The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-17 00:00:00

LITERARY GOSSIP.

SEPTEMBER, 185 G.
There is a pleasant half-promise floating about
just now in the shape of a literary rumour that
upon the Ist of December there will appear "with
the magazines" No. I. of a now serial story by Mr.
Thackeray. Welcome tidings, these, to the read-
ers of The Newcomes—yielding a cheerful prospect
enough that there may come fluttering down to us,
among the last droppings of the autumn foliage,
two more yellow leaves than we could have counted
upon very recently ! None the less welcome now
that we have got half way through Little Dorrit---
so that the two green leaves budding out so re-
freshingly month by month upon the bay-garlan d
of Boz, are fast approaching the term of their perio-
dical appearance. Of course Richard Doyle "will
be" the illustrator of Thackeray, as Hablet
Browne "is" of Dickens. They are the privileged
esquires bearing the helm, the lance, and the
'scutcheon of those knights of literature. As yet,
the title of Mr. Thackeray's new fiction has not
transpired.
Another rumour rejoices the hearts of the ad'
miring disciples of Mr. Thomas Carlyle with th,e,
assurance that his Life of Frederick the Great will
in all likelihood appear at last somewhere about
Christmas.

Mr. Macaulay is expected, immediately upon
his return from his holiday excursion upon the,
Continent, to take in hand with all due despite°,
and industry vols. V. and VI. of his History 01
England—rendering classic by their composition
his new house on eimpden-hill, as he has already
done those chambers in the Albany, henceforth
sacred to sight-seers as so long the abode of the
great Whig annalist.
People are beginning to wonder again whether
any fresh marvel is to be expected soon from the
most accomplished Author of the Day, at once the
Proteus and the Crichton among living men-d'
letters. Is Sir Bulwer Lytton "resting upon his
laurels," as the phrase is, and as he has long since
well earned the right to do, down in the sylvan
retreat of his own beautiful nebworth ? Or is. ne
preparing for us—where perhaps least expected'
some new astonishment ? At any rate whenever
he may essay once more to "'witch the world
with his pen of fascination—he will find eager
listeners among us all : though auditors it must be
remembered whose measure of his genius he blin"
self has rendered somewhat exacting, hearers whose
judgment in his regard the latest of his many el:
quisite masterpieces have charmed into all but
overweening fastidiousness. How high the stan-
dard marked out, for example, in prose fiction by
My Novel, in the poetic by King Arthur, in the
dramatic by Money or Richelieu, in the oratorio,
by the famous oration delivered at Edinburglial
Yet nearly everybody, who knows anything at
about it, has long since come to be little less than
all-believing in regard to the scope and 01)041
of Sir Edward's daring and flexile intelleT•
We can't for the life of us, guess what . Put
may do next, but of this we are rig".,
sure that he will do it well : that whatever
he attempts now in the full ripeness of his powers
be will accomplish to very general admiration:
Knowing which, we are, on that account, none the
less curious of course as to what may be his Delp
literary enterprise—a play or a poem, an " enlo
and perfect chrysolite" in the substantial form r
new novel all at once in three volumes octavo, or
a " lengthened sweetness long drawn out" in, .
shape of another Caxtonian serial-tale in Bo" 1
wood.
Mr. Tennyson contents himself with watching
*Maud into another "slow" edition—"with all her
.
imperfections on her head." Mr. Warren _begin.
ing the leisure snatched in rare intervals betwee;
the occupancy of the Recorder's bench in Hull an
his seat in the House of Commons as M.P. for
Midhurst, by laboriously revising for re-issue 0 :f,
luminous and compacted version of Blackstone _
Commentaries.
late`
Very few, indeed, are the book successes of
requiring any notification—the cheap reprints
monopolising public attention and flooding. the
market with much that is very good, very lam,
and very indifferent. The Poem of the Season leo
of course, Professor W. E. Aytoun's Scott-like
border-ballad in six parts, about Bothwell.
Novel of the Season being (or we are much nu;
taken) Mr. Charles Reade's Never too Late to
The Biography of the Season still remaining Mr'
H. G. Lewes's Life and Times, of Goethe. while
about the " gracefullest " little Love-tale of the
Season is, to our thinking, that one penned by the
charming and indefatigable authoress of " Mart
Powell," all about Tasso and Leonora as viewed
through the eyes of one of Ser Pantaleone
Not a little expectation is awakened by the way
in literary circles by the announcement of No. 1
(price 2d.) and Part I. (price 10d.) of a new weekly-
monthly-illustrated periodical, to be called. the
National Magazine, now about to make its appear'
ance under the joint editorship of Mr. John Satin'
ders, once upon a time Editor of "The People's
Journal," and Mr. Westland Marston the accom-
plished playwright, author as such of " The Pa'
trician's Daughter." A publication—comprising in
a single twopenny number (as the initial .nunlber
premises to do) a tale of mystery by Wilkie Collins,
an engraved portrait of the Poet Laureate, and se
essay by Sir David Brewster himself, descriptly!
of his latest and, almost we had said, his greatest
discovery "The Stereoscope"—promises, we cannot
but think, to command success. May it deserve
and, deserving, win it.