The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Statesman's Yearbook for 1867. By Frederick

Martin. Macmillan and Co.

Another annual reprint of this most valuable—in

its way this really invaluable—compilation, more
than simply sustains its reputation. It enhances
it. And it does so for this simple reason, that never
since the occasion of its first appearance has the
compiler of it been surrounded by so many difficul-
ties. Difficulties so multifarious of their kind, and so
glaringly obvious under the circumstance;, that
Punch had recently a joke in connexion with them,
to the effect that the Editor's Room at the Alma-
?lack de Gotha was in a state of panic-confusion,
by reason of the all but impossibility of revising in
time for the now year an accurate guide to the
royal houses of Europe so soon after the Bismarck
boulevers,,ment. There is but one solitary oversight
of any noticeable kind that we can anywhere detect
in this rapidly compiled and minutely revised re-
issue of The Statesman's Yearbook for the year of
grace just commenced. And it is an oversight that
we stumble across at the very threshold. It occurs
on page xiii.—a page dedicated to a categorical enu-
meration of the Sovereigns of Europe in 1867
among whom we look in vain for the name, style,
and title of his Holiness. It might naturally enough
have been presumed, however, that in this ellision
or elimination of the name of Pius IX. from among
the Sovereigns now Reigning the editorial com-
piler of the Yearbook was simply endeavouring
to seize Time by the Forelock after the manner
of whom shall we say ?—well, of Zadkiel or of Dr.
Cumming, the Times' Beemaster and the self-
appointed Explainer of the Apocalypse. Only—in
the analysis upon the very next page (p. xiv.), upon
the back of that selfsame leaf, in the analysis
(already quoted by us in Ihe Sun verbatim), an
analysis showing at a glance, in parallel columns,
the Political Changes of Half-a-Century—there, in
the column set apart for a list of the Sovereigns of
Europe in this present year of grace 1867, side by
side with the much fuller list for the year of grace
1817—in each of those two lists duly appears the
two words "Pope—Rome"—the Papacy remaining
to this moment (though, no doubt, wonderfully
contracted as to the boundaries of its temporal
dominions) intact as a sovereignty. As a dis-
passionate, honest, copious, admirably-arranged,
and easily-consulted store of information in
regard to all the great Powers of the earth, the
" Statesman's Year Book" is to this moment not
only without any rival whatever, but entitled to
hold its place by right of its intrinsic excellence,
without :any fear of competition. A better guide-
book we don't know, or one that can be turned to
for information with sach absolute certainty of that
precise information being found whenever the book
comes to be consulted.

Vanostroches Recetill Choisi. Nouvelle Edition.
Guillaume Tegg.

It would be interesting to know the number of
editions that have now appeared of this famous
elementary schoolbook, the Receuil Choisi of N.
Wanostrocht. There is no clue whatever to the
precise number upon the title-page of the present
re-issue of it this " nouvelle edition" for
1867. Whatever the multiplicity of preceding
editions, however many they may have been-,
this New one is iu several respects an un-
doubted improvement upon the best of its
predecessors. It is by reason of its careful
revision under the hand of its new editor, the
Chevalier d'Chatelain—an accomplished F rench
honzme de lettres, long since naturalized in this
country, and himself honourably known in the lite-
ratures both of France and England. Of the body
of the work under notice it would be idle, nay
almost ridiculous, to say one word, nowadays—
Wanostrocht's " Receuil Choisi" being about the
best known, and the best thumbed book compiled for
inducting of English students into a knowledge
of the French language. Of the completion of the
work now, however, by the supplementing to
it of English poems, and afterwards of French
poems, each accompanied on the confronting pages
with appropriate translations as nearly as possible
line for line and stanza for stanza, we may, and in
fact ought, to say a word or two, if only en passant.
Gracefully referring to the English poems thus
supplemented to the number of fifteen, the editor
of this new and as far as practicable perfected edi-
tion of the Receuil Choisi takes occasion to remark
in his Preface :—" Que cette partie nouvelle du livre
laisse de charmants souvenirs dans l'esprit de nos
jeunes lecteurs, nous n'ens dontons pas, vu le
merits reconnu de chacun des Poetes Anglais que
nous citons." About the merits of the French Poets,
of whom specimens are given afterwards, he is never-
theless altogether dumb—his speech just now being
indeed silver and his silence thus immediately after-
wards golden in its eloquence—when it is remem-
bered that among the French Poems given, there are
some by himself, as well as others by Arnault, Victor
Hugo, and Deschamps. One of the editor's own
(Le Rere d'un petit Enfant) being, in truth, as ex-
quisite a morceaux as there is in the volume. The
list of poetical writers honoured by quotation in
this new issue of the " Receuil Choisi" comprises
within its restricted range the names of Joseph
Addison, Robert Burns, Thomas Campbell, William
Felicia Hemans, Leigh
Barnes, Gerald Griffin,
Hunt, Charles Kent, Charlotte Smith, and Robert
Southey. The translators of the foregoing are
various, and for the most part very noticeable in-
deed for their accuracy.

