THE ECLECTIC SERIES OF SCHOOL BOOKS, HAVE ATTAINED A DEGREE OF POPUlarity and extent of sale never acquired by any other similar books published in America,-over 2000,000 copies having been sold during the past year. They are extensively used in the best schools of the country. The Eclectic Books possess superior intrinsic and comparative excellence, and, wherever adopted, have successfully stood the most severe and thorough tests of the class-room, securing to themselves the cordial commendations of the finest critical scholars and best practical educators of the Union. The Eclectic Educational Series Embraces Alphabet, Spelling, Reading, &c. McGUPPEY'S PRIMARY SCHOOL CHARTS, 6 NOS. McGUFFEY'S NEW FIRST ECLECTIC READER. MGUFFEY'S NEW THIRD ECLECTIC READER. McGUFFEY'S NEW FOURTH ECLECTIC READER. Arithmetic and Algebra. RAY'S ARITHMETIC, FIRST BOOK (PRIMARY). RAY'S ARITHMETIC, SECOND BOOK (INTELLECTUAL). RAY'S KEY TO SECOND AND THIRD BOOKS. RAY'S HIGHER ARITHMETIC, OR FOURTH BOOK. RAY'S TEST EXAMPLES, WITH ANSWERS. English Grammar. PINNEO'S PRIMARY GRAMMAR. PINNEO'S ANALYTICAL GRAMMAR. PINNEO'S ENGLISH TEACHER. Miscellaneous. LILIENTHAL AND ALLYN'S OBJECT LESSONS. DeWOLF'S INSTRUCTIVE SPELLER. WHITE'S CLASS-BOOK OF GEOGRAPHY. HEMANS' YOUNG LADIES' READER. CHAPMAN'S AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. EVANS' SCHOOL GEOMETRY. THE YOUNG SINGER, PART I. THE YOUNG SINGER, PART II. PULTE'S DOMESTIC PHYSICIAN. PULTE'S WOMAN'S MEDICAL GUIDE.. The Eclectic School Books are approved and adopted in many Schools in the NEW ENGLAND STATES, in NEW YORK CITY Public Schools, in the Public Schools of PENNSYLVANIA, and in nearly every other State where liberal attention is given to public instruction. Published by SARGENT, WILSON & HINKLE, Cincinnati, Ohio. JUNE 1, 1863. IN PRESS, NEW MILITARY WORKS FROM THE PRESS OF And will be Published immediately. D. VAN NOSTRAND, A COMPLETE Official Record of the Proceedings in the Arrest and Trial by CourtMartial of the Hon. CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM, Together with General Order No. 38, NEW YORK. CAVALRY: its History, Manage ment, and Uses in War. By J. ROEMER, LL.D., late an Officer of Cavalry in the service of the Netherlands. Beautifully printed on fine tinted paper, and illustrated with over one hundred finely engraved wood cuts. In one large volume 8vo. Price, $5.00. Heavy Artillery Tactics. Prepared for the use of the Army, by a Board of Officers. With Plates. 12mo, half morocco. Price, $2.00. Alphabetically Arranged and Corrected to May 1. 8vo. Price, District Attorney, the Statement to the The Army Register for 1863. 50 cents. fusing to grant the writ, with the find- Roberts's Hand-Book of Artillery. ing and sentence of the Court-Martial. The above publication will be made by special arrangement with the counsel officiating in the case,-the officers constituting the Military Court, and the District Judge, who will carefully revise the manuscript for the press, giving full reference to the authorities cited. The importance of the question involved, together with the able manner in which it has been handled, must give this record great interest and value to A New and Revised Edition, greatly Enlarged. 16mo, cloth. Tactics for the Colored Troops. US. Infantry Tactics for the use of the Colored Troops. Pre pared under the direction of the War Department. 1 vol. 16ms. Price, $1.50. The Artillerist's Manual. United States. Second Edition, Revised and Improved by Gen. all persons desirous of being well in- Elements of Military Art and formed in the history of the times and spirit of our Government. RICKEY & CARROLL, Law Publishers and Booksellers, History. Comprising the History of the Tactics of the Separate Arms, the Combination of the Arms, and the Minor Operations of War. By EDWARD DE LA BARRE DUPARCQ, Captain of Engineer and Professor of the Military Art in the Imperial School of Saint Cyr. Translated by Brig.-Gen. GEO. W. CULLUM, U.§.A4 Chief of the Staff of Maj.-Gen. H. W. Halleck, General-in Chief U.S. Army. 1 vol. 8vo, cloth. Price, $4.00. 