We are promised shortly the results of a literary sur-
prise of extraordinary interest. It will be remembered that by the merest chance a parcel of James Boswell's letters to W. J. Temple was found at Boulogne some years ago. Now we learn that the " Ebony Cabinet," mentioned in his will as containing his most precious manuscripts, &c., remained untouched at Auchinleek until it passed to his descendant, Lord Talbot, in whose possession it has been at Malahide. Much of the contents is now about to pass into the hands of Colonel Isham, the well-known collector of all that has to do with Johnson and " Bozzy," and, we must add, one of the best friends of Great Britain living in New York. Mr. Geoffrey Scott has been authorized to tell the world through the Times that we may expect a new poem by Goldsmith, a description of Voltaire written by Boswell at Ferney in 1764, letters from Rousseau, Pitt, Burns and others. The manuscript of the Life of Johnson appears to be there, but, alas ! almost wholly perished. It has been generally supposed that Boswell's papers were all destroyed, and Sir Leslie Stephen had no reason to doubt it when he gathered previously gained information together for his article in the Dictionary of National Biography.
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