes.

A BIOGRAPHY of Don John of Austria (1546-78) is in preparation by W. Stirling, Esq., of Keir, M.P. (b. 1818), author of the "Cloister Life of Charles V.." whose natural son Don John was.

Francis Espinasse, one of the most versatile and Яuent of the littérateurs of the metropolis, promises "The Life and Times of Voltaire."

Adolphe Schule, pastor of Heersun near Hildesheim, botanist, died September 26.

Professor M. Deutinger, of Munich, author of “ Rénan and Miracles." &c., died at Bud Präffers, September 28.

The grand-nephew of Mirabeau, Count Horace de Keïlcastel, archæ logist, journalist, and novelist, died Sep

tember 30.

The Vth vol. of Carlyle's "Life of Frederick the Great" is already in type, and the author is said to be nearly finished with Vol. VI. They are likely to be simultaneously issued in February.

Captain Andrew Torrens (brother of the late Colonel Torrens, the political economist), one of the early editors and managers of the Globe, which latter office he held till his death, expired October 7, aged 76.

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Lord Dufferin, great-grandson of R. B. Sheridan, born 1826, author of Lispings in Low Latitudes," and "Letters from High Latitudes," has been appointed Under Secretary for India.

The Globe edition of the works of William Shakspere, by William Glelark and W. A. Wright, superintendents of the Cambridge Shakspere, is to be issued in November, price 3s. 6d.

The Bampton Lectures for 1864, on the Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, by the Rev. Thomas Dehaney Bernard, M.A., of Exeter College, Oxon., gainer of the Theological Essay prize, 1838, "On the Conduct and Character of St. Peter," and the

English Essay prize, 1839, "On the Classical Taste and Character compared with the Romantic," and now Rector of Walcot, are in the press.

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Ferdinand Lasselle, the Silesian phi losopher, politician, and poet (b. 1824), author of Heraclitus the Sad," "The Theory of Right," &c., was shot in a due by a Wallachian prince, and died at Geneva, August 31.

The Life of the Rev. Wm. Canningham, D.D., Principal of the New College, Edinburgh, is to be written by the Rev. James Mackenzie, of Free Abbey Church, Dunfermline, author of a "History of Scotland," and editor of the Free Church Record.

Charles Mackie, author of "The Castles, Palaces, and Prisons, of Mary Queen of Scots," died September 29.

Sir Charles Lyell's address at the British Association at Bath has been issued as a pamphlet (translated) in Germany.

David Pollok, A.M., brother and biographer of Robert Pollok, author of The Course of Time," died September 19.

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MM. Perière are about to issue in Paris an enormous Encyclopædia, to comprise the whole knowledge of humanity, in about 200 vols.

Grotis's " "History of Greece" has been translated into French by M. A. L. de Sadons.

A Thesaurus of French Literature, from the Period of the Revolution of 1789, by K. Graesser, has been issued by Brockhaus.

A new edition, partly re-written and wholly revised, of Bailey's Festus" is promised.

A new edition of Dante's poems, from a MS. of the fourteenth century, in the library of Monte Cassino, is to be issued by the Benedictine monks in Dante's sexcentenary year, 1865.

Joseph Scaliger's poems, Greek and Latin, have just been republished.

The Rev. C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Vicar of Doncaster, is editing, in parts, "The Epistles of St. Paul," in chronological order, with introductions, the authorized version, a literal English translation, with commentary, notes, and a paraphrastico-explanatory interpretation, to enable English readers unacquainted with the Greek language to enter with intelligence into the meaning, connection, and phraseology of the great apostle. Each epistle is to form a separate part, and to vary in price with its size.

Mr. Partridge, of Wellington, Salop. claims to have bought, in a parcel of waste paper, a couple of autographs of Shakspere. They occur in a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, black letter, date 1596. At the foot of one William page appears the words

Shakspeare." and on another page, "W. Shakspear, 1600." The signatures are said to be in "the ink of the period."

John Macrae Moir, secretary of the Scottish Hospital, London, has in the press a work on Capital Punishment, founded on the Lodes-Straffe" of the celebrated jurisconsult and politician, C. J. A. Mittermaier (b. 1787), Professor of Law in Heidelberg-the Bentham of Germany.

Mr. Robert Buchanan, whose "Undertones" have been gratefully heard in the concert of British poets, has in rehearsal at Sadler's Wells a new poetic drama, entitled "The Witchfinder."

A statue of Immanuel Kant [of whom see a sketch in British Controversialist, Aug. and Sept., 1863] was inaugurated at Könisberg, 18th Oct., by the Crown Prince of Prussia.

A small tract, containing a few letters written to the Hon. Wm. B. Reed, brother of the late Henry Reed (Professor of Rhetoric in Pennsylvania University, whose "Lectures on English History and Poetry" are so widely read), has been published for private circulation.

