The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-24 00:00:00

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS.

PROF ESSOR WILSON'S ESSAYS— Critical and
imaginative—collected together in four handsome
volumes—have just now been published by the
Messrs. Blackwood and Sons, of Edinburgh. They
are in continuation of the noble and, by this time,
voluminous edition of the worksof that great Athlete,

both physical and intellectual, who was the glory in
his:full manhood and in his old age, of the modern
Athens, as he was previously in his radiant youth
of thoselake districts with which his memory, no less
than the memories of three other poets, his contem-
poraries and friends—William Wordsworth, Robert
Southey, and Samuel Coleridge—will be for ever
(so long as the English language and English litera-
ture shall last) be associated. " A mighty hunter
before the Lord," hardly less than _Nimrod of old—
equally a conqueror in his way, whether armed
with the angler's rod and tackle, the sportsman's
fowling piece, shot -pouch, and powder-flask, the
poet's pencil, the critic's pen, the punch-ladle of
Ambrose, or that monthly trumpet of Maga, whose
notes he could sound from treble to diapason as po-
tently as any among all those who have ever breathed
through it—the author of these wonderful books,
books running over with wit, eloquence, scholarship,
humour, sarcasm, pathos, wisdom, and fun, this
" fair-haired Hercules-Apollo," as he has been
happily dubbed by one of his biographers,
never could take pen in hand, no matter whether
it were steel or goosequill, no matter whether
he himself wore at the time tartan or
broadcloth, shooting-jacket, or plaidie, but, hey !
presto ! his foot was on his native heath, and his
name was Christopher North ! He was a noble
creature I A splendid specimen of the genus homo !
And so—every scrap of writing that came from his
hand, every fragment of a thought that fell from his
lips or from his pen, we find a welcome for, cordial
and spontaneous. No matter what his theme at
the moment may chance to be, or what the
form in which the whim of the moment in
duces him to embody it—Poem, Criticism,
Dialogue, Sonnet, Narrative ! Like the Ancient

Mariner, he hath his will—•come he in
any shape he lists. And so—with all our enthusiasm

for his incomparable Noctes Ambrosianx, with alt our
admiration for his " Christopher North in his Shoot-
ing Jacket," with all our delight in his didactic poetry
and in his tales about Scottish Life and about Mar-
garet Lindsay, we find a welcome hardly less eager
than4hat which we have already accorded to those
more famous works of his, with which to hail the
appearance in a collected form of these earlier
contributions of John Wilson, the great Professor
of the Edinburgh University, the greater Christopher
North of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—con-
tributions dating, many of them as far back but no

further than 182 G—forty years, in truth, from this
present time, in other words more than one whole
generation ! To particularize among Essays so won-
derfully miscellaneous both in their character and

in their treatment, were nothing less than super-
fluous, would be hardly less than ridiculous,
everything considered, so widely do they range
from grave to gay, from lively to severe. Turning
over the. leaves of the first merely of these four
goodly volumes, and glancing haphazard through
their contents, what do we find, or rather what do
we not find there, as the pegs chosen by the
young knight-errant of literature upon which
to hang up the evidences of his genius,
of his taste and of his erudition ? " Streams" and
" Gymnastics"--" The Lives of the Poets" and

"Death in the Pot"--" The Young Lady's Book"
and " Meg Dod's Cookery"—here " Health and
Longevity," there " Wordsworth"--now ".Old and
Young North, or Christopher in London and Chris-
topher in Edinburgh !" Those who want a good
hearty laugh need only turn to his Essay in this
first volume "On Early Rising !" And so--hail !
and thrice welcome to these earliest effusions of
the genius of Christopher North ! We are under a
sense of obligations to the Messrs. Blackwood for
having had them thus hunted up and published col-
lectively.

