LITERARY NOTES.

[fbom oue own correspondent.] London, Oct. 13. "Secrets of the Prison .House," in two volumes, will contain Major Arthur Griffiths' experiences ' as a gaol governor. Olive Schreiner's new book will be called "From Man to Man," and ia caid to be, broadly speaking, a study. in comparative ethics of men's treatment o? men and their treatment of women. One of the best etoriea of schoolboy life Bines " Tom Brown," is Mr Barry t'ain'a " Graeme and Cyril " which ran through Chums aa " Two," and is now republiahed in a single volume, price sir shillings. It represents the English echoola of to-day as they are, and will do lads fifty times more good than Canon Farrar's " Eric." The pew Punch book (the first number of whioh 5a just out) will not, libo it3 predecessors, be devoted to the work of one man, but contain a wholesome mixture of \ the pictorial jokea of the last fifty years, ! Leeoh, Da Mfratier, Tenniel, Corbould, : Fnrniss, &c, all paying tribute. The ! initial issue will tempt many thousands to take it in. j The latest addition to Unwin's " Story of Nations " series is " The Story of the : Australian Commonwealth," by Greville I Tregarthen, author of " New South Walea, I 1860-89/' and of " A Sketch of the Progrews and Resources of New South Wales." The •work is chiefly historical, and covers a. period from the discovery of Australia till the propounding of the Federation scheme, i The book is enriched with maps and draw tags, and* is written in clear narrative style, lucid and vigorous. If you did not read Mrs W. K. Clifford's remarkable volume of stories "The Last; Touches/' when it came out last Docem- i ber in the 6s volume, be sure and buy the new and cheaper edition at 33 6d. Mrs i Clifford has just commenced a eeries of Bhort tales for the Pall Mall Gazette. The first entitled "The Dominant Note," ! appeared last Thursday. It ib principally ! remarkable for an onslaught on the National Observer, which Mrs Clifford calls "a sixpenny weekly devoted to the patronage of politics and the suppression of new books." Mis C. E. Humphry, who for the last twenty years haa written the "Girls' Gossip" in Truth, is an alert, good-looking married lady well on in the thirties. When she began to lucubrate over the signature of "Madge/' she was a girl indeed, though not without some experience, having previously edited three email periodicals. Mrs Humphry now does all the dresa and fashion articles for the Daily News and two other " Lady's Letters " for syndicates, as well as the three columns per week for Truth. The recipes in the latter are prepared by the very best cooks in England and on the Continent. I must correct a rather serious blunder which I made concerning Walter Besant'e cheap and excellent " History of London," recently issued by Longma&'s. It is not, as I thought, " boiled down " from his " London," published Jaat Christmas by Chattos, but was written afresh to Longman's order, and is intended, it is said, mainly for use in schools. However that may be, I repeat my advice to all " grownups" who have visited or are about to -visit London, and who have not time (or inclination) to read the author's longer book, to invest la 6d in thi3. After reading it those who know London will see it through different eye?. The first volume of the collected works of Profeßsor Huxley, which Macmillans propose to . complete in nine monthly volumes, wbb issued on Oct. 2. It contains his well-known paper on Descartes' " Discourse," the one oa " Ths Physical Basis of Life," which was delivered in Edinburgh in 1868, and the notorious attack on "The Spencerian Doctrine of Administrative Nihilism," which belongs to a later period. The essays range over a considerable time, i.e., from 18G6 to 1890, and as the Professor has discovered (so he says) little to alter in them he is evidently a veiy consistent person. By way of preface, Mr Huxley give3 us a brief and rather dry autobiography. The edition is pub-, lished at 5a a volume. In " A Wasted Crime/' originally published as " She Would Be My Lady," Mr Christie Murray tells the story of an ambitious and unscrupulous, but by no means wholly bad, woman, a collier's daughter who marries a baronet's son. The British baronet casts off his son for ever, and soon after falls ill. Thereupon the daughter-in-law disguises herself as a nurse and trie3 to win hia heart. She does bo completely, and the old man, discovering who she is, forgives her. Unfortunately the woman fails to learn this until, driven to desperation by the prospect of losing her husband's inheritance, she has poisoned the poor old fellow. With his last breath he tells her all, and she learns that Bhe has committed & wasted crime. The feature of Andrew Lang's " True Story Book" (similar in size and get up to the famous Fairy series) is that the well-known tales of whioh it consists are all the work of really eminent hands, and lessons in composition as well as in history. The boy who gets hold of the volume must be