The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-07 00:00:00

MR. BOHN'S THREE NEW VOLUMES.

Essays by John Foster on Decision of Character,
4-c. One vol., pp. 342. Thirtieth Edition.

The Grimm' Gammer Grethel's liaiu Tales.
Translated by Edgar Taylor. Illustrated by
George Cruikahank and Ludwig Grimm. One

vol., pp. 306.
Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual. Part IX., pp.
315. A New Edition, Revised, Corrected, and
Enlarged by H. G. Bohn.
It is among the most striking peculiarities of Mr.
Bohn's standard series of publications, that they
appear, not one by one, but in monthly batches.
Another characteristic—necessitated by the mere
fact of this simultaneous issue of periodical additions
to several distinct libraries—should also be here
especially particularised, namely, that of the vivid
contrast prosented to view by the diversity of the
subjects treated upon in the volumes thus coming
to us side by side. A more remarkable illustration
of this vivid contrast of themes could hardly be
desired, than that now noticeable in regard to the
three goodly volumes just issued from the press by
Mr. Bohn, simultaneously with the magazines for
October. The last mentioned on the list of these
three, as above given, is of itself an extraordinary
example of careful researca and most lucid arrange-
ment, although it is, in itself, merely a portion of
a very elaborate catalogue raisonnee of "rare,
curious, and useful books, published in, or relating
to, Great Britain and Ireland, from the invention cf
printing" downwards; together (as the very title
page minutely intimates), " bibliographical and
critical notices, collations of the rarer articles,"
and commemorative records of the prices at which
they have been sold in the present century. Ad-
mirably comprehensive though the original
" Manual," as compiled by Mr. T. Lowndes, un-
doubtedly was, the present issue of it (in a new and
cheap series of parts, of which it will be seen
that the one now before us is the ninth), mast
not be supposed to be purely and simply a verbatim
republication. An examination of even the one
isolated instalment here submitted to our notice
will show how complete has been the revision, how
painstaking the correction, and how considerable
the enlargement of the original work, as it is now
being given to the world of letters in a popular and
periodical form by the learned publisher who has
himself undertaken the responsibility of editing it.
Although Part IX., extending as it does from p.
2401 to p. 2746, embraces within the compass of
those 345 double-columned pages separate paragraph
notices merely from " Simon" to " Utterson," it is
remarkable to number up how many of those notices
have been not only revised, but we might even say
bodily re-written, by Mr. Bohn, from the compara-
tively bald original of Mr. Lowndes. Among these,
moreover, being notices as profoundly interesting
in themselves as those relating to Tacitus and
Sophocles, to Sterne and Smollett, to Terence,
Thomson, Turner, and Thucydides. Above all,
this ninth instalment of Luwndes's Manual, as
revised by Mr. Bohn, is especially deserving of
praise for the flood of light thrown by it upon
many doubtful particularsinTreessfaemetentto. the earlier
editions of the English New

As to the world-famous Essa;;;f-iohn Foster,
of the John Foster, the friend of Robert Hall, one
of the profoundest Thinkers among the Dissenting
body in England, one of the most delicate and subtle
analysts of the human mind and character
known in this country since Locke—these writ-
ings of John Foster's, now issued from the
Press by Mr. Bohn as another of his three-
and-sixpenny volumes, have long and long ago
taken their place among the recognised classics of
English
prose literature. The tonbre of their merit
is visibly stamped upon the title-page in the two
significant words, " Thirtieth Edition." Few prose
works in the language—not written by one of the
Dii Majores of English Prose Literature (which, it
is hardly necessary to remark, John Foster, with all
his merits, undoubtedly was not)—have any more
obvious claim to re-publication in a series such as
Mr. Bohn's—a Standard Library of acknowledged
masterpieces.

