The Portland daily press., 1876-05-22
Recent Publications.
Notes..

Notes.
Miss Rhoda Broughton is engaged upon q
new novel.
The second volume of Lord Houghton's
"Monograp phs" will be his memoir of Frances,
Lady Crewe.
Mrs. Olpaant's early readers will be glad to
learn of her forthcoming novel, Phoebe junior,
a Last Chronicle of Carlingford, in which she
returns to an old field.
In the present installment OF George Eliots
new novel, Grandcourt marres Gwendolen. the
latter meets Daniel Daronda, the two are mu-
tually attracted, and the clouds begin to gather
for the coming storm.
George Macdonald's forthcoming volume,
which he calls Exotics, is dedicated To My
Friends. 1t contains translations from Ger
man and Italian authors. including Novalis,
Goethe, Schiller, and Luther.
A magnificent illustrated edition OF Victor
Hugo's Quatre-vingt-treize has recently been
published in Paris. The author himself. who
is said to have considerable artistic talent has
contributed three illustrations, and the other
engravings are by NORM, Lancon, Brion, Dani-
ell Verge, Gilbert, Karl Bodmer, and Ed. Bay
ard and their peers. The fourth volume of the
French translation of Shakespeare by Francois
Victor Hugo-the elder of the two sons of Vic
tor Hugo-has just appeared. The month be-
fore his death Francois Hugo revised the whole
edition, which is the one most valued in
France.
The Boston Public Library has recently is
sued valuable set of Catalogue Notes on
English History" printed in large type on
broadside pages, for posting in the popular de-
partments of the library and its branches,
blanks being left for the insertion Of the re-
spective shelf numbers of each place. Brief
but useful characterzations are given of the
general works, those in special periods the au-
thorities on ecclesiastical and constitutional
history, and on educational matters and tho
books on life and manners and of travel and
description. The idea should be useful in 9TH
er libraries,
Onida's new novel, In Winter City, is a
sketch of proud and wealthy English lady
who lives in Florence and is loved by an Ital-
ian duke who is quite penniless. There are
some exceedingly brilliant, but somewhat risky,
not to say outrageous studies of adultery incl
dentally introduced There is horrible bit of
dissection of the femme galante," "who has
neither the scruplss nor the follies of poor
Frou-frou; who neither forfets her place nor
leaves her lord; who has studied adultery as
one of the fine erts and made it one Of the do
mestic virtues" "who smooths her child's
curls with the same fingers that stray over her
lovers lips;' who, with her hand on her hus-
bands arm, babbles of her virtue in complsc-
ent boast; and, ignoring such vulgar word as
sin, talks with smile Of. friendship
Mr.. Edmund Scherer French writer, gives
the following unique criticism of Millions
paradise Lost" in a recent work; Paradise
Lost is false, grotesque, tresome poem; not
one reader ip hundred can go without smil-
ing through the ninth and tenth books, or
without yawning through the. eleventh and
twelfth. 1t does not hold together; it Is pyra-
mid balancing on its point-the most frightful
of problems resolved by the most puerile of
means. And yet. nevertheless, Paradise Lost
is immortal. 1t lives in virtue of some epi-
sodes which will remain for ever famous. In
opposition to Dante, whom we must read alto.
gether if we wish to possess his beauties, we
must read Milton only in fragments. But
these fragments are part of the poetic patri-
mony of the human race"
The London Athenaum says of the recently
published Life of George Ticknor that it is
"the very best book of its class that has ever
come over to US from America" 1t adds,
'Ths Life of George Ticknor will be welcomed
by many Englishmen who have traYeled in the
United Statos. for it will bring to mind one of
the pleasantest of houses, one of the kindest
of hosts. They will recall the street that faced
the green ems on the Boston Common, the
well-knowE door, the hospitable greeting. They
will see once:more that noble library, rich in
its stores of English and Spanish literature, in
its gift oooks from Byron. Southey, Words
worth, and many Others, in its folios of histori-
cal and literary autographs; and, best of all,
they will hear again the conversation Of George
Ticknor himself, so varied, so full of informa-
| tion and of soundest sense"