LITERARY NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 274, 18 November 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

• | Mr Henry Froude, publisher, of Amen Corner, London, has added to his series of excellent Church books a new edition of "The Psalter in ' Metre and Scripture Paraphrases," with music, including" a number of copyright) tunes. A classified index has been added which will greatly assist choir masters in selecting tunes appropriate to the Psalm or paraphrase. The sources from which the tunes are derived are also indicated. The book is printed in good type and will no doubt be greatly appreciated in Presbyterian congregations. The question of copyright becomes more and more complicated and®it is high time the new English Copyright Bill became law. This Bill proposes throe alterations in the law of literacy copyright. (1) Thirty years from the date of publication is, in the case, of posthumous works, substituted for forty two years under the existing law. (2) Contributors of articles to periodicals may republish them in a separate form after two years from j the time of their appearance in the j periodical, instead of after twenty- ' eight years as under the present law. (3) Any newspaper receiving special and independent news of any fact or event from beyond the'l imits of the British Islands wil enjoy copyright in that news for the space of eighteen ; hours. In the last respect a leaf is clearly being1 taken out of the colonial book. Mr Justice North's decision in the case of Walter Lane is being much '■ I commented upon. Mr John Lane, , thinking that in the Liberal party the j hour had come and the man, published ; a book called "Appreciations and AdI dresses of Lord Eosebery," consisting

mainly of speeches made by Lord TJoseb-evy, but copied from the "Times" reports of them. The publication was approved by Lord Rosebery and some of the speeenes were corrected from memoranda kept by his private secretary. The "Times" appliJed for an interlocutory injunction to restrain the publication of the speeches or any substantial part thereof pending the trial of the action and got it. Mr Lane's counsel pointed out that the publication was ephemeral, and if nipped in the bud might I never recover, but pleaded in vain that pending the hearing of the appeal from Mr Justice North's decision the publication should be allowed to go on, Mr Lane undertaking to keep an account of the copies sold and pay increased damages in the event of the ; "Times" continuing successful. Mr Justice North held that the speaker has no copyright in his speech—unless perchance he keeps a copy, or has such a memory that he can subsequently recall it. The copyright of the report of a. speech is in the reporter, who reports it, and is the author of the report of the speech, the result of his brains and experi.ence. So that if twenty reporters each reported the speech there might be 1 twenty copyrights. Mr Justice North ; compared the. reporter to the trail si la.t.or, and the comparison seems apt, i where the speech is condensed and abstracted. But what of a verbatim report, where the reporter is merely the recorder and gives the ipsissima ; verba of the speaker? Clearly if Mr ■ Justice North's decision be good law, i any speaker, who thinks of republishj ing his utterances in literary form, : will be wise, if he does not keep copies, to have his own secretary or special shorthand writer recording his remarks. ! Londoners are in the thick of a Dickens boom thanks largely to the "Daily News" much advertised editioii of the popular author's work's, and to its examination paper in imitation of Calverley's. For those who wish to visit some of the haunts of Dickens and his characters, Mr Shirley White has arranged a series of day drives to places in Kent; personally conducted by an enthusiastic student of the

novelist. A start is made fi-om Grave-s----end, and among other places visited are the house at Chalk where Dickens spent his honeymoon, Gad's Kill place where he died, Higham, Gotham, Rochester and Chatham. Mr Percy Fitzgerald in his"Pick.wickian Studies" gravely ti-eats Dick-

i ens as a German commentator analy- | |ses Shakespeare. According1 to him "this is the true philosophy of the ■thing; that, once his Ideas are in print, the author has no more to do with them or their meaningl than any one else has." Thei« Mr Fitzgerald tries' to identify places and persons in the novels with real places and persons, to show by measurement that Eatansw.ni could not have been Nor- \ wieh, to^discuss the quesfton whether Pott was Maginn. and to try and "home" every 'incident, spot and personage. He doesn't give Dickens much credit for imagination. No doubt

many characters were drawn from the life, but we prefer Dickens' creations to the originals. One of the latter, by the way, has just died in the personof John Chipperfield,familiarly known as "Chippy," of Tilbury. He had been a lamp trimmer at the Tilsbtiry station until he died, and was a favourite of both Dickens and Gordon. The former immortalized him as "Lamps" in "The Gentleman from Nowhere." The "Daily Chronicle" tried to hunt up some particulars of Chippy's biography, but gathered little information beyond the facts that he was "a pood sort" and had eleven children. "Lig-hts out" wivs sounded for Chippy just as the oil lamps which he had tended so* loner were bedng finally

superseded by electricity. Mr Charles Neufeld's new book on the Soudan materially elaborates the "Wide World" articles and contains much absolutely new matter. Mr Tfeiifeld has (he says) aimed at letting his readers feel what the Soudan is. He has tried to convey the atmosphere of the country in Which he was so long a prisoner. His own experiences give the volume its narrative, but incidentally he has much to say of the Soudanese. His estimate of the Khalifa is that he is a clever man within limitations—clever and cruel, not a mere brute The familiar version of Gordon's death :s that he met it. on the staircase of his palace at Khartoum, .while peacefully defying his assailants. Mr Neuf eld says the information which he collected among Gordon's people will give the really accurate account oft everything that happened. According to this new tesItimony it will probably be found that Gordon died fighting strenuously against terrible odds. One of the illustrations for the book shows a group of the survivors of Gordon's party. In the centre of these is an aged chief, who is declared to have been beside Gordon: as he fell. After his bpok has, appeared Mr Neuf eld intends to, deliver a series of lectures.

