Messrs. Hodgson recently sold in London, the original manuscript of John Keats's poem to Charles Cowden Clarke, which begins Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning, And with proud breast his own white shadow crowing.
The manuscript, which extends to four quarto pages, is inscribed "Margate, September, 1816," and the poem was printed in Keats's first volume, the "Poems" of 1817. Clarke was the son of. Keats's schoolmaster, and himself helped to form the literary taste of the child who was to become one of England's greatest romantic poets. To this, it will be remembered, there are references in the poem. The sale at auction of the man-script of so well-known an example of Keats's early poetry is of considerable interest at the present moment, when the centenary of the poet's death has s0 racentily been celebrated.
Another interesting thing in this sale was a copy of the first edition of Oscar Wilde's Poems," 1881, with the inscription ' From the Author to Matthew Arnold, in affectionate admiration." With this book goes Wilde's accompanying letter, in which he speaks of this offering as the only tribute he can pay to Arnold, "a master illustrious and supreme."
Many people, however, will probably consider that the most desirable item in this sale is a very fine copy (save for one worm-hole) of the first edition, 12mo.. 1598, of "Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury, being the Second part of Wits Com: monwealth," by, Francis Meres. This book contains, in the words of the late George Wyndham, laboured but pleasing ' comparative discourse' of Elizabethan poets and the great ones of Italy, Greece, and Rome," and in it is one of the earliest references to Shakespeare's poems, for Meres wrote, "As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare witness his 'Venus and Adonis.' his ' Lu-greece,' his sured sonnets among his private friends." The importance of such a reference is obvious, and it is this which gives this extremely rare little book its great interest and value. Messrs, Hodgson's catalogue contains a facsimile of the title-page of Pal ladies Tamia." bench land. A railroad bridge will be razed and a new one constructed farther up the Snake River. The Idaho Power Company's plant furnishing light and power to the southeastern section of the state will be removed.
The dam site has been surveyed and preliminary work in the form of drilling for a solid rock foundation has been started.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.