LITERARY NEWS.

Two books of tue.vel in the United States are on the eve of publication. Some portions of Dr. Charles Maekay's "Life and Liberty in America" have appeared from time to time in the Illustrated _London News, under the title of "Transatlantic Sketches," and have increased the eagerness with which the public would naturally be ready to receive a work on such a subject by such a writer. It is announced for publication on the 30th instant. The spirit in which it has been composed is indicated in the following extract from the author's preface—" He went to America neither to carp, to sneer, nor to caricature ; but with an honest love of liberty, and a sincere desire to judge for himself, and to tell the truth as to the results of the great experiment in self-government which the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic races are making in America, under the most favourable circumstances, and with nothing, not springing from themselves, to impede or fetter their progress, lie returned from Ame- rica with a greater respect for the people than when he first set foot upon the soil."

The other work on America is by two anonymous travellers. It will be ready in a few days.

Messrs. Longman and Co. have in the press Mr. N. W. Senior's "Journal in Turkey and Greece in 1857-8," and a descriptive work on Ceylon by Sir J. E. Tennant, which promises to be exhaustive.

Li June we are to have a volume of Recollections penned by the late Samuel Rogers, being brief records of personal intercourse with Charles James Fox, Gratton Person, Home Tooke, Talleyrand, Lord Erskine, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Grenville, and the Duke of Wellington.

"A Little Tour in Ireland," illustrated by John Leech, is to appear early in June.

Messrs. Bradbury and Evans make " Inventions " the subject of a special department in their forthcoming journal, "All the Week."

A new daily paper, under a talented editor, is about to be added to the London penny press.

Among contributions to the London Journal, for which the proprietors have entered into agreements, are a series of essays by Mr. G. A. Sala ; a military romance by Mr. James Grant; and two other works of fiction respectively by Captain Mayne Reid and Albany Fonblanque jun., Esq. Messrs. Puttick and Simpson have distributed their catalogue of the Manuscript Library of the late Mr. Dawson Turner of Yarmouth. Our space only permits to record that the collection includes upwards of t0,000 autograph letters, which will be offered for sale on the 6th June and the four following days. Mr. Turner was an archeologist of repute and was aided by his family in elaborating his peculiar tastes ; one of his daughters, the late Lady Palgrave, especially shared her father's know- ledge of, and appreciation for, the sources of local history in which his library abounds.

A surprising discovery has just been made in Berlin. Dr. Pertz, of the Royal Library, has ferreted out the manuscript journal of two Genoese navigators, Teodosio Doris and Ugolino Vivaldi. who succeeded in sailing round the Cape of Good Hope in 1290—that is 207 years before Vasco de Game.

The sixth volume of the "Memoirs of Prince Eugene Viceroy of Italy," just published, comes opportunely under present circumstances, for it comprises the campaigns of 1809 in Italy and the Tyrol.

The first volume of a "History of Italy under the Austrian Domina- tion," by M. Ponson du Fern& and M. Paul de Lescaux, appeared a feW days ago.

An eloquent pamphlet by George Sand, entitled "La Guerre," and fervent in the cause of Italian independence, is making a sensation in Paris.

The first instalment of a new statistical work, "Tableaux de in Com- position des Armees Europeennes, Bur le pied de guerre," has just ap- peared in Brussels. The Austrian army is the subject of the part pub- lished; statistics of the French army will be given next week. The work is stated to be compiled from the most recent official documents. , The long-expected new work of M. Villemain, "An Essay on the Genius of Pindar and on lyrical poetry, and its connexion with the moral and religious state of nations," was issued on Tuesday by Firmin Didot, frems. It is the great book of the month, if not of the season, in Paris ; and, notwithstanding the political excitement, is largely commented on in the French papers.

The French Academy has unanimously awarded its great prize of poetry to a young lady, Mademoiselle Ernestine Drouet, a governess in a school at Paris. The title of the poem sent in by her is "The Sister of Charity." Among books announced as forthcoming by Didier and Co., are "Moral and Political Thoughts and Reflexions, by Count Fiquelmont, Austrian Minister of State, with a Notice of his life," by M. de Barante ; "The French Monarchy in the Eighteenth Century," by M. L. de Came ; "Grammar and the Grammarians in the Sixteenth Century," by M. Ch. Livet ; and "The Complete Works of William Shakspcare," newly translated by M. Guizot. General "Moe's. "History of the War of Independence in Italy, in 1848 and 1849," which appeared about a fortnight ago at Paris, has al- ready passed through two editions in this short pace of time. Some unpublished manuscripts of great interest for the history of France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have just been dis- covered at Madrid. Among them is a letter from the Spanish Ambassa- dor in Paris, written at the Louvre on the very day of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and filled with curious details.

The Conservatory Journal is the title of a newspaper which started on the 9th of April in Boston, U.S., in aid of a movement for establishing a Conservatory of Art, Science and Historical Relies, on public land adja- cent to the intellectual capital of the States. We have received some numbers of the journal and will notice their contents next week.

English publishers are very naturally and justly protesting against the recent decision of the Canadian Legislature to impose an import tax of ten per cent on English books, whilst pamphlets and magazines front the United States are to be admitted free. This impolitic measure will not benefit the Colonial revenue, for its effects will be prohibitory ; and it suddenly deprives English booksellers of a market which had reached the extent of 40001. a year, and was annually increasing ; whilst it sub- stitutes for the regular demand a supply of the cheapest and meanest kind of reprints issued by that class of American houses who pay the author nothing.