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Dr. Hoefer against Dr. Layard.—­Dr. Hoefer, a well-known savant in France and Germany, has astonished the Parisians by the publication of a work in which he boldly denies the authenticity of the ruins of Nineveh.  Even admitting, he says, that the ruins of Nineveh remain, it is impossible that they can be in the place which Dr. Layard has explored; and, moreover, the Assyrian-like sculptures and inscriptions found in the supposed Nineveh, were the work of a later, and a different people, who had the affectation of imitating Assyrian taste.

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Both Rogers and Wilson, it is said, have declined the laureateship.  Referring to the office, the Daily News has a very prosy simile:  “A dog, of any sense or self-respect, with a tin-kettle tied to his tail, acutely feels the misery and degradation of the music he is compelled to make.  What the tin-kettle is to the dog, the yearly Ode is to the muse.  The board, if you please, but not the annoyance and irritation of the jangle.”

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Mr. George H. Boker is at present engaged in preparing for the stage his new play of “The Betrothal.”  A correspondent who has seen it in manuscript, and for whose critical opinion we have a very high respect, pronounces it superior, both in action, combination and development of character, and general management of the plot, to any of his previous dramatic writings.  It will probably be brought out next fall, not only in this city and Philadelphia, but in London, where his tragedy of “Calaynos” had such a successful run.  We believe Mr. Boker will yet demonstrate that the art of dramatic writing is not lost, nor likely to be while we retain the language of Shakspeare, Jonson and Fletcher.

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Bayard Taylor will deliver the poem before the societies of Harvard College on the 18th inst.  Among his predecessors have been Charles Sprague, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett, W.C.  Bryant, George Bancroft, Frederick H. Hedge, and some dozen others of the first rank in letters.

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John G. Whittier, we are sorry to learn, has been for some time in ill health.  He is living quietly upon his farm in Haverhill, on the Merrimack.

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Browning’s “Christmas-Eve.”—­With great peculiarity and eccentricity, Mr. Browning is a genuine poet.  Whether eccentricity is inseparable from genius we shall leave it to others to determine.  Mr. Turner’s peculiarities have admirers, and some persons affect to discover merits in Mr. Carlyle’s German style.  Mr. Browning’s poetic powers raise him almost above ordinary trammels, but it has been justly remarked of him, that transcendentalism delivered in doggerel verse has throughout the effect of a discord.”

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