The opportuneness of the re-publication, this
October, of the renowned German Fairy Tales and
Popular Stories
as (nominally) told by Gammer
Grethel, but as (actually) collected together, for
the first time, some fifteen years ago, by the cele-
brated Brothers Grimm—the opportuneness of the
re-publication of this delightful work, just now, is
something
especially noticeable ! The survivor of
those two most learned, yet must popularly well
known, and even well-beloved men of letters,
having but so very recently breathed his last—

a ..---
at a ripe old age certainly, but still, though
8 dying in his eightieth year, dying then to
a the profound grief of his multitude of admirers
L. not only in Germany but far and wide all through
0 the educated classes of Christendom. Jacob Grimm
3,
was the elder of those two brothers—William, his.
s younger brother, having expired some little time
previously. Now that they have both of them
a Passed away from the midst of us, we can turn only
• the more gratefully to the reperusal of the charm-
° lug works which are the fruits of their researches
r in the old world lore of their romantic fatherland.
1 Here, in this collection of Gammer Grethel's Fairy
f Tales and Popular Stories, we have grouped together
seine of the most palateable and appetising of those
e
same fruits. The fun and frolic abounding in them
who could well add to ? Well—yes ! there are
two who have shown that they could add to the
-
o laughter-moving fun and frolic of the quaint
tales and fantastic stories here related by
Jacob Grimm and William Grimm through the
t
lips of that dear merry old soul, Gammer Grethel—
ci two whose tickling pencils have capped the climax
e of all this literary comica ity with the added grace
of their artistic embellishments, to wit, Ludwig
a
Grimm and our own inimitable George Cruik-
--
shank ! Witness this—(p. 260) Peewit's gulls
(men, not birds) diving into the lake after imagi-
nary flocks of sheep !—(p. 219) the Cobbler and his
0 Wife grinning behind the curtain at the little
e elves who are capering into their exceedingly small-
,(p.),
clothes !—or, again 1
,Dammling's Procession
a of the Goose, treading heel upon heel !—or, far
e and away, the funniest fancy of them all (p. 82)
the unhappy soldier who was the victim of
I the Nose Tree—his nose (while seated under its
branches) growing,itgrowing, growing miles upon
ie nailed, trailed along the ground, over hill and over
dale. So that his two friends, who have missed him,
d —stumbling over it—trace hiss by it gradually to
d
the very root (it matters not whether of the tree or
t.
Lt of the nose) after a long day's journey. Reading
the story, as here related, looking at the Mus-
a tration as here drawn—one is almost fit to die with
)t laughing :—imagining all the consequences of hav-
I ing such a nose! The necessity of sending off
an express train, for example, in the event of the
1,
tip of it itching, as the only possible means
1 of enjoying the luxury of having it rubbed !
'with other kindred extravagances. Without
e a doubt of it, the Grimma' version of Gam-
'. mer Grethel, as here translated by Edgar
d Taylor, and embellished by those two congenial
draughtsmen Ludwig Grimm and George Cruik-
e
shank, will prove, or we are marvellously mistaken,
d one of the most popular additions Mr. Bohn could
a well have made to his Illustrated Library. Grimma'
Gamtner Grethel being, in fact, a worthy companion
s volume to the Danish Legends and Fairy Tales of
-, Hans Christian Andersen.
y .1);

'ractieal Guide for Italy. Sixth Edition. Pp.

301. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
For the coin•of coins most generally in circulation,
not only in France but in all parts of the continent,
the silvery five- franc piece, any Rome-ward, not
home-ward bound voyageur, may supply himself
With this popular and practical little guide-book
to Italy. It is one of the very best informed
cicerones he could possibly procure anywhere,
and is certainly also one of the cheapest. Emulat-
ing in hue, if in nothing else, the more costly
and classic Murray, it appears, this compact guide,
as (what it calls itself) a Red Book for Italy. It is
hot only a guide in Italy, but to Italy—giving the
whole length of the various routes from London to
all parts of the Roman Peninsula, together with a
complete intinerary through Italy itself, of course,
but beyond that, also, through France, Savoy, and
Switzerland. The letterpress descriptions are ren-
dered all the more intelligible by a judicious
sprinkling among them of divers maps, plans, and
illustrations.

To the Pyramids ! —Under this title, one
"A. M." has just issued from Mr. Hogarth's esta-
blishment a droll series of lithographic sketches
in a folding oblong form—a succession of odd little
drawings of the draughtman's visit " To the Pyra-
mids," and of what there befel him in Upper Egypt.
Several of the " situations" are pencilled with a
good deal of humorous extravagance.

Ballooning for Military Purposes.

