The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-05-06

count of the perpetual strain she puts upon it.
She has earned by her pen, it is reported, in
GLIDING her pay for Deronda, from $180,000 to
100000.
Bret Harte modestly says; ''Of course am
glad that the public appreciates my sketches
of the odd characters frequently met with on
the Pacific slope: but you and and every 9TH
er Californian know that have not half done
justice to the subjects. considering the materi-
al at hand. have just stuck the pick in, and
struck paying pocket. Somebody ese will
come along and prospect in the same hole and
strike the true yein.''
M. d. Conway, writing to the Cincinnati
Commercial from London, says, 81 don't know
how far the works of Professor Fl. S. Maine,
which Messrs Holt have had the enterprise to
issue in America, have circulated among you,
but on this side of the ocean be is known as the
most thorough and philosophical explorer liv-
ing of all embryonic phase through which soci-
ETY. and law have passed, and no man can be
regarded as competent to deal with comparative
politics of sociology who has not mastered his
works.
The London Publishers Circular, speaking of
current novel literature, says: "Mr. William
Black is making an advance, but in by no
means so marked way as Mrs. Lynn Linton,
whose Lean Dundas' brings her nearly abreast
of George Eliot, who, by the way, in her palms.
taking and careful building up of long story,
seems to have rather tired and chilled her
readers. Two things are noticeable in all these
writers: the chief interest of the plot centers
around women, and the women are by no
means heroic. The heroes of Shakespeare are
angels of light to some of these wayward and
often lurid heroines. We are especially thank
full that the chief Of our writers seems to be
about to draw the character of a pure and good
man.
Mr.. Robert Buchanan according to letter
of Moncure D. Conway in the Cincinnati Com
mercial) is about to bring libel suit against
the poet Swinburne, aud also the proprietor of
the Examiner (P. A. Taylor, NJ. P) and its
editor (William Minto), whom he charges with
a conspiracy to ruin him. 1t seems that short
time ago pamphlet on contemporary poets ap-
peared in London, under the name of Thomas
Maitland. 1t condemned all the younger po-
cts, and heartily praised Buchanan-which was
all very well, until the discovery was made
that Thomas Maitland was noue ether than
Buchanan himself! Mr. Swnburne, in the
Examiner, retaliatcd in an excoratiou which
has undoubtedly stung Buchanan into another
of his insanely egotistical fits.
A correspondent of the Academy proposes an
International Congress of Librarians, with es-
pecial reference to economy by cooperation in
cataloguing. AT present every librarian cata-
logues new books independently, SO that the
same work is done hundred times over, with
great waste of labor. "Yet what would be cas-.
ier," says this writer, "than to have my slip
printed and any number of copies sent round
by book-post to every library in Europe? With
little arrangement! every English book might
be catalogued at the British Museum, every
French book at the Bibliotheque Rationale,
every German book at the Royal Library at
Berlin, every Russian book at st. Petersburg,
etc. At trifling expense these slips might be
sent to every small or large library, and each of
them might have three or four kinds of cata-
logues-an alphabetical catalogue of the au-
thors, chronological catalogue, catalogue
classified according to subjects, etc. Even
when library is too poor to buy book the
slip might be useful in its catalogue" He
adds: "There are, of course, other ways in
which the same object might be obtained, if
only the principal libraries would agree on
common line of action. Each author might be
requested to write a proper slip of his own
book, and the publisher might forward
copies of these slips with the book ITSELF" A
suggestion similar to the latter has been indie
pendently made by the Publishers Weekly, at
the instance of Mr.. Justin Winsor of the Bos-
ton Public Library, viz, that publishers
should insert in the books they send out a bio.
graphical record of the title, etc., on uniform
sized slips of stiff paper"