Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1880 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

Lomax fa received in England with marked cordiality.' The Queen has shown great friendliness of manner. He has received numerous calls and invitations from the best people, and is the lion-of the evening at several great houses. ' j\ '{'Hi number of new works issued in Germany in 1879 amounted to 14,179, as against 13,912 in the previous year. The greatest increase is shown j n the depanneats of jurisprudence, politics and statistics; the decline is most visible in all departments of belles lettres. Charlotte Bronte’s story, “ The Professor,” was completed before “ Jane Eyre” was commenced, and was declined by vyrieus publishers. It was not published until after the author’s death; but “Jane Eyre” was at onoe accepted' and published by Messrs. Smith A Elder (1847). Mrs. Outran*!* probably the most prolific of living writers. Within the last three years she has published five or six works—several of them being threevolume novels—in addition to editing the “ Foreign Classics for English Readers.” She is now writing a new novel with Scotch scenes ana characters.

Mb. Whitley Stokes has printed at Calcutta for private circulation a volume of “Indian Fairy Tales” containing thirty stories, the greater part of which were told in Hindustani by native servants to his daughter, and afterward written down in English by that and excellently annotated late Mrs. Stokes. Bibliophiles will be interested to learn that the well-known microscopic edition of Dante fa to have a companion in the “ Rime” of Petrarch. Each page will be fifty-five millimeters long ana thirty-five broad (a little over two inches by one and a half), and the whole volume will contain 667 pages, with thirty-six illustrations ana two ’portraits. Macaulay has pointed out that the first English author who really made a good paying business of literature was Richardson, for the good reason that he published his own works. A statement has lately been made that Swift “had no pecuniary interest in his writings;” but a correspondent of the Athenastem points out that in a letter to Mr. Puitney, in 1735, he says: “ I never got a farthing by anything I writ, except one about eight years ago, and that was by Mr. Pope’s prudent management for me.” About eight years ago corresponds with the date of publication of “Gulliver,’* for which one thousand dollars is alleged to have been paid. Probably it has earned for the booksellers by this time one hundred thousand dollars.