ERSONAL INJURIES.—TwO actions were yester•
day tried before Mr. Under-Sheriff Burchell and a jury at
the Sheriffs' Court, Red Lion-square, in which judgment
was suffered by default, brought for personal injuries of a
serious character through the gross negligence of the driver
of a horse and cart. Mr. Gibbons was counsel for the com-
plaining parties, and the defendant did not appear. In the
first case, Houghton and Wife v. Balding, it appeared that
Mrs. Houghton was driving a cart and horse at Snetsham,
Norfolk, where her husband was a plumber, when the de-
fendant, a farmer in the neighbourhood (whom Mr. Gib-
bons, in his address to the jury, described as being in a
state of intoxication), ran with his horse and cart against
her vehicle, and she was thrown out and much injured.
Her appearance in the witness-box denoted that she had
suffered severely, and her husband, who was also exa-
mined, said the defendant had paid the doctor, and he did
not want heavy damages. He lost £2O by the accident,
and the jury gave £3O damages, In the second case,
Parsons and Wife v. Balding, it appeared that Mrs. Par-
sons, the mother of Mrs. Houghton, was in the cart with
her daughter when the collision occurred. She had suffered
very much, and exhibited her arm to the jury, which had
been permanently injured. She had, as well as her daughter,
been attended by a chemist named Clarke, who was called
as a witness. Mr. Gibbons told the jury that he was sa-
tisfied with the verdict in the last case, and ho thought the
case of Mrs. Parsons was entitled to the same considera-
tion. Mr. Under-Sheriff Burchell, in placing the case be-
fore the jury, said the accident was very severe to the old
lady,who had been permanently disabled in her right hand.
The defendant did not appear, and had admitted his mis-
conduct, leaving the matter to the jury to assess the
amount of compensation. The jury awarded £2O. In each
case the damages were laid at £5OO.
THE CATTLE PLAGUE.—Tile return of the re-
ported cases of cattle plague in Great Britain, issued
by authority of the Lords of the Privy Council, for the
week ending Saturday, Doc. 29, 1866, states the following
facts the concluding week of the year 1866 the pre-
valence of cattle plague showed a tendency to increase.
During the week ending Dec. 29 nine attacks are reported
to have occurred in Great Britain, being an excess of three
on the previous week. Three fresh outbreaks of the disease
took place, the number in the week preceding being also
three. One hundred and eighteen healthy cattle were
slaughtered from having been in contact with infected ani-
mals. The attacks reported are for the following two Petty
Sessional Divisions—viz., Yorkshire, (East Riding) Scuth
Holderness, four cows and four calves ; and Market Weigh
ton, ono steer. The number of animals attacked since the
commencement is 253,807, and 52,616 healthy cattle have
been slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease.
ARREST OF A SUPPOSED FENIAN IN LIVERPOOL.
—Yesterday Patrick Murphy, a respectable-looking
young man, was charged before the Liverpool magistrates
with having in his possession a Government rifle andT6
form belonging to the 28th Middlesex (London Irish)
Volunteers. He was arrested at Liverpool, in company
e
with two of his brothers, on Wednesday evening. The
uniform was found in his bed-room and the rifle in the
parlour where he was sitting. The prisoner's explanation
was that he was a member of the corps, but had not at-
tended drill for two years. The case was remanded to
obtain witnesses to character.

The bishops are having their full share of illness
throe were unable to hold their ordinaries —the Bishops a
London, Exeter, and Hereford ; a fourth, the Bishop a
Bath and Wells, has also been seriously ill.—The Lancet.