He speaks English quite fluently, with | only a slight German accent. Mv E. L. 1 Sniythe has seen him, but is not likely to be able to tempt him to the colonies at present. Eden Phillpotts' "The. Human Boy" is a capital series of eleven sketches of schoolboy life, told by the boys themselves. The "Boy" is very funny, but a little* too much given to introspection and with a rather too keen sense of 'his own humour to be altogether human. "The Protest of the WingDormitory," told by a fifth form boy, and "Freckles and Frenchy," told by "Nubby," will appeal most to the colonial boy, especially the latter. "Freckles" himself came from Australia, brimful of bushranging. His equipment comprised a bowie knife, a bag of tea, and a belt lined with "human skin," said to be flayed off a chap by cannibals somewhere. Lastly, Freckles had a flat lead mask, with holes for the eyes and mouth, which he always fitted on when trespassing. He said it was copied from the helmet Ned Kelly, the King of the Bushrangers, used to wear; but it was not bullet-proof, but only used for a disguise. We were in the same dormitory, and one night, when all the chaps had gone to sleep, he dressed up in these filings and stood where some moonlight came in, and certainly looked jolly. Once, as an awful, favour —me being smaller than him, and not fast enough to run away from a man— he let me come and see what he did when bushrangmg1 on a half-holiday in winter. "I shan't run my usual frightful risks with you," he said, "because I might have to open fire to save you, and that would be very disagreeable to me; but we'll trespass a bit, and I'll shoot a few things, if I •can. 1 don't shoot much—only for food!" The French master calls j "Freckles" an aboriginal, and is in consequence "stuck up" by the youthful bushranger. The encounter is amusing.

Considerable curiosity exists as to the authorship of "Valda Han em: the Romance of a Turkish Harem," which has been running- through "McMillan's Magazine," and is now just out in . book form. The story—supposed to bo told by Miss Grey, a young English governess employed in the harem of a wealthy and influential Pasha at Cairo—throws'interesting' light pn the strange existence lived by Turkish ladies, and 'tis evident the experiences have been gained at first hand. The plot is commonplace, merely detailing the history of the hapless and 'hopeless love affair of the Pasha's beautiful wife, Valda Hanem, for a selfish and unprincipled British officer named Fitzroy. The latter's young compatriot, Miss Grey, does lier utmost to stop t!he intrigue from its commencement, and has at first a most beneficent influence on Valda, but passion and the force of circumstances are too ranch for her, and as she cannot bring ■herself to betray her mistress to the ; Pasha she becomes involved in the i tragedy of the erring woman's doom and death. The best part of the book is the character drawing, plainly from life. The upright, dignified and kindly Pasha, devoted to his wife, aud unsuspicious of evil, a strong man every inch of'him, lingers pleasantly in the reader's memory. Little Djernai--1 eel-Din, Miss Grey's wilful little pupil, is also very evidently real Turkish, and the ghastly gossips of the harem stand out before us vividly. Tne novel should not be overlooked. It will ap,pear in McMillan's Colonial Library. I A volume of somewhat ill-digested verse bearing the title "Maoriland and Other Verses " has just been issued by the Bulletin Publishing Company. The ■author, Mr Arthur H. Adams, presumably entertains no undecided opinion as to the niche he occupies in contemporary colonial literature. If we take him at his own estimate, a.s set forth in a fragment to which he attaches the heading- "Myself—My Song," we find: Here, aloof, I take my stand Alien IconoclastPoet of a newer land, Confident, aggressive, lonely, Product of tne Present only, Thinking nothing of the past.

Wlxa* he j>roposes to do lie sets forth iv these lines: I shall croon no love song old Dream no memory of wrung, Build no mighty epic bold; i Prom ray forge I send them flying ; Fragments glowing- once and dying— : Scattered sparks of molten sohg.

By "sparks oi' molten song'" it is to be presumed that the author means such rhyme a,s that prefacing the poem from which the book's title is taken. It runs: Maoriland, my mother, Holds the earth so fair another? O, my land of the Moa and Maori, Garlanded grand with forests of kauri, Lone you stand, only beauty your dowry, Maoriland, my mother. Suit Mr Adams is capable oi! much better things than this weak and amateurish versification. Take for instance this:

I stand in old earth's presence; over all The warm, pervading sunshine seems to print Life and the present; and there is no glint Of white bones from the Past's decaying- pall; When lo! some subtle scent holds me in thrall; Or an uncertain, evanescent tint, That of a fuller summer seems to hint,Wakes long imprisoned yearnings that recall Half memories of strange unthought-of things, That seem were once a vital part of me— Unmeasured, mystic, vague imaginings! And all life's presence and the sunvshlne flee, The listless aeons of my life I sea. And in my face the dead past flaps its wings. ■ Or, In the grey levels of the plain-of lif© When slowly swirled The moving hills of morning1 mist, Hedged in the worldWhile yet undared the path of toil and strife I found a friend Whose faith I pictured would persist Until the end.

But darker and more desolate the way, Until I turned— Lo, in the halo of the sun The lovers burned, High on the mountain top! Ah, what if they By passion kissed, The goal of life and love have won And I have missed? The fault of the collection is rts pafchineiss. So many of the shock, pieces are ill-considered, immature and poorly phrased. Mr Adams has, however, unquestionably a poetic gift, and with judicious, pruning, so sadly needed in the present volume, his future efforts should be looked forward to. Of tlxfe more ambitious pieces in "Maoriland and Other Verses," by far the best is the short sketch which concludes the volume, entitled "The, Minstrel."