A memorial tower has been erected

at Ramewz, in Silesia (where he was born), in honour of Lessing.

An Italian translation of Darwin's "Origin of Species" has been published at Modena.

The Philosophical Society's new Dictionary, projected six years ago, is progressing, and an instalment will shortly, we understand, be forthcoming.

A volume of plays, entitled The Theatre of Nohant," has been published by George Sand (née Amantine, Lucile Aurore Dupin, Mrs. Dudevant, b. 1804). They were written and performed at her own residence at Nohant, and hence its name.

Statues of Leibnitz, Milton, Descartes, Galileo, and Raphael, are to adorn the Pesth Academy.

A correspondence between Voltaire and the sister of Frederick the GreatMargravine of Bairenth-has been discovered, and is to be published.

M. Baptie has been appointed to the newly reinstituted chair of political economy at the School of Law in Paris.

The writings of Charles Lamb, hitherto uncollected from The Reflector (1810-11), The London Magazine (1820-9), The Englishman's Magazine (1831-2), The Athenæum (1829-34), &c., are to be published shortly, under the editorship of an American gentleman, by Messrs. Ticknor and Field, and will soon be reissued and welcomed here.

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Walter Savage Landor (b. 1775), author of Imaginary Conversations (1824-9), "Hellenics" (1847), &c., died at Florence, 17th Sept.

Antonio Somm, an Italian writer of tragedies, died shortly since at Venice.

The Early Scottish Church," by Rev. Thomas McLauchlan, minister of the Gaelic Free Church, Edinburgh, is in the press.

T. S. Baynes, LL.B., author of "An Essay on the New Analytic of Logical Forms,"-expository of the system of Sir Wm. Hamilton,-and translator of "The Port-Royal Logic, with Notes," &c, has been appointed Professor of

Logic, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics in the University of St. Andrew's.

The London Review informs us that recently the incomes of literary men have become a matter of discussion in the Paris journals. Of M. Louis Ulbach (b. 1822), author of "Gloriana,” a volume of poems, "Argine Piquet," a novel, "Writers and Men of Letters," &c., a correspondent says that "he has engaged to furnish three novels a year, for which the publisher allows him 1,200 fr. a month for five years' copyright of these novels, or £600 per aunum. He receives as dramatic critic of Le Temps somewhat more than £1,000 per annum, and for his correspondence to L'Independance Belge, in which a letter from his pen appears every three weeks, he is paid yearly the sum of £300. Add to these a play, which he produces every year, and for which he receives about £250. This income, however, is as nothing compared to the revenue of successful dramatists, who make their £8,000 and £10,000 per annum. M. de Lamartine (for a biographical sketch of whom see British Controversialist, June, 1860) only received £50 from Didot for bis "Meditations." His "Song of Harold's Pilgrimage" realized about £800, but now his income is some thousands per annum from the French publishers. M. Thiers received £20,000 for his famous "History of the Consulate and Empire;" Victor Hugo accepted the same sum from the Brussels publishers for his Les Misérables," whilst Jules Michelet, the historian, will only publish with the Messrs. Hachette on commission, preferring to keep the copyrights in his own hands, as is the custom with many of our English authors. It is believed that M. Michelet is the only literary celebrity in Paris who adopts this course, although it was followed by Balzac, who united in his person author, printer, and publisher, and, as might have been expected, finished his affairs in bankruptcy.

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Eighty pounds weight of letters, written by Talleyrand and the Empress

Josephine, were sold at 14d. per lb. to a butcher in St. Germain's lately!

The new commentary on the Bible, on which some of our most distinguished scholars, under the editorship of the Archbishop of York, are at work, will not be published this year.

The article on Wordsworth in the North British Review is said to be by Professor Shairp, of St. Andrew's, author of "Kilmahoe," a Highland pastoral, himself a poet of the meditative type, and a great lover of Tweedside and its ballads.

John Veitch. A.M., Professor of Logic in the University of St. Andrew's, one of the editors of the works of Sir W. Hamilton, translator of "Descartes," &c., has been transferred to the Professorship of Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow, vacant by the resignation of Professor Robert Buchanan, who has occupied that chair for forty years.

"The History of India, as told by its own Historians; comprising the Mohammedan Period from A.D. 1000," is to be published under the editorship of E. B. Cowell, from the posthumous papers of the late Sir H. M. Elliot, of the Bengal Civil Service: Dr. Reinhold Rost will edit the same author's "History, Philology, and Ethnic Distribution of the Races of India."

A portrait of Kant, by Vernet the elder, for Professor R. B. Jachman, of St. Petersburg, considered most faithful, is being copied and multiplied by photography.

