The monument to Virgil at Pietole (which is supposed to be the Andes of the Romans), near Mantua, was unveiled lately.

The death of a popular Russian novelist, B. M. Markievich, on the 30th of last month, is reported from St. Petersburg.

The original autographs of the love-letters addressed by John Keats to Miss Fanny Brawne in the years 1819-20 will be sold by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge the first week in March, together with six unpublished autograph letters of Charles Lamb.

A pamphlet by Madame E. Coulombe is announced for immediate publication by Mr. Elliot Stock. This lady was associated with Madame Blavatsky for some years, and in this brochure tells what she heard and saw of Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists with whom she came in contact in India and elsewhere.

Trinity College, Dublin, is about to start a new paper with the title The Dublin University Review. The first number will appear on February 1st, and the issue will be bi-monthly, except during the long vacation. The paper will contain literary articles as well as university news of every description, and will be owned by a limited liability company.

The Incorporated Society of Authors propose to send a deputation to the Prime Minister to urge the codification of the Copyright Acts, which are fourteen in number. Several of the chief publishers, not of books only, but also of prints and music, will be asked to join.

A conference of elementary teachers, international in its character, has been summoned to meet at Havre. This is the first conference of the kind which has been organized in France, and it is expected that the Government will make a grant in aid of the expenses.

The article on Polish history and literature in the next volume of the “EncyclopÆdia Britannica” will be from the pen of Mr. Morfill, who will also contribute the articles on the Emperor Paul, and on Peter the Great.

Mr. Lowe, correspondent of the Times at Berlin, is engaged in writing a biography of Prince Bismarck, which will appear next spring.

M. Schlumberger, the well known numismatist, and M. Benoist have lately been elected members of the AcadÉmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

An exhibition is to be held in the Imperial Library at Constantinople of Turkish writing, bookbinding, and illumination, for which prizes are to be given.

One of the most important scholastic reforms now in progress in Turkey is that relating to the study of the Arabic language. As now conducted, this study absorbs years in a desultory way which might be applied to the acquisition of other branches of knowledge. With the view to abridge the course of study without impairing its quality, the Sultan has determined on founding a special medresseh for teaching Arabic on a scientific basis, and for this purpose has purchased from the funds of the civil list the property of the Guedik Pasha Theatre at Constantinople.

The long lost and often found commentary on the “Atharva-veda” seems at last on its way to publication. The whole of the commentary has not yet been found, but two-thirds of it are now in the hands of the pandits of Poona, who will prepare a critical publication of both text and commentary. The text of the “Atharva-veda” was published in the early days of Vedic scholarship by Roth and Whitney, and the latter scholar has lately published a very useful index.

We are enabled to state, says the AthenÆum, that a popular edition of Her Majesty's recent work, “More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands,” is in the press, and will be ready for publication in the course of a few weeks. The new edition will contain all the woodcut illustrations which appeared in the original edition, together with wood-engravings of the portraits, and will be uniform with the popular edition of the Queen's previous work, “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands.”

Mr. Alexander Del Mar, according to the Academy, formerly Director of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States, whose History of the Precious Metals was published in 1880, has in the press a work on The History of Money from the Earliest Times to the Middle Ages, upon which he has been occupied for many years past. It will shortly be published by Messrs. Bell & Sons.

From the Academy we quote the following amusing paragraph:

“The Magazin fÜr die Literatur des In- und Auslandes continues to be unfortunate when it meddles with the English language. Many of our readers will be acquainted with Victor Scheffel's charming German song—referring, we believe, to Heinrich von Ofterdingen—which has the refrain, 'Der Heini von Steier ist wieder im Land.' The Magazin of January 10 publishes an 'English' translation of this poem, by Johanna Baltz, from which we quote the following specimen:—

The eighty-ninth birthday of Dr. Ranke (December 21st) has excited interest throughout Germany, and elicited many expressions of the respect universally felt for him. The strength of the venerable historian defies the increase of years, and he works daily at his home in Berlin on the history which he hopes to complete.

Mr. C. E. Pascoe has issued a prospectus on the publication of English books in America. He says in effect that, though the lack of international copyright is one reason why English authors derive but little profit from the sale of their works in America, another and graver reason is, that as a class, they are in ignorance of the means for getting the best out of existing conditions. The usual method of procedure is for the English publisher to make proposals to an American publisher, or for the representative of an American firm in London to submit proposals to his principals in the United States. Mr. Pascoe points to the danger of losing a lucrative sale that this method entails. His prospectus, which is accompanied by letters from American publishers and some well-known English authors, is worth attention. Mr. Pascoe's address is 6 Southfields Road, West Hill, Wandsworth, S. W.

