The Cecil Whig., 1885-12-26

John S. Whittier celebrated the sew
enty-eighth anniversary of his birth
Thursday, at his home in Amesbury.
Miss Murfree's serial Among the
Clouds will be begun in the January
Atlantic, and in the same number there
will be story by the editor, Mr.. T. B.
Aldrich, called Two Bites at Cherry
James Russell Lowell recently gave to
the Massachusetts, Historical Society an
autograph letter of Robert Burns, dated
at Dunfries, 21st of May, 1893, which he
received from the widow of Barry Corn
wall.
Mr.. Iguatius Donnelly, who resides in
Minnesota has decided not to concern
himself with politics this year, but to
work hard at his new book on the Bacon
Shakespeare controversy.
King Milan's favorite book in said to
be that singular work by Nopoleon III,
Jules Casar," and copy of it is re-
ported to be always within his reach,
like the precious manuscript of Homer
which Alexander carried with him.
Lord Tennyson has taken the trouble
to write that he believes the disunoin of
church and state would be prelude to
downfall of much that is greatest and
best in England. Poor old D'Eyncourt,
he's reduced to chanting the role of Cas-
sandra.
The Song He Never Wrote will pro-
badly be the last contribution from the
pen of Mrs. Jackson Oh. II. to appear
in Tie Century. In December her seven
last poems were published. The one to
be given in January was received last
winter.
Tie Athenoum1 understands that Prof.
Charles Eliot Nortons collection of
hitherto unpublished letters by Carlyle
to his family and friends, will comprise
series of letters to Mr.. Browning, and
the very important series of letters to
Goethe referred to in these columns two
weeks ago.
The Messrs. Appleton & Co., in repub-
fishing the series of English Worthless
edited by Andrew Lang, bring out Ctas.
Daroin, by Grant Allen, brief. lumi.
nous, and well .proportioned biography.
which contains what the general reader
will most know about, written from the
standpoint of admiring sympathy, both
with the man and with the scientific as
sumption identified with his name.
Mark Twain, who was made the sub
ject of a 50th birthday article in the
Critic, filled with kind tributes from
various literary men and poem by Oil
yer Wendall Holmes, sends them this
acknowledgment, addressed to 'sMy dear
conspirators': 1T was the pleasantest
surprise | have ever had, and you have
my best thanks. 1t reconciles me to be-
ing 80 years old; and 1t was for you to
invent the miracle that could do that
could never have invented one myself
that could do it. May you live to be so
yourselves, and find fellow benefactor
in that hour of awful need.'
The American press is characterized in
the FoHnightly RerieC by Theodore Child
as generally trivial, sensational and es-
sentially vulgar" and adds that "art,
literary and dramatic criticism cannot be
said to exist in the American daily press"
This is true in certain respects of certain
papers. They are the ones which contain
vapid and inane letters on art, literature
and the drama, signed by Theodore Child,
who is an Englishman living in Paris,
and who is as we'll qualified to write of
American papers as a Kalamazoo lawyer
living in London would be to write of
Russian politics.