Dr. Otto Tambert has issued a monograph on Paul Schede (Paulus Schedius Melissus, of Melrichtstadt, 15391600), a writer of poems in Latin and in German, author of "Meletemata."

"A History of the Sepoy War." by Mr. Kaye, is announced as founded on the correspondence of Lord Canning, Sir John Lawrence, Sir James Outram, &c., eye-witnesses of the events.

The only copy of the first edition (1605) of Cervantes' "Don Quixote " known to exist has just been acquired for the National Library at Madrid.

The Eloquence of the Platform, the Hustings,

the Vestry, and the Lecture-room.

THE platform is a modern institution. Public meetings and the right of free speech have given origin to a new mode of address and a fresh form of eloquence. The Times has declared that "the easiest means of gaining a public character in Britain is that presented by the platform.' We greatly doubt the correctness of the statement. The effective occupation of the platform is a task not accomplishable by many men; nor do all those who tread its conspicuous height succeed in putting it to its true use. This arises, we believe, from the non-recognition of the fact that there is a style of eloquence, specific in its character, which secures success on the platform, while other styles of public speaking fail to be effective. Orators often feel this, without knowing how or whence it is. Many a preacher who can step into the pulpit with assured composure, trembles when he rises to speak on a platform, and fails to impress and electrify there, though capable of producing considerable stir in auditories which assemble in a place of worship, and for the purpose of being religiously instructed. Many a politician feels a more palpable shiver passing through his frame when called to declaim from a platform, than he is sensible of when haranguing in the halls of the legislature. Many a speaker whose voice sways the jury, and sometimes even affects the judge, is conscious of an unaccustomed impediment in the flow of his thoughts, and the fluency of his address, when the counsel's bar is exchanged for the close packed platform in a well-filled hall. The habits and associations of persons moving in these walks of life interfere with the ease of manner they have elsewhere acquired, and impart a sense of unusualness which mars their speech. Eloquence in platform oratory is confessedly less common than that of any other sort, and consummate adroitness is far less frequently seen in platformed halls than in any of the other great arenas of eloquence. There is an appropriateness of address from a platform seldom attained, but when heard is excessively attractive and successful. To get at the secret of this suitableness, and to discover, to some extent, its laws and its requirements, is intended to form the object of the present prelection in its earlier part. Of course the reasons for the ideas proposed for the reader's acceptance will be given as the ground of the writer's belief that there is an eloquence of the platform distinct from that of the Pulpit, the Bar, or the Parliament, and that it has laws of its own, and requirements which must receive attention, if genuine success is sought by the orator who employs it.

2 D

A public meeting is a concourse of a peculiar character, varying with the object, the promoters, the method of calling it, and the form of procedure to be adopted at it. At a public meeting the courtesies of acquiescence are reduced to a minimum. No one, unless invested with office by the free will of the meeting, can stand on his dignity; for none is acknowledged. That it is a public meeting puts all men as nearly as possible on a level. It is, for the time being, a social deliberative republic, in which each man, by hypothesis, counts for as much as another. There is no provision made for personal or social influence or position. These are all, for the time and place, abnegated and in abeyance. Public meetings

are

"Niggards of respect

To merit's unauthenticated forms."

All privileges depend on the will of the meeting, and all rights lie in their voice-except in so far as custom rules and fixes the ordinary etiquette of public meetings.*

Speech must accommodate itself to its conditions or it can never be effective, and unless effective it cannot be eloquence. would move a meeting by speech must be careful to note

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"The bearings of men's duties and desires,"

He who

and he must win their desires before he can impress them with a right sense of their duties. The first requisite in a platform speaker is sympathy-the power of loving conciliation-a fellow-feeling with the purpose, passion, movement, hope, fancy, or even whim of the time. If, by sympathy, a speaker can gain access to the hearts of the audience, he has acquired the very pivot-point of the helmwheel of mankind, and he has only to work on and from that centre of power, to move them as and whither he would. He must, therefore, be one that, with most quick agility, can turn and re-return; can make knots and undo them," but still keep possession of the master-seat of conversion-the sympathy of the audience. To be possessed of a nature, or to have acquired the art which enables us to feel, as if by transfusion, the emotions which are stirring in the inmost heart of another, and to utter, by an analogous impression of concern, language appropriate to his feelings and accordant with our own, is essential to the most effective platform oratory.

A platform speaker requires to be at once ingenious and ingenuous. Candour of view and honesty of utterance must be conjoined with plausibility and dexterity. His praise of his own party, aims, views, &c., must not be stated offensively, dogmatically, or vaingloriously; for such a method of expression will act as a poignant stimulus to opposition and dislike: nor must he rate their value too low; for that will discourage their adoption, and defeat the

* See "Public Meetings, and how to conduct them," in British Controversialist, May, 1863, p. 321.

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