THE HANDY-VOLUME SHAKSPERE—publishing
now in the form of a Shilling Monthly Volume,
issued from the press by the Messrs. Bradbury,
Evans, and Co., of Bouverie-street, Blackfriars—
is such a veritable treasure trove in literature that
we long to see the same plan, identically, carried
out in regard to others among the Immortals. A
Handy-Volume Milton—Pope—Byron—each the
very ditto to this lovely little edition of Shakspere
—would be as welcome to us as flowers in May, as
ices in the dogdays, as plum-pudding at Christmas.
" Intended in respect to its appearance and size"

Q. 11). tells, in a brief preliminary announcement,
which follows immediately upon the title-page—
"to form a handy, readable series of volumes,
equally adapted for the Pocket, the Knapsack, and
the Railway"—the darling little Edition, as we
can't help calling it, is printed upon pages free
from notes, in type both clear and beautiful. "The

text has been arranged "—as it appears to us very
judiciously—" from a close comparison of the most
trustworthy editions such [Q.D. goes on to, explain]
as those of Mr. Collier, Mr. Dyce, Mr. Charles
Knight, Mr. Staunton, and the Cambridge
editors—not omitting the folio of 1623—with the
primary object of obtaining a reading as nearly in
accordance with what Shakspere actually' wrote."
Comprised with the compass of the First Volume,
are the whole of the five acts (each) of " The
Tempest," of the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," and
of the " Comedy of Errors." The paper is toned,
the type is exquisitely beautiful, the text is Shak-
spere puz et sinzple—Shakspere and nothing but
Shakspere. It is, besides all this, a very marvel of
cheapness as the result of a happy thought most
charmingly realized.

THE CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE—now publish-
ing in shilling monthly instalnients by the Messrs.
Frederick Warne and Co., of Henrietta-street,
Covent Garden—is not merely, .as it announces it-
self to be on its title-page, " the only authorised and
complete edition with notes" of that famous
masterpiece it is beyond all question the
very best edition of it that has ever made its
appearance. It is edited by its Author's distin-
guished son, the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P. for
Buckinghamshire, and Leader of Her Majesty's
Opposition. In ten months, that is considerably
within a year from the date of its commencement,
it will be completed in three goodly volumes—a very
treasury of scholarship and information. Informa-
tion, often the most recondite, but always conveyed
to the reader in a manner the most delightful.

NEW MUSIC.—Mr. Cocks, of New Burlington-
street, is undoubtedly a most energetic music publisher ;
because no sooner have we completed the reviewing of a
long list of novelties than another makes its appearance
and demands immediate attention. The latest productions
are two charming ballads by Fraz Abt, " Would I were a
Warbling Bird," " A Forest Ramble," and two instru-
mental pieces, one on the airs in "La Sonnambula," by
Arthur Delasure, and the other " A Rustic Rondo," by

Immanuel Liebich. The later of the two is the most cha-
racteristic piece, and one no doubt which will become a
favourite. We have no choice with respect to them, so
we say " both are best."

SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF HYDROPHOBIA.—We
regret to have to record a case of hydrophobia in this
neighbourhood. In our last we mentioned that a dog,
which showed signs of rabies, had, escaped from Mr.Higgs's
of Trescott, communicating the disorder to other dogs, and
doing other mischief. We learn that about a month ago
a'servant girl in Mr. Higg's service was tying up the dog
in question when the animal bit her on the right thumb.
She experienced no serious results until Tuesday week,
when her thumb, arm, and chest became considerably
swollen, accompanied with great heat, pain, redness, stiff-
ness, and numbness, the arm being so stiff that she was
almost unable to move it, Mr. Higgs sent for Mr. Pope,
surgeon, of this town, who saw the girl on Thursday, and
found her evidently suffering from hydrophobia, the result
of the bite of the dog. On Friday night she became Very
ill, biting cm ud tearing at almost everything near her, and
suffering much from convulsions. She repeatedly declared
that she heard the dog growling at her ; indeed, she dis-
played all the symptoms of this dreaded disease. _As sur-
gical writers on the subject do not lay down any specific
mode of treatment in cases of this kind, Mr. Pope deter-
mined to cause profuse salivation in the patient, with the
view of neutralising the poisonous character of the saliva
of hydrophobia. This is a course of procedure not often
pursued, but its beneficial effects were soon apparent. On
Sunday the convulsions and the spasms, from which the
poor girl also suffered, had ceased, and there now appears
to be every prospect of her ultimate recovery. !Wolver-
hampton Chronicle,

LA TEST INTEL LICENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAM.)

