BOOKS.
Two subjects of importance connected with literature have been brought under notice during the last few days ; one, Mr. Ayrton's introduction of a Bill to repeal certain Acts relating to the press ; the other the probable increase of the United States import duty on books from 8 to 30 per cent. The freedom of the press is so completely acknowleged, while many, if not most, of the acts re- ferred to have been suffered to fall into disuse, that no good object can be answered by suffering any such restrictions to continue in force. The responsibility of those who publish pamphlets and news- papers has almost ceased to be considered as distinct from any dther class of responsibility, and would seem to be sufficiently pro- vided for by the general laws of the land ; while, perhaps, the best guard against any undue liberty of unlicensed printing is to be found in the common sense of the public, of which the freedom of the press has become by long usance a part and parcel. Better than any stringent law is the knowledge that violations of the proprieties of the press are viewed by the public as outrages upon public decency, and are as exceptional as any other class of crime. Special laws on such subjects are like nostrums in medicine ap- plied to the cure of local disorders which a healthy system throws off in the power of its own vitality. The report about the United States appeared in the Publishers' Circular, a periodical generally well informed upon all American subjects within its province ; but we have to ascertain whether it is well founded. The effects of such a measure upon the interests of literature would be more injurious than at first sight appears, and such an increase of duty is confessedly opposed to those prin- ciples of polity which are universally acknowledged by our first publicists. There can be no doubt that by far the most part of American reprints from English books are far inferior in form and appearance to the original editions, though there are very striking exceptions; but certainly there is a large and increasing class of book-buyers in the States who are satisfied to pay the higher price that they may have the handsomer book ; consequent- ly, there is a considerable sale for these editions, which an im- port-anti of 30 per cent would put a stop to. Nor is the benefit of this entirely on our side. Competition with these elegantly- printed books induces rivalry on the part of American publishers, not only in original works, but in reprinted English ones, several instances of which are mentioned in the Publishers' Circular, to the manifest improvement both of national taste and native work- manship. Besides which there are many excellent works which, either because they are only of average merit, because they only appeal to or interest the cultivated few, or because their subjects are of a special character, are not worth reprinting as commercial speculations ; while under the present duty they attain to a con- siderable circulation in the United States. Such works, which are frequently of importance in the cultivation of learning or taste, would also be almost entirely excluded by a high rate of duty. At present, moreover, our own drawback is a considera- tion in sending books to America, and in some degree lightens the duty on the other side. Thus were our own paper-duty re- moved, that would be felt to be the heavier ; and so great a bene- fit here would aggravate the difficulties of competition under in- creased duties there.
Written in the same glorious language the interests of the two literatures are common to both countries and we are loth to believe that a great nation will do anything that is likely to disturb rela- tions so effectual in softening asperities and so dear to our common civilization. What greater proof can be given that the literature of America is regarded as a portion of our own than the tone taken by the press of this country, without a single exception, in noticing the death of America's greatest historian, Prescott, whose writings have done more perhaps to induce a respect for American literature in Europe than those of any other author ? In connection with this subject we may mention as a curious proof of the identity of the two literatures, the fact that Professor Rogers's great work on the geology of Pennsylvania, undertaken at the cost of that state, has been brought out in this country, the illustrations executed by British artists, and, the book printed in an Edinburgh printing office, while an important work on Ameri- can bibliography published in London was reviewed in our last number.
The lasting influence of a great name is shown in the warm re- ception given to the recently published little volume of transla- tions from Goethe's minor poems, by Aytoun and Martin. This totall, y irrespective of the merits of the book itself, about which critics are divided ; one great literary authority questioning the right of the production to be called a translation at all, another pub- lished on the same day pronouncing these translations to be "the very best that have ever been executed of Goethe or any other poet"!
A translation of the Physiologie du Gait by Mr. Leonard Simp- son is we see announced for publication ; it is somewhat remark- able that no translation of this brilliant and celebrated work has hitherto appeared in this country, although one was published we believe in Philadelphia, U. S. about 1852. The author, M. Bril- lat-Savarin whose other writings are of a graver character, has now been dead more than thirty years, and his teaching's upon the subject of gastronomy date far back from our modern discussions about diners d la lititi8e, and come to us with the authority of almost another generation. The first instalment of the Menumenta Gildhallce Londoniensis, containing the Liber Albus, compiled in the beginning of the fif- teenth century, is out this week. It may be unhesitatingly pro- nounced the most interesting, attractive, and useful unit of the series of the national chronicles and memorials during the middle ages, being published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. In this remarkable repertory of the civic archives lies clearly mirrored the inner life of the City during the days of the Plantagenets. It lights up the political and commercial history of the whole country during the thirteenth and fourteenth centu- ries, and we can conscientiously support the editor's own asser- tion, for, with but few exceptions, we know of no volume "that forms so copious and so varied a source of information upon the laws, manners, and institutions of oppidan society in this country at a distance of time back, ranging from two to three hundred years after the Norman conquest." The list of contents alone will il- lustrate what we mean.
"Rouses and shops; chimney fuels ; builders and building materials ; streets and street regulations; city gates ; regulations in reference to the river, the watercourse of Walbrook, and the city fosses ; police regulations ; hostelers and lodging-house keepers ; brewers and tavemers ; ale and wines ; bread and bakers, corn-dealers, millers, cooks, pie-bakers, and pastelers ; fishmongers and fish ; butchers and butcher's meat; poulterers and poultry ; food and miscellaneous articles; clothing and clothiers ; frip- perers, shoemakers, furriers, and other trades; commercetimports, and ex- ports ; offences, punishments, and prisons."
The book is well worth the attention of City statesmen and of statesmen that care for the City. " Reforms " may undo, and there are old standards which might be usefully restored rather than abolished in their neglected remains. It is understood that Politics and Art will receive special at- tention in Bentley's Quarterly Beeieto, and Rumour gives the article on art in the first number to Mr. Beresford Hope, to whom our periodical literature already owes so much, and who, is said by the same ancient authority, has some very distinguished connection with the review. That on Politics is assigned to Lord Robert Cecil, who will take an active part in the administration of the new periodical. A new weekly periodical devoted chiefly to literature has ap- peared under the name of The Bulletin. The appointment of Mr. Warren, author of The Diary of a Late Physician, to the vacant Mastership in Lunacy, may be pointed out as another proof of the growing respect paid to literature.
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