628 630 Chestnut St., Philadelphia: 594 & 596 Broadway, New York: 135 Washington Street, Boston.. SEÑOR DON HENRIQUE LEMMING, 9 Calle de la Paz, Madrid. Subscriptions or Advertisements for the "Publishers' Circular" will be received by the above Agents, and they will forward to the Editor any Books or Publications intended for notice. OUR CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENCE. JUNE 15, 1863. explanation given by the committee of the reasons which led them to except from the provisions of the law the works of dead authors who had departed life many years before the present time. Corneille's and Racine's, Bossuet's, Fénélon's, and Montesquieu's heirs are still living among us. Several of them are steeped to the lips in poverty; and it would have been gratifying to the literary world here to see them rescued from their present straits by ancestral genius. PARIS, May 14, 1863. There is some discussion in legal, rather than in literary, circles upon the new bill providing for authors' copyright, which I analyzed in my last letter. The literary world (I include publishers in this term) are as well pleased with it as people may be expected to be with compromise measures; but the gentlemen of the law suggest these defects for imperfections of the proposed law. The chief defects are the impossibility of applying the law in consequence of the difficulty of distinguishing original works from works made chiefly with plagiarisms, since Solomon, several thousand years ago, declared there was nothing new under the sun. There, for instance, is Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's "Lady of Lyons," which is drawn from Le Raccommodeur des Soufflets, and his "Richelieu," which borrowed some of its most striking scenes from Count Alfred de Vigny's Cinq Mars; Byron's address to the ocean ("Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean") was taken from Mme. de Staël's Corinne; and Shakspeare's noblest efforts were transformations of contemporary or older plays. Again, objections are drawn from the contradiction which exists between the article of the law which provides that literary property is as much property as real estate, and the article which limits this property to an estate for years. How can that be property, say these carpers, which ceases to be property in fifty years? The fundamental objection to the bill is, that the perpetuity of title to copyright provided will prove a dead letter in consequence of the probable refusal of publishers to enter into any contract with authors unless the latter agree to convey to the former their whole right and title in perpetuity to the publishers, so that the heirs of publishers-and not the heirs of authors-would receive the five per centum reserved for perpetual copyright. It is hinted that the Government may introduce a clause in the bill prohibiting authors from alienating their property in this way, and making it a misdemeanor punishable with fine and imprisonment and avoidance of license in any publisher to become party to any such contract. The phrase "avoidance of license" requires explanation. Publishers and printers and booksellers in France are even more completely in the power of the Government than other professions. They are not only required to take out an especial license from the police, but the police is invested with discretionary power to refuse the license without alleging any reason except its own pleasure; this discretionary power is often exercised when the authorities think there are enough publishers or printers or booksellers in the locality where the new application is made,-just as a bench of county magistrates refuses license to a new drinking-room in a neighborhood where "bars" are already numerous to a nuisance; for books here are likened to intoxicating liquors whose drunkenness assumes the form of riot or revolution! Had Mons. de Lamartine never written his history of the Girondins, there would have been no Revolution of 1848; but for De Beranger's songs, the days of July, 1830, I have mentioned the change in publishing which would never have witnessed the downfall of the seems to be taking place, especially in works of Bourbou dynasty. The Government has the right, light literature. The hearts of authors, publishers, too, to withdraw the license without indemnity; and and circulating-library proprietors seem to be gladit uses this right not unfrequently. The last pub- dened by the reform. None of them made much lisher whose license was cancelled was Mons. Du- money by the cheap editions which have been in mineray, whose crime was bringing out the pam-vogue, and the old women who keep circulating phlet of the Duke de Nemours, which was a violent attack on the Government. "It was impossible to consider literary property without turning the attention to the master-pieces of our literature and without feeling a desire to enable the descendants of those great authors to profit by these favorable changes made in literary property. The sentiments of respect and gratitude raised by some illustrious names, the regrets, and, we are almost tempted to say, the remorse, which the misfortunes of the heirs of these illustrious names have often kindled, found eloquent orators! and general sympathy in the committeee; the subcommittee even thought proper to propose to restore to the heirs of these great men the lapsed rights of their ancestors, while respecting the