NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

THE progress and successful conduct of the University Commission is matter of the deepest anxiety to all
who feel the questions involved in it to be paramount in importance to almost every other. It has
commenced its sittings, but as yet has been occupied exclusively with mere arrangements for taking evidence.
Most of the heads of houses who signed the remonstrance against the inquiry, it is now understood, will no
longer decline to be examined; but we still hear muttered threats of "violent opposition from the Tractarian
members of the board." Happily those bode less than they did. The precipitate descent of the Pope and
his bishoprics has fluttered the pro-papists in Oxford and elsewhere, and their means of mischief are not at
all what they were even so late as ten days ago. The wedge had already been inserted before the hammer
of his Holiness was applied. We shall shortly see Doctor Pusey and Mr. Sewell and Mr. Denison at quite
harmless fisticuffs in the air.

These three gentlemen aptly represent the present split of the Tractarian schism. Mr. Denison is for
denying the Romish supremacy, and creating a supremacy of his own. Doctor Pusey will not deny the
Romish supremacy; but, with a resolve as stern and mournful as Mr. John O'Connell's when he contemplated
his final struggle on the floor of the house, he promises to die in the bosom of the Church of England. Mr.
Sewell is as little for denying as for admitting the supremacy of Rome, but, swaying to either side with the
current of his interests and hopes, appears to have simply made up his mind to die in the possession of a good
English benefice. Not any of the three will occasion much more trouble. As soon as the choice must be taken,
Mr. Denison and Mr. Sewell will be found side by side where the bishops and benefices are; and for the
remaining section, the weakest but the most sincere, they will at least have the excuse of Benedict for marrying,
that when they promised to die in the bosom of the Church of England, they didn't know that they would
live to die in the bosom of the Church of Rome.

The publishers still pause and hesitate on the threshold
of the winter season, and there has not been for many
years so dull an October in the great publishing houses,
east and west.

The most important of the month's scanty publications
which we are called to record is that of the first portion
of a very able and laborious compilation on Commercial
Law by Mr. Leone Levi. The object of the entire
undertaking, which may well be termed a gigantic one,
is to survey the principles and administration of all the
various commercial laws of foreign countries, with a view
to a direct comparison with the mercantile law of Great
Britain. Mr. Levi appears to have been engaged for
years, with this object, in correspondence with the
merchants of upwards of fifty countries remarkable
more or less for distinct and separate commercial usages;
and to have obtained in every instance the information
he sought. His first volume opens with a sketch of
the leading epochs in the history of commerce, and of
the existing condition of commercial law in the countries
embraced by his scheme. Then, after giving a table of
international usages and days of grace now current
in all countries, Mr. Levi presents an extraordinary
mass of information at once extremely condensed and
most lucidly arranged, on the laws of merchants, minors,
married females, aliens, books of commerce, and
partnership, respectively prevailing in Great Britain (which
occupies the post of honour across the top of each page,)
and in all the other leading countries (which are duly
arranged in parallel and corresponding colunms below).
Mr. Levi's ultimate object, and one to which
intelligent law reformers will earnestly desire success, is the
establishment of a national and international code of
commerce among all civilised countries, rejecting what
is inconvenient or unjust in all, and retaining and
codifying what is best in each.

A traveller and literary labourer of the same race
as Mr. Levi, the Rev. Moses Margoliouth, a converted
Jew, has been employing his time not quite so profitably
in writing and publishing long-winded letters descriptive
of a Pilgrimage to the Land of my Fathers, addressed
to all sorts of fine folks here, countesses, bishops, lords,
and baronets, who must have had a surprising quantity
of patience, and a more than ordinary amount of nothing
to do, to be able to read them. It is very doubtful if
the public will follow their example. The letters,
orations, and other tracts on Italy, which M. Mazzini
has just republished with an eloquent and earnest appeal to
the English people, in a small volume entitled Royalty
and Republicanism in Italy, would merit a different
kind of mention, if this were the place in which to give it.
Suffice it to say that M. Mazzini repels in this book,
it seems to us successfully, the charge so often brought
against him of having distracted and divided the forces
of his native country, at the time when they ought
to have been concentrated on the paramount duty of
driving out the Austrians.

There is no other original book deserving notice in our
present Narrative, but some welcome re-appearances
deserve a grateful word. First, and most delightful, is
a re-issue of the Spectator's papers of Sir Roger de
Coverley, now for the first time collected in a single volume,
forming a connected narrative of the most fascinating
kind, and characteristically illustrated by notes as well
as woodcuts. Then we have a re-publication by Mrs.
Crowe of some stories of murders, ghosts, and
circumstantial evidence, highly pertinent to the time, and
entitled Light and Darkness. Also we have to note the
issue in three goodly volumes of Mr. Robert Bell's
English story of the Ladder of Gold. And finally there
have been new editions (with numerous and important
additions in both cases) of Mr. Leitch's excellent
translation of Müller's Ancient Art and its Remains; and of
Dr. Latham's admirable treatise on the English
Language.

A great quantity of Assyrian and other Antiquities
have arrived at the British Museum, from Bussorah.
Among them are the Great Bull from Nineveh, with a
man's head and dragon's wings, weighing twelve tons,
and a lion sculptured in the same manner, weighing
nine tons. There are also several coffins, containing
many curious relics of the manners and usages of Eastern
countries regarding the ceremonies observed in burying
their dead.

The metropolitan theatres have all opened for the
season. Mr. Charles Kean and Mr. Keeley are now the
lessees of the Princess's, which they are managing with
much success. No new dramatic piece of any importance
has been produced at any of the theatres.

A series of "Grand National Concerts" has been
commenced at Her Majesty's Theatre, under the direction
of a committee of gentlemen. They are promenade
concerts, after the manner of Jullien's entertainments
at Drury Lane, but on a greater scale, and with a larger
infusion of classical music.