TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 289, 5 December 1889, Page 8

TABLE TALK.

Social, Theatrical and Literary,

(fkom our special correspondent. )

Loxdon, October 18.

The Duke of Edinburgh and tiik Fife

h MAIiRIAGE. The breach between the Duke of Edinburgh and his English- relatives concerning the Princess Louise of \Vale3' marriage with Lord Fifo, is the most serious there has been in the Royal Family for years, and (for the tiino being, at any rate) quite beyond patching up. To be perfectly fair (which* cbe majority of Englishmen are not in considering such matters), there is a good deal to bo said for the Duke's side of the question. Like Prince Consort, H.R.H. fools strongly that English princes and princesses ought not to marry out of the blood royal. Where they have done so (he avers) groab inconvenience (occasionally even disaster) has invariably resulted. Take the two socalled mesalliances in the Queen's own family. Princess Beatrice's union with Prince Henry of Battenberg, and Lord Lome's with the Princess Louise, can scarcely be said to have turned out ideally. Royalties don't know the moaning of ''all for love and the world well lost." Princess Louise was certainly ready to marry Lord Lome, bub she shrank from taking his n«nk atid name, and recently the morbid pride befrot by her unsatisfactory social position absolutely led her to prevent herhnsbandfromacceptintra sphere of great usefulness and promise in Victoria. LJatton borg probably cares too much for creature cotxiioL'ts to ji'ird seriously at the ignominious circumstances of his life. Few selfrespecting men would, however, from all accounts, be able to tolerate what he docs. The Chaiuik Against Loud Galloway.

It being found impossible to altogether burk tho disgraceful charge against Lord Galloway, the Premier's brother-in-law was on Friday last duly charged at Dumfries with improperly assaulting Annie Gibson on tho Lockerbie Road, Glonbrae, on the 3rd nib. The Sheriff substitute heard the case, assisted by v local jury, and the accused sat in the dock between .two constables. He appeared to bo a very shaky, eccentric, and frowsy elderly person, and the request of his brother to be allowed to sit beside him was judiciously complied with.

The prosecution relied chiefly on the evidence of the libble victim herself and of her playmates, all young children. This was clear enough, buc there seemed to be just a loophole that tho Earl was merely committing an imbecile folly and hud no evil intent. He certainly, it was allowed, setmed in no way disconcerted by the arrival of strangers nor by their angry comments. On tho contrary, the old man asked the interrupters grandly if they knew wiio he was, andapparently expected them on learning to apologise and leave trim. A long day was devoted to tho inquiry, and at lasb the jury found a sort of "not proven" verdict, viz., that the Earl's conduct might have been consistent with an innocent intent. To irretrievably blast the character of a nobleman of hitherto unblemished reputation ior tickling a little girl of 12 (possibly somewhat indelicately) was more than the Court felt justified in doing. They therefore steered a sale middle course. Musical Notes. The attractions of " Done " at the Lyric Theatre are beginning to wane, and it is probable that Mr Leslie's next production, Messrs Stephens and Solomon's " Red Husaar," will be forthcoming aboub Christmas iive. This work, the redoubtable Teddy's friends declare, promises to be a big lab, and contains tne beat melodies he has written since " Biliee Taylor." Two things are known aboub the new Savoy opera, viz., that Hawes Craven is painting a lovely set of the Place of St. Mark's, ab Venice, for the first act, and that a famous costumier has in hand a number of Chinese dresaes. How to reconcile these two apparently irreconcilable tacts is puzzling the cognoscenti iinely. Miss Fanny Leslie gave a guinea for the " Topical Cookery Book " seng she eings in " J)ick Turpin." An hour atCer ehe had tirsb warbled it a music publisher offered £50 for the copyright. Next morning she could have gob£lUO for it, and now twice that amount wouldn'b buy out her interests in the lyric.

