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beginning to end, and to whom the late Emperor Napoleon owned his obligations for the light which had been thrown by him on the doings and writings of Cæsar; and Mr. Mark Napier.

worth Dixon.

Two days after Christmas, 1879, Mr. Hep- Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon died suddenly of apoplexy, and the first number of the new year contains an obituary notice, written by his friend Mr. Jeaffreson:" Born in 1821, near Manchester, and reared under circumstances that denied him the education of a public school and university, Hepworth Dixon began his career under disadvantages that only sharpened his resolve and quickened his courage." After serving an apprenticeship to his future calling at Cheltenham, and contributing articles to Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, the Illuminated Magazine, and other periodicals, "Dixon was still in his twenty-sixth year when he brought his young wife and eldest child to London, where he soon found enough work for his immediate necessities......The young journalist associated himself with the Daily News, for which Writes for the Daily News. journal he produced a series of articles on the 'Literature of the Lower Orders,' and another even more remarkable set of papers on 'London Prisons.'" In 1853 he became editor of the Athenæum, and during the first seven years Athenæum.

Becomes editor of the

The Irish

State Papers.

employed his leisure in the systematic study of the State archives. "The later half of his editorial career was, however, fruitful of some of his best and most popular books-the 'Personal History of Lord Bacon,' which unquestionably succeeded in changing the general estimate of the philosophic Lord Chancellor; the Holy Land," which remains the favourite handbook of ordinary tourists in Palestine; and the New America,' which was emphatically the book of its particular season.......Hepworth Dixon's retirement from the Athenæum followed soon after the publication of the works that may be styled the immediate and most important fruits of his first American trip, which was also fruitful in the well-known recovery of the Irish State Papers, that had been so long and strangely lost. But on escaping from routine duties the liberated editor had no design of living less laborious days. On the contrary, his projects required all his powers for their accomplishment, and the ten succeeding years were the busiest of his life. Beginning with Free Russia,' and closing with the third and fourth volumes (left in uncorrected proofs) of Royal Windsor,' no less than twenty-five volumes of history, travel, and fiction proceeded in this closing period of his story from the author's unresting pen. ......With a single exception, William Hepworth

Dixon survived all the men of letters with
whom he was most closely associated during the
sixteen years of his editorial control of this
journal. De Morgan, John Bruce, Doran,
Chorley, Thornbury, all went before him to the
undiscovered country......If we had to express
in a word the most distinguishing characteristic
of this energetic worker we should say 'man-
liness.' He had his failings, but he was always
manly, in the brightest and bravest sense of the
word. If he was deficient in tact, he was fault-
less in temper.
He never failed to protest
against the injustice of any remarks he might
hear at dinner-table or in smoking-room to the
disparagement of an absent acquaintance. His
view of a comrade's character and work often
erred from excess of generosity, never from
want of it. When his friends were in trouble
he always knew how to speak the right words
of comfort, and long after a trouble had passed
he could show with nicest delicacy his sympa-
thetic mindfulness of the old grief."

Hepworth manliness.

Dixon's

Augustus

Meves: claim of his

Louis XVII.

On January 17th Mr. George Bentley writes: "In the obituary of the Times on Monday, January 13th, occurs the name of Augustus father to be Meves, aged forty-seven, second son of the late Augustus Meves. This gentleman published an account of his father's life, who claimed to be Louis XVII., and, without giving any opinion

Mary Carpenter.

on the evidence he produced, it may be said that both the writer and his father firmly believed in their case, and cannot be ranked amongst intentional impostors, although the decision should be unfavourable to their claim. The father, who claimed to be Louis XVII., had very much of the appearance of the unfortunate Louis XVI. He was a modest man, who, though fully believing himself to be Louis XVII., declined to press his claim. His two sons, however, took a different view of this matter, and published their claims in more than one volume. Both sons are now dead. I am not aware that they leave any issue."

The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter,' by J. Estlin Carpenter, M.A., is reviewed on February 7th - Mary Carpenter will long be remembered as one of that noble band of women who, like Mrs. Fry and Miss Nightingale, have helped, with equal judgment and success, to make the world in which they lived both happier Her lifelong and better.......She first laboured at a mission

labours.

for the poor in Bristol, then she threw her whole energies into ragged schools, then into the reformatory movement. A few years more and the old fond memories of Rammohun Roy again stirred within her, and she was off to India to help to raise and educate the Hindoo women. She visited India no less than four times, and

once she crossed the Atlantic to inspect the prisons of America and stay with her brother Philip at Montreal...... Her work was always thorough, for her whole heart was in it. Her courage was always high, for she trusted in a strength greater than her own. Whether rejoicing or sorrowing, she was always toiling, and she lived to see task after task brought successfully to a close. She died in the early summer of 1877, having just completed her seventieth year."

Chapman.

Mr. Edward Chapman's death, in his seventy- Mr. Edward sixth year, is announced on the 6th of March. He "was for many years head of the publishing house of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in which position it was his good fortune to establish business relations with several of the most eminent writers of his time, and to live on terms of friendly intimacy with them. Readers of Forster's 'Life of Charles Dickens' will remember that Mr. Chapman had a certain modest part in the production of 'Pickwick.'" Among the distinguished authors publishing through the firm in Mr. Chapman's time may be mentioned Mr. Thomas Carlyle, Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Robert Browning and Mrs. Barrett Browning, John Forster, Mrs. Gaskell, Miss Mulock, the Trollopes (Anthony and T. Adolphus), Whyte Melville, Charles Lever, George

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