Dr. Stratmann, the compiler of the excellent “Dictionary of the Old English Language,” has died at Cologne at the age of sixty-two.

The engagement is announced of Mr. G. E. Buckle, the editor of the Times, to Miss Alice Payn, the third daughter of the distinguished novelist and editor of the Cornhill Magazine.

There is the unusual number of three vacancies at this moment in the ranks of the French “Immortals.” Two of the seats, however, are as good as filled by M. Joseph Bertrand and M. Victor Duruy. For the third there are several candidates, of whom M. Ludovic HalÉvy is first favorite. It was believed that M. Alphonse Daudet was standing, but he has authorized the Figaro to say that he never has offered himself, and never will offer himself to the Academy.

A new novel by Georg Ebers, upon which he has been at work for two years, is to be published at Christmas. The subject is taken from the last struggles of Paganism against Christendom, and the scene is laid in Egypt.

The new and enlarged edition (the third) of Hermann Grimm’s “Essays,” includes articles on Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, Frederick the Great and Macaulay, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Henrik Ibsen’s “Vildanden” to which all Scandinavia has been looking forward for months past, proves on the whole a disappointment to his admirers. It is a five-act social satire, full of strong scenes and pregnant sayings, and containing at least two masterly characters; but there is no shirking the fact that as a drama it is ill-digested and formless. Nor is the apologue of “The Wild Duck,” from which it takes its name, by any means so luminous or of such general application as is commonly the case with this great satirist’s inventions. It will certainly not add to the fame of the author of “A Doll’s House” and “Ghosts.” BjÖrnsen, too, in his new novel, “Det Flager,” is not at his best. It is an earnest and well-meant protest against false delicacy in education; but unfortunately it proves its author to be distinctly deficient in true delicacy. The youngest of the three great Norwegian poets, Alexander Kielland, has not yet issued his promised novel “Fortuna,” but it is to be hoped that he may redeem the credit of a season which has as yet proved by no means the annus mirabilis that was anticipated.