The Leeds Festival was a great success, barring the illness of Matiame Alwuna Vallena, which all but necessitated the abandonment of Mackenzie's cantata, "The Sword of Argantyr." The postponement was decided on, and the Committee had even resolved to substitute Sullivan's "Golden Legend," when Madame Valleria pluckiiy Jinnounced she would do her best. The primh, donna duly appeared and the cantata was performed, but she broke down badly and is now very ill. Literary Notes. Bentley'a annual programme of new works of general interest, to be published during October and November, is not as attractive aa usual. Sala's " Autobiography," advertised " nearly ready " three years ago in the same list, is atilt conspicuous only by absence, but we are promised an additional and final volume of the veteran Thomas Adolphus TroJlope's " Recollections," which were so successful two winters ago, and a somewhat belated memoir of Edward Askew Sothern (" Lord Dundreary") by T. Edgar Pemberton. This last ought to give us some of the famoua good stories of poor Sothern, who was one of the most) brilliant talkers as well as one of the most incorrigible practical jokers of his time. Amongst the more serious of Bentley's works may be mentioned "The Correspondence of PrincessLievenand Earl Grey," translated by Guy Lo Strange ; and Mrs Julian Mar&hall'B " Life and Letters of Mary Shelly ;" and amongst piomising books of travel Mr VV. H. Mailock's " In an Enchanted Isle,' , an account of a visit to Cyprus in. 1889 ; Miss Betbam-Edwards' "The Roof of France ; " and another of Mr Hissey's "Disries of Coaching Expeditions in England," this time thiough the Eastern Counties. Behtley also announces new editions of " Lord Dundonald's Autobiography," and Gustave Freytag's "Reminiscences," and cheap re-issues of George McDonald's version of the gloomy " Letters from Hell," and of Henry Erroll's highly successful story, "An Ugly Duckling," which ran through no fewer than six editions in the three-volume form. Mr H. Marriott-Watson has just commenced a story (destined for publication in a syndicate of Australian and JSTew Zealand newspapers in 1891), the scene of which will be laid chiefly in the New Zealand bush. Judging by the excellent quality of the same author's short bush story in Mr Mennell's "In Australian Wilds," I should fancy this is an experiment not unlikely (after the manner of "Robbery Under Arms") to prove highly successful. The play on the subject of " Richard Savage," in which Mr Watson has been collaborating with J. M. Barrie, is, I think I told you, complete, and has been submitted to Beer-bohm-Tree, of the Haymarkeb Theatre, for whom the authors destined the title role. BaA-ie has been getting tremendous notices for his " Window in Thrums," which, despite its intense Scotchnese, ia pronounced by such diverse authorities ac " Blackwood," " The Spectotor " and the " Saturday Review," "an undoubted wort of. genius." _ ■ Mr E. B. Kennedy, author of "Four Years ia Queensland," has turned his experiencee of the "Never Never Land" to account in an exciting storybook (suitable alike for boye and juvenile grown-ups) called " Black* and Bushrangers," which is effectively illustrated by Stanley Berkeley and published in a smarb cover by Sampeon Low at sa.

The new issues of Low's standard novels at 2s (or in red cloth at 2a 6d) includes Blackmore's "Clara Vaughan " (not one of this author's best books), Oliver Wendell Holmes's little-known "Guardian Angel" (a sequel to "Elsie Venner"), and a volume, of short tales from the magazines by Mrs Walford, called " Her Great Idea." Since that unsophisticated chid of nature, Amelie Rives, started the school of torrid sensualism in America'there has been quite a run on works of the same suggestive sort as " The Quick and the Dead." One of the last of thete is a startling production called "And After Death," by E. H. Gahill, which is selling enormously in New York jusfc now. Roughly, it is the story of a young and lovely girl, the daughter of an habitual gambler and an immoral actress, who is courted and won by a man to whom sho devotes every emotion of her existence helplessly and willingly. Having satiated hie paspion far her, the lover tires of his mistress and marries another innocent girl, to whom he grows genuinely attached. This naturally does not suit heroine number one, and she rosolves by hook or by crook to bring her lover back to his allegiance. How, by the most persistent and malignant determination, the unhappy girl achieved this end, and how her triumph iii clouded , and spoilt by the fumes of the drug by which she has tried to deaden her despair, is toid in the moet approved Amelie Rives fashion. The book has a cleverness of an unwholesome hot-house sort, bub its general eliect can scarcely be aught but deleterious. " Stepniak," the Russian Nihilist, whose works on " Underground .Russia" ana "The Russian Storm Cloud" are well known, i.s just about producing a novel called "Tl.e Career of a Nihilist," winch will be published next week at 25i by Walter iScutt. The initial volume of the now " Contemporary (Science Series " will be " The Evolution of Bex," by Patrick Ueddes and J. Arthur Thomson. Amongst rising Utcrale.urs of tho "gjoody-goody '' school must be mentioned Mr Frederick Langbrulgo (brother of the late Air L.mgbridge ot Auckland), whose ballads of the "bout Back by the Angels" aorc run " Dagonet a" more robiust coinpouitiona very Cloae with " popular reciters." Mr Langbridgo is now editing a now series of stories with a moral called the " O. U.K. books. One of the tiret will bo by Grant Allen and is called -'The Jaws of Death." it deals with life in the Wild West of America. Mr Allon has also a volume of stray papers collected lrom the magazines on tno stocks. Messrs McClure (tho American Tillotsons) have otiored to provide Rider Haggard with £1,000 travelling expenses in order that he may thoroughly explore the scene ol the semi-Biblical story on the subject of "Queen Either," which ho has undertaken to write for their syndicate in 1592. They hope by advertising and what not to make Haggard s " Esther " as big a " boom " as Lew Wallace's " Ben-Hur," which has the largest and steadiest sale of any book in the States.

Max O'Rell's next work—if his brochures can be dignified by such a title—will bo a continuation of " DraD the Boys," called "John Bull, Junior." Percy Fitzgerald is writing the thrilling history of that great, erudite and never-to-be-understood work, "Bradshaw's Guide." It ought to prove a rich treat. An illustrated daily paper (with process illusu-utione well up to datoe) will bo issued from the offices of the "Graphic" early next year. The staff has already been provisionally engaged.