hard to please if it does not beoomo one of his ohiefest treasures. Mr Lang himself tella of "Casanova's Escape," "Grace Darling/' and "Two Great Cricket Matcheß." Mr Eider Haggard relates the 11 Terrible Tale of Isandula/' and over one hundred pages are devoted to "MonteEuma" and the conquest of Mexico. Needlesato say, the "True Stories" are illustrated, and by the same artists who did the " Blue, Red and Green Fairy Booka." Altogether it is an admirable gift for a lad and well worth 6s (43 6cl discount). The attempt to bowl out the Strand magazine with the Idler has— as I notice the editor of the latter frankly admits— been a complete failure. Not that the Idler haß done badly, as ordinary magazines go. It is now certainly on the down grade and badly requires a fillip, but the Bales are considerable. The publishers, however, expected a stupendous - success. One gathers this from tho fact that they are now trying to sell a Btnall remainder in the shape of tan tons of the first number. When I heard thia I said, "Surely you mean one ton, that would signify many icores of thousands," but my informant persisted ten tons had been actually offered co Mr Glaiaher, of Holborn, who ia a large purchaser of cheap remainders. Aa to the of sales a leading Strand bookJeller tells me that whereas he took 620 2opies of the first few members of the Idler he can now get rid of barely 2GO. Tho *ame authority predicts that when Shsrloek Holmes departs finally from the 3olumns of the Strand next January, it also will suffer a heavy drop. A vigorous attempt is being made to push the two eerioua threepenny weeklies called The Young Man and The Young Woman. Tae October number of the former containß a really interesting interview with Jerome K. Jerome, as well aa articles on Wagner ty Mr Haneis, and on Snskin and his message by TV". J. Dawson. In The Young Woman Mrs Oliphant Commences " 'I'he House in Bloomabury," and Misa Bayley, better known as " Edna Lyall," is interviewed. Sho says, however, very little about her.booka that you do not know. Tho genesis of "We Two" was, itseema, a paragraph in the newspapers in which Mi66 Bayley road that Mr Brsdlaugh, then incarcerated ia the Clock Tower of the Houho, had sent for his daughter. " I pictured to myoelf/' jays the authoress, "the devotion of bio laughter at such a crisis in his stormy lift?, ind thought of the strength and support is lost have given him." . Out of the rofleo-

I tion grew an idealised persecuted Fvvoj thinker and hia daughter, Luko Ea-jfouru i and Eaica. Miss Bayley'a tak of tho Great; Civil War, -which has been running through Good Words, end is called "To Right the I Wrong," was published in three volumes on ! Saturday. The hGro is tho Ron oH a loyalist batonet. He become? convinced | the Parliamenfeariaco »ro ii;<ht and fighte 1 for " tne cause " tmder Hampden and ■ Cromwell. Tho story covers very familial i ground, and ss one progresses one seems tc j have read it ail many tirass before. I I h.ive not, however, finished the book, bc will reserve judgment. Pord Madox Brown, who died on Friday last at the age of seventy-two, was only a degree lesa famous aa a painter than hie greatpre-Eaphaelito comrade Holman Hunt Mr.ny indeed consider the former^ geniue was the greater, whikt the conceit and egoism wiiich mark Mr Hunt were tvholly absent in Madox Browa. The latfcec'a mnßterpiece3 were the superb series ( of twelve historical fr9Bcoea in Manchester | Town Hill. Whilst, indeed, Cottonopolis ! stands, Madox Brown's name can never, be forgotten. The work occupieft twenty yeara and the artist only put the final tioucbea to the last fresco on Thursday weak. He then came home, and (as Kipling would eay) "went out." The great grief of Madoz Brown's life was the death of his only son Oliver, a youth of extraordinary promise, possessing a marvellous imagination. At the ago of aixteen he produced a weird and gloomy sea--1 story, in which there oceur3 a dencription of a ship on fire, and of some agonising sufferings in an open boat without watar,which equal in power and vividness, acd excel in poetry" any thing Clark Russell hso written. "Gabriel Denver" (as the novel was called); though published anonymously, through Smith Elder (amongs^ whoso two shilling aeries you will now find it), achieved an instant success, and the youag author was proceeding with, a weird romance, entitled "The Dwale Bluth," when at the age of twenty death snatched him away. Both Mr and Mra Madox Brown were for a time heart-broken j indeed, neither ever wholly recovered the blow. Fortunately they had a daughter (older than Oliver), who married the late F. Hneffer, the Times musical critic. His son, Ford Hueffer, now a young man ol twefl'oy-fchree or so, gratified bis grandfather by writing oeveral successful volumea of fairy tales ("The Brown Owl SJ wa3 one), and two years ago perpetrated a not very brilliant novel. Hia manner is, unfortunately, somewhat marred by s squeaky voics and affected way of talking.