* * * * * Mr. H. C. Maxwell Lyte is now so far advanced with the history of the University of Oxford, upon which he has been engaged for some years, that an instalment of it, tracing the growth of the University from the earliest times to the revival of learning, is likely to be published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. early in the coming year. This volume will be complete in itself, and accordingly provided with an index of its own. * * * * * The Cercle de la Librairie at Paris intends to open an exhibition of the designs of Gustave Doré for the illustration of books. Many noted French firms—Hachette, Mame, Jouvet, Hetzel, and Calmann Lévy—will contribute, and so will _Le Journal pour Rire_, the _Monde Illustré_, &c. Foreign publishers are also invited to take part. * * * * * At the opening of the winter season of the Arts Club in Manchester, Mr. J. H. Nodal stated that more books were written and published in Manchester than anywhere else in the kingdom, with the exception of London and Edinburgh, and that he believed that Manchester as a music-publishing centre came next to London. MISCELLANY. HELIGOLAND AS A STRATEGICAL ISLAND.—Regarded from a _strategical_ point of view, the situation of Heligoland, only a few miles off from the mouths of the Elbe and Weser rivers, and commanding the sea entrance to the important trade centres of Bremen and Hamburg, is of considerable importance. Although any hostile differences between England and Germany are not very probable, in military circles in Germany an agitation has been going on for some years to ensure its possession by that country, as a necessary part of the coast defence of the empire; and this suggestion has been powerfully supported by Vice-Admiral Henck in the _German Review_, vol. ii. 1882. It has been proposed to purchase the island from England, but a great many object to the cost of the purchase, and the expense of the fortifications. Some, indeed, go further than the military strategists, and say that the abolition of the Heligoland Constitution in 1868 was illegitimate, because it was in violation of old rights and explicit assurances; destitute of well-grounded justification, because its ostensible objects could have been more successfully attained by other means; inadequate, because it failed to secure in any considerable degree the results which it proposed to seek. It must be here mentioned that a very good reason against any cession, voluntary or by sale, of the island to Germany, is the probability of the misconstruction of such an act by France, who, liable at any moment to a war with that country, would see in England handing over Heligoland to her possible foe, for the purpose of being formed into a marine fortress to defend the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser, or into a naval depôt, an aid to Germany in defence against that which France possesses, next to England, the most