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Life by Joseph Knight.

On the 1st of October, 1887, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti.-La Maison de Vie: Sonnets Traduits Littéralement et Littérairement. Par Clemence Couve. Introduction de Josephin Peladan," and 'Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,' by Joseph Knight, are noticed. Of the latter the Athenæum says: "Mr. Knight's monograph...... will carry into thousands of homes where the very name of Rossetti was unknown before an image, and a very winsome image, of the painter-poet as conceived by a cherished friend Bibliography of his." At the end of Mr. Knight's volume compiled

by Mr. is an admirable bibliography compiled by Mr.

Anderson.

Anderson.

CHAPTER XI.

STRAY NOTES-DANIEL MACMILLAN, MACAU-
LAY, DICKENS, H. F. CHORLEY.

DANIEL MACMILLAN.

DANIEL MACMILLAN, the founder of the present well-known firm of Macmillan & Co., died on the 27th of June, 1857. In 1882 his memoir by Thomas Hughes was published, and reviewed on the 19th of August.

Daniel Macmillan

"Daniel Mac- Early years.

millan was the tenth child of a poor peasant in
Arran. He lost his father when he was only
ten years of age, and the education he received
was of the most limited description. But he
seems to have early shown a taste for reading,
and instead of being trained to a handicraft he
was apprenticed to a bookseller.
The energy
which distinguished him through life brought
him at the age of twenty to London, eager to
find employment in some of the great houses
in the Row. This he was not able to obtain,
but he was engaged by Mr. Johnson, the well-
known bookseller in Trinity Street, Cambridge.
......Much of his attention was given to theo-

Comes to
London.

with the

Hares and
Maurice.

logy. He was naturally religious, and the Calvinism he had learnt in his boyhood long adhered to him; but gradually his opinions altered, and when he came under the influence Friendship of Archdeacon Hare and Maurice he adopted the tenets of the Broad Church school. Hare's attention he attracted by a letter regarding the 'Guesses at Truth'-a letter which procured him an invitation to Hurstmonceaux." At that time Macmillan was a shopman in the employment of Messrs. Seeley,* in Fleet Street. "To the Hares was due Macmillan's success in life. A loan from Julius Hare and Marcus of 500l.

Mr. Seeley.

* Mr. Seeley was born in Ave Maria Lane on the 7th of January, 1798. His death is recorded in the Athenæum of the 5th of June, 1886. In addition to his publishing, he found time for contributing largely to newspapers and magazines as well as for independent authorship. He also took an active part in political matters, and was in the thick of the civic contest when Alderman Harmer was excluded from the Mayoralty. He had not Mr. Sampson long survived his old friend Mr. Sampson Low, founder Low. of the firm of Sampson Low, Marston & Co., who died on the 16th of the previous April. The Athenæum of the 24th contains an obituary notice of Mr. Low. It was in 1837 that he, in connexion with a committee of fourteen of the leading publishers, founded the Publishers' Circular, and on the issue of the thousandth number, May 16th, 1879, he gave a short account of its origin and history. Mr. Low died at his house in Mecklenburgh Square close to the site of his first shop.

enabled him and his younger brother to start in business at Cambridge. Commencing as booksellers, they in a few years began to venture on publishing, and they drew round them many of the best Cambridge men of the day......For a long time his income was extremely small. Ten years after he had started at Cambridge he was obliged to ask his father-in-law to pay off 361. of debt which had accumulated in his household expenses. The bitterness of the struggle was enhanced by the fact that till within a few months of his decease he had only a life share in the business. This state of things he managed to remedy at the beginning of the last year of his life, and it is pleasant to record that his son has inherited the position that the father He died, in fact, just when success had been achieved. 'The balance sheet of 1856 was the best the firm had ever known, and the prospect brighter. Their business had taken root, and the steady demand for their books, and the growing popularity of the writers with whom they were connected, above all of Mr. Kingsley, inspired confidence in their future.'"

won.

LORD MACAULAY.

The Athenæum, in reviewing the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' by Thomas Babington Macaulay, on the 5th of November, 1842, says: "The

VOL. II.

2 L

Starts in business.

Final

success.

Macaulay's 'Lays of

Ancient

Rome.'

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present tranquillity, not to say stagnation, in the world of English poetry, of that domain, where, during so many years, contemplative philosophers and gentle-hearted dreamers have held undivided sway, is here stirred by the voice of a trumpet, more stout and manly in its breath than any which has been heard since Scott laid by his clarion. Mr. Macaulay's reappearance as a poet is none the less welcome to us, because it is not unexpected. We have not forgotten the songs of the League, nor the Roundhead ballads, thrown off in the days of his youth, while almost every one of the critical articles which are understood to have proceeded from his pen, contains some passage so vivid, so graphic in description, and so dramatic in movement, as to have quieted our fears lest public life and political excitement might have worn out that best gift to a man, a bright and living spirit of poetry." The article closes with this suggestion: "We cannot leave these Roman lays without begging for a reissue of French and Mr. Macaulay's earlier French and English ballads. Wherefore, too, should he not add to the number of the latter?-so well read as he is in history-so well skilled in the art of popular song-why should he not do something more for his own country and his own countrymen?"

English

ballads.

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