The members of the Ordnance Select Committee,
with General Sir David Wood, R.A. ; Major-Gen.
Sandham, Governor of the Royal Military Academy;
Brigade-Major Milward, and other officers, assem-
bled at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, yesterday
afternoon, to witness ascents with Mr. Coxwell's
large balloon, the War Department having sanc-
tioned a series of experiments in order to ascertain
the value of balloons when used to reconnoitre the
movements of an army in the field, or to obtain
information as to the position of an enemy's forces.
The Whole of the available troops in garrison
had previously marched out in two diviaiens—the
Royal Marines and infantry, commanded by Col.
Mitchell, to Chislehurst, and the Royal Artillery,
commanded by Col. Travers, to Bexley Heath.
The monster balloon having been inflated with
35,000 cubic feet of gas at the Arsenal works was
removed by a detachment of Royal Engineers to
the gun park; and a rope attached to the balloon
having been lashed to one of the guns, Mr. Coxwell,
with Capt. Beaumont and Lieut. Grover, of the
Royal Engineers, took their seats in the car and the
balloon was allowed to ascend about three quarters
of a mile. At the expiration of one hour a descent
was made, and Mr. Coxwell presented the following
report :-_Time 2.12; thermometer, 49; barometer,
29.1' view to the coast clear for 30 miles; very
hazy inland; the river beautiful; Gravesend and
Purfleet clearly overlooked. Time, 2.22 ; ther., 49 ;
bar., 29.3. Slight oscillation. Time, 2.25 ; ther.,
51; bar. 20.60. Clouds or mist to S. fir. ;
splendid view for ariel photography.
Three subsequent ascents were made with Captain
Heyman, secretary of The Ordnance Select Com-
mittee, and ther officers, and the troops were seen
whilst returning home, headed by the bands of the
two divisions. Ultimately, about five o'clock, the
balloon was set free from the ropes, and conveyed
CoZWell and 111 r. Glaisher across the river to
the Essex shore, where it descended. The experi-
ments are considered highly satisfactory.

THE WOLVE
ItllA.Thii,TioND DUDLEY MYSTE-
RIES.—At the city of Gloucester police-court on Mon-
day, Thos, Churchill and Henry Barnes, alias "the Match-
man," travellers, were brought up in custody. Superin-
tendent Griffin, addressing the magistrates, said it would no
doubt be in the recollection of their worships that a man
named Chenerry was some lime ago found dead in a house
at Wolverhampton, his body being far gone in a state of de-
()preposition, and that a woman named Rosannah Steadman,
-who had lived with Chenerry, was found dead in a house
at Dudley, her body alsl, like that of her paramour, being
much decomposed. On Saturday night he (Mr. Griffin)
eaw Churchill talking to a policeman at Gloucester.
Churchill said Barnes had confessed to him that he was con-
cerned in the Wolverhampton murders, and that he had seen
in the papers that the police were in search of him. Both
men were afterwards apprehended, and the prisoner Barnes
was found to correspond with the description given of " The
llatchman," the man who is stated to have cohabited with
Steadman. He (the superintendent) had written to Wol-
verhampton and Dudley, and asked the magistrates to order
the prisoners to be detained until replies were received.
Churchill begged that he might be set at liberty, Barnes
Wished to make a statement, but, having been cautioned by
the magistrates, said he would defer what he had to say
"it
orderedbe got to Wolverhampton. The prisoners were
that he to be locked up. Barnes told the superintendent
i 8 e. native of Birmingham, and that he travels with
matejheliti7eeuvians," and hence the nickname of " The
CONFEDERATE CRUISERS —MkURITIUS, Sept. 5.
--The'
the 9th of Au
'l4 which arrived here from Nantes on
four miles to gust, states that on the 28th of June, about
leeward of Trinity Island, she passed a two-
roosted screwsteac,mnaferr
eide, bearing the 'rated black outside and yellow in-
rvn
board. At the rate flag, and having about 140 men
time she was close to an American ship,
-apparently searching her.
Another large ship, probably a
proceeded was anchored in the bay, to which place the steamer
p, and took shelter behind a cluster of small
islands, supposed on the look out for other
st Fr vessels.
hag spur, arrived in the river e-
London, Oct. 6—The Fly ee
ports that on the 15th of Aug, lat. 31 S , lon 18' Er ,
miles, a S., long.
Capeland bearing E., distant u4O
g E
came off towards her, showin
she had seen any American shipnglish colours, asking if ; being answered in the
negative, the steamer hauled down the English colours and
hoisted the Confederate flag. She was brig rigged, ap-
parently a very fast vessel, and with a great number of men
showing on her decks.