LITERARY NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 196, 19 August 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

The range of modern fiction is hap- . pily very wide and there are few > regions of the earth which the adventurous Anglo-Saxon in search of materials to satisfy the insatiable public demand for romance has notexploited. And it is really a pleasant way of absorbing geographical knowledge to have it presented as the artistic setting and stage effects of a moving human drama. Such a picture of Upper Burmah we get in "The Treasury Officer's Wooing," by Cecil Lowis, which has been issued in Macmillan's Colonial Library. One gets an excellent idea of the lives led by the representatives of Britain's civil authority in these little known divisions of the Empire on which the sun never sets. The character and i national habits of the Burman are also depicted with a skilful hand. The advent of a Aery pretty English girl on a visit to her brother the Deputy Commissioner in a region where a white woman is a rarity inj deed naturally sets in motion those | complex human passions which are ancient as humanity. How the Trea- j sury Officer from a station where not i 'merely a white woman but even a white man was rarely seen wooed and j won this treasure is the subject of j the epic, which carries one pleasantly j | along the course of a love-making ' ; that has more than an average share \ iof the proverbial tips and downs. 1 : A copy of the book has reached tis j | from the publishers through Champ-| italoup and Cooper. The shifting scene of a South i American Republic with its unman- | agable population of half-breeds al- ; ways ready for a revolution offers excellent possibilities for the romancist, and Mr E. Phillips Oppenheim | makes good use of these materials in j his story "The Man and His Kingi dom," published in Ward, Lock and j Co.'s Colonial Library. The little reI public of Sun Martina, to which this J description applies, had been chosen Iby Gregory Dene, a wealthy young Englishman, as the site for a socialistic experiment. By the purchase of a large area of land for his colony he becomes involved in the troubled fortunes of the ruling President, and this leads to complications which he neither anticipated nor desired, and which seriously imperilled the success of the Hi riving settlers at Beau Desir, the fertile valley where his colonists were located. Mattel's are complicated by the exploits of Sngasta, another young Englishman who has mixed himself up with the opponents oi the President and heads an abortive revolution. Colour is lent 1o the narrative by the entrance upon the scene of n former lover of this firebrand. Gregory Dene struggles to, maintain a neutral attitude, but by \ the force of circumstances finds himself in the end President of the liepublic and husband of the ex-Presi-dent's only daughter, the father, tired of the ever impending danger of assassination, having eloped from the country to end his days in peace amidst the congenial surroundings of Monte Carlo, it is a very well told story. We have to acknowledge receipt of a copy from the publishers through Wildman and Lyell. The death of Mr Bryan leaves Carruthers Gould unquestionably the political caricaturist of the day. Harry Purniss 710 doubt at one time excelled j him but Purniss is lecturing just now either in far Cathay or Timbuctoo, and has pro tern ceased to exist artistically. Mr Gould has just given us a fresh and admirable specimen of his humour and originality in the "I\>!itictl Struvvelpeter," a series of parodies on the famous picture book of ! our' childhood. To appreciate this joke it is of course imperatively necessary to be familiar with the original : "Struwelpeter," and to know all about the crimes of "Cruel Frederick," "Fid- : ■■jetty Phil," "Little Johnny Head-in-the-Air," and "Augustus was a Chubby Lad." Those who recollect these j classic narratives will revel in th e ex- ; traordinary cleverness a-nod felicity with which P.C.G. and his colleague j Mr Harold Begbie have turned the ' material to account. To quote the verses without giving the pictures, is I manifestly unfair, but we cannot for-i bear just pending you a bit of the new j version of our old friend. "The Story j of Cruel Joseph": — Here Is cruel Joseph, see! ! A bitter, stinging tongue has he; ! He thumps each brother member's heart With ancient words that they have said: He jeers the Had, he teased'the Tory — But that is quite another story— He threatened once to strike, 'tis said. His old nurse Sarum on the head. The cruel fellow is here seen raising -his whip against th c venerable person ; referred to; and on the other side he is seen once more dancing an exultant I pas seul, while h e wilfully tears oft' (he wing of an un fortunate fly, whose features bear a resemblance to those of Mr Labouchere. Th c sequel tells how "Cruel Joe" turned his whip on two boars, or "Boers," if the reader pre- ! fers, whose facesaacr c those of the last | mentioned gentleman and President Krtiger, and we learn what came of th e encounter. Cruel Joe reappears. again very conspicuously in THE STORY OF THE PUSHFUL ONE. One day said Uncle: "Arthur, dear, 1 must recruit and leave you here. But O. my nephew, concentrate Your thoughts upon affairs of State, The Pushful One's a dreadful schemer He hates a sportsman and a dreamer, And if you waste your thoughts on golf, He'll cut your pretty hands clean off; And then, how shall my Arthur try; To keep his linger in the pie?" Now Uncle scarce had turned his backHe snatched a gingham from the rack And gave a paper weight a whack. But ere he played it round the floor, The Pushful One pushed ope the door; Poor Arthur whitens to his lip To see those blades in act to snip; But snip! and snap the clippers go While Arthur bellows "Et tv Joe!" And prayer and pleading nought availHe's cut off Salisbury's entail. Now Uncle comes; there Arthur, stands With glaring failure on all hands. "Ah," Uncle said, "I told you so; 'Hand's off's the thing with Pushful Joe." On the cover of this most amusing book is a picture of the* British Lion in the guise of the shockheaded Peter of the earlier German fable with the following happy lines by Mr Harold Begbie: — THE NEGLECTED LION. See the British Lion pose, Wildly groping for his foes. Men who tinker up the laws Never manicure his claws; . And you will observe with pain No one ever crimps his mane; Seeing' that he's so neglected, Do you wonder he's, dejected?

"Castle Czvargac" is a romance of the Seventeenth Century which deals with life in England and Germany at that period, baubeney Nutcombe, of Wivelisconibe, near Tauntou, proceeds to Munich on family business, his mother being a native of that place. When returning- he falls into the hands of Count Czvargas, a freebooting baron, who occupies an impregnable stronghold built on a lake island. His brother Francis, a daring and reckless but resourceful youth, who goes in search of the captive, also falls into the clutches of the baron. There is of course, also a captive lady of great beauty, whose rescue furnishes not only an exciting episode but also supplies the elements of a pretty love interlude. How Francis is pitched into the lake and not only escapes but executes a plan by which the other inmates regain their liberty; the story of the Count's pursuit of the fugitives and the subsequent encounter with them, in which the Count is slain and virtue reaps its just reward, furnish the topics of some stirring pages, and keep the reader in a pleasant flurry of expectation and excitement. The novel forms the latest issue of Longman's Colonial Library, and we have to acknowledge receipt of a copy from Upton and Co. and also from George Robertson and Co. through Wiklman and Lyell.