An early and hitherto unknown Arabic work has lately been added to the Museum Library. It is entitled “Kitab al-Mohabbir”, and contains various historical notices and traditions relating to the ancient Arabs and to the time of Mohammed and his immediate successors. The author, Abu Sa'id al-Hasan al-Sukkari, lived in the third century of the Hijrah, and is well known as one of the earliest editors and commentators of the old poets, but the present work appears somehow to have escaped notice; it is neither mentioned in the Fihrist, nor by Ibn Khallikan or Soyuti. The two last-named authors state that Al-Sukkari died A.H. 275; but according to Ibn Kani' (Leyden Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 8) he lived on to A.H. 290. The present work would show that the former date is decidedly wrong; for it contains a brief sketch of the Abbasides brought down by Al-Sukkari himself to the accession of Al-Mo'tadid, i.e., A.H. 279.

Among other recent additions to the Arabic collection, the following are especially deserving of the attention of scholars: the earliest extant history of the Moslem conquest of Egypt, Africa, and Spain, by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, who died A.H. 257, a twelfth century copy; “Zubdat al-Tawarikh,” a history of the Seljuk-dynasty, written shortly after its extinction, about A.H. 620, by Sadr al-Din Abul Hasan Ali Ibn Abul Fawaris Nasir Husaini, a fine and apparently unique copy of the thirteenth century; “Kitab al-Osul,” an extensive and hitherto unknown work on Arabic grammar by one of the earliest writers on the subject, Ibn al-Sarraj, who died A.H. 316, handsomely written, with all vowels, A.H. 651; a fine and valuable copy of the “Makamat al-Hariri,” written by a grandson of the author, A.H. 557 (i.e., forty years after Hariri's death), and consequently earlier than any copy of that standard work known to exist in European libraries.

The numbers of ladies attending the King's College classes at Observatory Avenue have been very high during the term that has just ended. The entries were nearly 600, which is a larger number than has been reached since the first year, 1878, when the classes started, and the present house hardly affords room for such numbers.

It is not generally known that the Times attains its hundredth year on the 1st of January, 1885. The prevailing notion is that the year in which it was founded was 1788, the truth being that the 940th number of the journal appeared on the first day in that year. The mistake is due to confounding a change in the title with the foundation of the journal. The actual facts are set forth in an article which Mr. Fraser Rae contributes to the January number of the Nineteenth Century. Amongst other things which will attract notice in that article is a verbatim copy of the inscription on the tablets affixed in honor of the conduct of the Times in the case of Bogle v. Lawson in 1841, by a committee of bankers and merchants of the City, in the Royal Exchange, and over the entrance to the Times printing office. As these tablets are placed where the inscriptions on them cannot easily be read, and as copies of these inscriptions are not given in the works dealing with the City, the copy in the Nineteenth Century is a piece of historical information which will be novel to most readers.

The last number of Shakspeariana contains the somewhat surprising statement that Prof. Kuno Fischer is a convert to the Bacon-Shakspere theory, and will lecture upon it at Heidelberg this winter. From the same periodical we copy the following curious paragraph:—

“A very remarkable discovery has been placed on record by the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly, who claims to have proof positive that Bacon was the author of Shakspere's plays. This is accomplished by means of a cipher which Bacon twice describes, whereby one writing could be infolded and hidden in another. The words of the hidden story have a definite relation to the acts and scenes of the plays, which is determined by counting. Attracted by 'I. Henry IV.'; II., i., ii., iv., and IV., ii., in which he found the words 'Francis,' 'Bacon' (twice), 'Nicholas' (twice), 'Bacon's,' 'son,' 'master,' 'Kings,' 'exchequer,' 'St. Albans'—the name of Bacon's place of residence—and, in IV., ii., 'Francis' repeated twenty times on one page, Mr. Donnelly applied his key to it, with the following result:—Elizabeth during the Essex troubles became, as is known, incensed at the use made of the play of 'Richard II.,' in which is represented the deposition and killing of the King; and she made it one of the points of prosecution which cost Essex his head, that he had hired the company of players to which Shakspere belonged to represent it more than forty times in open streets and in tavern yards, in order to prepare the public mind for her own deposition and murder. History tells us that she caused the arrest of Haywarde, who wrote a prose narrative of the deposition of Richard II. and dedicated it to Essex, and he narrowly escaped a State prosecution. Mr. Donnelly shows that at the same time Shakspere was arrested as the author of the plays; he was threatened with the torture, and disclosed to the officers of the Crown the fact that Bacon was the real author of the plays. Bacon threw himself on the protection of his uncle, Lord Burleigh, the great Lord Treasurer, who saved him from exposure and prosecution, but revealed the truth to Elizabeth; and this is the explanation of the fact, that, as long as Elizabeth lived, she kept Bacon out of office and in poverty.”