consequences of matters of history. A profound discussion was held upon this question. Those who opposed it paid proper deference to the feeling which had raised it; but they insisted that the salutary nonretroactive principle of laws should be maintained; they urged that this principle was grossly violated by a provision which snatched the works of authors who had been dead for centuries from the public (whose common property they had become) to relegate them to individuals as their private property. This doctrine found contradictors, who argued that the restoration of a portion of their patrimony to the families of writers and of artists would, in reality, mulet only private interests sheltered under the name of common public property; that it would destroy merely rights in expectancy; that it would al respect vested rights; and that, consequently, it ta would not be in opposition to the theory of the non-retroactivity of laws confined within just limits. The contrary opinion prevailed. It was supported not only on the fundamental principles of our legislation, but it was likewise recommended by considerations of incontestable weight. It was shown that the commerce of books, if taxed with the prepayment of a copyright for works which for the most part are considered as classics and annually published in great numbers, would be obliged to diminish the number of copies printed, and, conse quently, to raise the prices of them; that French publishers would encounter (at least for some time) a formidable competition in foreign markets, where they would have to contend against editions which had not yet become subject to this tax. It was argued that in this regard the interest of letters was the same with the interest of trade. It is important for the honor of literature and of our great writers that bad editions of the master-pieces of our language, editions brought out at small cost, should not have the preference over good French editions published at great cost." There was one paragraph of the report made by the Committee on Literary Property which I unintentionally omitted in my last letter. It is the libraries (the other sex seem to have a monopoly of this business in France) were quite starved. How they regret the golden age of circulating-libraries, when all books presented the appearance of "a rivulet of letter-press meandering through a mea な the T JUNE 15, 1863. mand, these gentlemen are determined to make their work the most valuable encyclopædia published in France. None of the encyclopædias published hitherto in this country are worthy attention. They abound in errors of all sorts. The truth is, that in works requiring patient, persevering, and accurate labor the French are inferior to every other nation in the world. This national weakness tells against them even as instrumental musicians. All composers (and especially Mons. Meyerbeer) complain bitterly of the trouble they have in making these volatile, restless, impatient people thoroughly rehearse music. Mons. Michel Chevalier is to be the editor of the new work. He is at present busily engaged in recruiting contributors. Nothing has yet been determined about the form, size, or price of the work. The work is intended to be a great missionary of the free-trade and credit doctrines held by the founders. Mons. Gide (who has quite the monopoly of all publications patronized by the Government) is to be the publisher, which is equivalent to announcing. that the work will be a very expensive one. The Government has just published the accounts of the Imperial Printing-Office, from which it appears that the receipts are 4,640,000f. ($928,000), and the expenses are 4,587,005f. ($917,401). Colonel Charras has the fourth edition of his Waterloo campaign in press. It will contain a vigorous, adroit, and sincere detection of the errors into which Mons. Thiers has fallen or gone. It is much to be regretted that some honest writer has not thought it worth while to expose the errors with which Mons. Thiers's whole history of the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire is filled. The January number of the "Revue Germanique" (published here) contains a very able article of some 32 pages, by Mons. Victor Chauffour Kestner, which I would advise the American publisher of Mons. Thiers's history to translate and publish at the head or in the appendix of this work, for a corrective of its errors. Mme. Veuve Renouard has in press a greatly augmented and second edition of Mons. Aug. Demmin's Guide de l'Amateur de Faïences et Porcelaines," with 450 wood-cuts, which will prove very successful here, where everybody with a long purse is crazed for cracked china. dow of margin" for five, ten, fifteen, and twenty volumes! Those days have