The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-02-16

ity which divides the humblest poet by great
gulf from the most exalted verse-maker, is is
10 De I0und 10 so remarkable an extent In Swal-
low Flights, that, for this reason aloue the
DOCK demands more notice than the most
consciously esthetc production. It bears about
IL every mark of culture: and vet there is
no trace In 1t that would have been otherwise,
even in heart or form, If no master poet had
dipped pen in ink since the days of Chaucer."
Sir Thomas Brown, contemporary Of Shaks-
peare, in his book on Vulgar Errors, INDUCED
in the following speculations In regard to the
loadstone, which reads like prophecy of the
invention of telegraphy: "There is another of
better notice and whispered through the world
with some attention, credulous and vulgar
auditors really believing it, and more judicious
aud distinctive heads not altogether rejecting
it, The conceit is excellent aud, il the effect
would follow, somewhat divine, whereby we
might mmunicate like spirits and confer on
earth th Menippus in the moon. And this
ls prete lded from the sympathy of two needles,
touched with the same loadstone, and placed
1n the centre of two abecedary circles or rings,
with letters described round about them, one
friend keeping one and another the other and
agreeing upon an hour wherein they will COM
municate. For then, saith tradition, at what
distance or place soever when one peedle shall
be removed unto any letter. the other, by
wonderful sympathy, will move unto the
same"
G. P. Putnam's Sons have in preparation
series OF volumes to be issued under the title of
"CarEentsdiscussion" They will be made up
OF the essays Of special note and permanent i'm
portance upon the questions of the time that
have been recently contributed to leading Eng
lish periodicals by representative writer's and
thinkers. These essays will be grouped by
subjects, each volume presenting the typical
opinions or the opposing views on the topic to
which it is devoted, and will be edited by Ed
ward L. Burlingame. Volume l., entitled
International Politics, will contain papers by
Gladstone, Forbes, Goodwin Smith, Dicey,
Blackie, Kossuth and freeman. Volume IL,
entitled Questions Of Belief, will have for its
contributors Lewes, Hughes. Cslderwood, Hsr-
rison, Muloch, Littledale, Huxley, Martineau,
SelborD, Argyle and others, and will include
among other papers the two Modern Sympo-
sia, from the Nineteenth Century, upon The
influences upon Morality of decline in Re-
ligious Belief, and Oh The Soul and Future
Life. Later volumes of the series will be
upon economical and social science, natural
science, archeologal discovery, history and
biography, aud literary topics.
In Bret Harte's new 'Story of Mine" the
heroine, Carmen de Haro, goes to Washington,
hoping to Illustrate her fathers fraudulent
claim to mine and to secure it for her lover
| Size effects this by inducing Mr.. Sumner to
make a seven hours speech at the very end Of
| the session, aud thus consigning her fathers
| claims to the limbo of unfinished business"
| There is q funny bit of dialogue between her
| and the majestic orator that is worth reproduc-
| ing. She complains that she never hears him
speak, and says:-"I go day after day to the
| capitol; watch him, the great emaucipatOr,
but it is Of business eh? 1t is the claim of that
one it is the tax, Ell? 1t is the impost, 1t is
| the post office; but it the great speech Of hu-
| man rights, neveri neverl 1 say, How arrives
all this?' Aud some say and shake their heads
Never again he speaks. He is what you call
played Yes, it is so, eh? Played outl know
| it not. 1t is word from Boston perhaps?
| They say he has-eh, speak not the Eoglish
| well, the party he has shake, shook, yes-he
has the party shake, eh? 1t is right-it Is the
| language of Boston, eh?' Permit me to say,
| Miss de Haro', returned the Senator, rising
with some asperity, that you seem to have been
/ unfortunate in your selection of acquaintance,
| and still more In your ideas Of the derivations
| of the English tongue. The er the-er ex-
| pressons you have quoted are not common in
Boston and emanate, believe from the West." I"