Notes On Literature. Science, And Art.

NOTES ON LITERATURE . SCIENCE , AND ART .

BY EHO . GHOKGE MAKKHAM TAA'EDDELL , Author of " Shakspere , his Times and Contemporaries , " " The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham , " " The People ' s History of Cleveland ancl its Vicinage , " " The Visitor ' s Handbook to Redcar , Coatham , and Salthirn-bij-tl / e-Sea , " " The History of tlie Stockton and Darlington Railway , " § 'c , fyc .

The American Agriculturalist I'emarks : — " Some striking figures are presented in the report of grain receipts at New York City alone . Reducing the 4 , 675 , 271 barrels of flour to its grain equiA'alent , and Ave find that during 1878 the canal and railroads deliA'ered at one port no less than 149 , 270 , 128 bushels of grain of all kinds , against 98 , 637 , 058 bushels in the previous year ( 1877 ) , a gain of 50 per cent . But few persons can haA'e an adequate idea of even one million bushels . Here is a help to one ' s conception : Load this 150 , 000 , 000 bushels upon Avagons , 30 bushels to each ; arrange them in line , giving each team about 26 j feet , ancl the line of teams carrying this grain AA'ould extend 25 , 000 miles—or , clear around the Avorld ! "

" Shadows from the Cross : Poems , " by the author of " The Ministry of the Bible , " is the title of a neatly got up little A'ojume just published by Remington ancl Co ., of Arundel Street , Strand , and is from the jiractised pen of a very amiable Cleveland clergyman , who ought to have given bis name on the title-page , as it is perhaps the best poem he has yet sent forth to the public . It is dedicated to the Queen : —

" Lady , royal hy birth , royal hy deeds ; A better royalty than blood—for blood rfot always yields this fruit . " It is , hoAvever , no book for the common reader , being ( like a certain play which 'Svas never acted , or , if it was , not above once , " because "it pleased not the million " ) , as Hamlet has it" caviare to the general . " For

, . myself , I confess , I Avould haA'e liked Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Percy Bysshe Shelley , William Mason of Gisbrougb , ancl others—our author included—all the more had they been less mystical . Under a despotism , Avhether of Church or State , Avhere liberty of the press ancl free speech are punished as the gravest of all offences , men are justified in dealing in enigmas ; but Avith us , who exclaim with Wordsworth , —

" In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible knights of old : We must he free , or die , Avho speak the tongue That Shakspere spake , the faith and morals hold Which Milton held ;"

and in this fast rushing age , when Ave have so much to learn , ancl so little time to learn it in—so that Ave are perishing Avholesale by heart disease , paralysis , apoplexy , ancl softening of the brain—I would fain inculcate on eA'ery Avriter ancl speaker AA'I IO loA'es his felloAV-men ( and to him who does not silence is indeed a virtue ) the desirability of making our messages clearly understood , not only by a select feAV , but also b y the many , seeing that every man ancl Avoman has thinking capacity of some degree of brain-power , howeA'er you may measure it . There is nothing very ambiguous , however , in our poet ' s opening linos on the Carpenter of Nazareth : —