passed away :-shall I Csay forever? I dare not, when I remember that La nd Claparède's and Scudery's novels were diluted into as many volumes as Alexander Dumas extended bis; but I think it will be at least a century before we see the state of things found in the French publishing-trade from 1820 to 1847. The public at present will not hear of a new novel in more than one volume, not even if Mme. Sand's name be on the title-page. Alexander Dumas wearied them, appears, irrecoverably of long stories; and now they have such a phobia of many-volumed tales that Messrs. Hachette & Co. have actually brought out Mons. Edmond About's last novel, "Madelon,' in an octavo volume of 616 pages! They know the public are more afraid of number than bulk. I must say that many publishers here contend that this new form will not command favor, and that the public will bear no tale which is heavier than a small octavo of one volume of 350 pages. Our two largest publishers, Messrs. L. Hachette & Co. and Messrs. Michel Lévy frères, think differently, and bave determined to make an experiment to ascertain whether some more remunerative form to publisher, bookseller, and author will not command public favor. I think their only hope of success lies in the revival of circulating-libraries. The French are no buyers of books. I have visited houses innumerable in Paris in quest of rooms for myself or for my friends, and I have never seen a book-much less a library-in any house. The walls of Paris, whereon all sales are posted, bear witness to this aversion from book-buying. I have day after day, for years together, examined these bills, and nothing is rarer than to see books mentioned as among the articles to be sold by the rendue-merchant. You find every thing else upon those bills. Mons. Hector Berlioz complains somewhere (I am unable to lay my hands immediately pon the passage) that, whereas in England and Germany every house has its library of books and of sic, in France you may go from mansion to mansion without finding a book or a score. Mons. Eugène Pelletan, in his last work, makes the same complaint. I remember old Mme. Cardinal (the best circulating-library keeper in Paris: she died A few months ago) told me that I would be astonished if I saw her list of subscribers, which contained the names of the wealthiest and noblest people of France, and who one would have supposed must have possessed fine libraries. When Mons. Victor Hugo's last novel appeared, the members of the most aristocratic club of the city divided themselves into little groups of twelve to buy copies of the book, and to decide by cards the order in which they should read it; after it was read, it was sold to the second-hand books' dealer. FRANCIS H. BROWN, M.D., of Cambridge, Mass., who has been connected with the army, has for some time been collecting materials for a work on the services performed by the Alumni and undergraduates of Harvard College in the present rebellion. The author intends to give a list, as perfect as may be, of all those engaged in the struggle, I have mentioned the success commanded by the respective ranks and honors to which they have Mons. Octave Feuillet's Roman d'un Jeune Homme attained, with a brief account of their term of service, Pauvre." I have since obtained some particulars of battles, wounds, experience, and such incidents as the sales of his works. This novel has reached a may be of interest. Such a work cannot fail to 27th edition. "La Petite Comtesse" has reached its prove interesting, more especially to the Alumni of 12th edition, "Scènes et Comédies" have reached Harvard, and, as a matter of history, will be of their 21st edition. "Scènes et Proverbes" have great value. The author does not feel that it is an reached their 23d edition. "Bellah" has reached undertaking for himself alone, but one in which, its 8th edition. "Sibylle" has reached its 5th edi- for the more extended honor of their alma mater, tion. The fortunate publishers of all of Mons. every graduate should feel an interest, if not bear Octave Feuillet's works are Messrs. Michel Lévy histories, or incidents connecting the sons of Hara part. He will, therefore, gladly receive any data, Messrs. Pereire (the founders of the Crédit Mo-vard with the war. bilier, the Hôtel du Louvre, and the Grand Hôtel) THE GIPSIES.-This singular race, yearly becomand Mons. Michel Chevalier (the political economist ing diminished in number in Europe, like the Inand traveller in America) are preparing a great dians in this country, have found a historian. We encyclopædia, on the scale of the " Encyclopædia have had the opportunity of examining the manuBritannica." Possessing millions of dollars at com- script of "A History of the Gipsies, with Speci frères. |