THE WAR CRISIS.

HANOVER, MAY 23.
General von Manteuffel has been at Kiel in order
to confer with the Duke of Augustenberg, and has
since returned to Schleswig. The Duke of Augus-
tenberg is said to have denied having taken any
part in any agitation hostile to Prussia, It is be-
lieved that General Manteuffel conferred with
General Gablenz and the Duke of Augustenberg
respecting the expected withdrawal of the Austrian
troops from Holstein.

BERLIN, MAY 24.
The Duke of Coburg has had a conference with
the King of Prussia.

FLORENCE, May 20.
Letters from Caprera announce that Garibaldi is
in excellent health, and is making arrangements to
leave for the continent in'a few days. His son and
daughter, Menotti and Teresita, arrived at Genoa
on the 17th inst., en route for Nice, where the Ge-
neral's brother is lying seriously ill. Ricciotti, the
younger son, arrived here from Bologna on the
evening of the 17th inst., also en route for Nice.
The Movimerto of Genoa announces that Garibaldi
will not appoint his officers until he arrives in Flo-
rence.

According to the Italie the best understanding
exists among the members of the Volunteer Corps
Committee, although composed of various elements,
comprising both generals of the army and members
of the advanced party of action. The generals have
readily accepted the traditional uniform, and have
at once admitted the officers who served with Gari-
baldi at Aspromonte.

The Ministerial order relative to the organisa-
tion of the volunteer corps states that the 20 bat-
talions fixed by the Royal decree will form 10 regi-
ments, each composed of two battalions. In the
event of the eventual formation of additional bat-
talions, the existing regiments will be completed
from them until they are raised to the strength of
the regular infantry regiments. The regiments
will be formed at the following depots :

Ist, 2d, and 3d, at Como.
4th, sth, and 6th, at Varese.
7th, and Bth, at Bari.
9th, 10th and 11th, at Barletta.
The regiments will be enrolled between the
21st and 29th inst.

Upon the formation of a regiment being ordered,
the authorities will proceed to constitute the first
company. When this shall be 80 strong the for-
mation of the next company will be proceeded with,
and so on, until the whole eight companies of
the regiment are formed. They will afterwards
be filled up until the regiment is raised to its full
strength of 42 officers and 1,404 men. The staff
of each regiment will consist of one colonel or
lieutenant-colonel, two majors, Ist and-2d adjutant-
majors, two administrative officers, one ensign, and
one regimental and one battalion doctor. In view
of the important services rendered by the Carabinier
Corps in 1859 and 1860, under Antonio Mosto, the
Volunteer Corps Committee have proposed to the
Government the formation of a similar corps in the
present volunteer force.
A Royal decree has been issued ordering the
formation of a naval squadron with the title of
" Armada of Operation," the vessels composing
which will be designated by the Minister of
Marine. It will be divided into three squadrons
as follows :

1. A squadron of battle (ironclad frigates).
2. An auxiliary squadron (screw frigates and
corvettes).

3. A blockading squadron (2d class ironclads).
The commander-in .chief of the armada will
divide the vessels under his command among the
three squadrons in the manner that he may con-
sider most expedient, and will appoint the respec-
tive flagships. Any Italian war vessel not com-
promised in the armada will be placed under the
orders of the admiral commanding in the waters
that she may enter.

The Nazione of to-day says :—" We are glad to
announce that his Majesty the King has not
accepted the resignation of Signor Scialoja, who.
will therefore continue to hold the Portfolio of
Finance."

SPAIN,

MADRID, MAY 23.

In yesterday's sitting of the Congress Senor
Bermudez de Castro, Minister for Foreign Affairs,
replied to the question put to him respecting the
bombardment of Valparaiso and the declaration of
Mr. Layard in the House of Commons, relative to
the conduct of Spain. The Minister stated
that he had informed the Foreign Governments
that Spain would have recourse to every kind of
hostility to avenge the blood already shed. If the
American Republics continued .the war with Spain
,she would continue to act • with energy against
them.