LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 113, 11 May 1912, Page 14

LITERARY.

p Professor Sanf Terry, of Aberdeen . University, is engaged upon a volume of | "Documents Illustrative of Scottish His- : tory, 1603-1707," which he hopes to publish with Messrs. Mac£,ehose early next ' year. A book which is called "Against Home Rule" will be published towards the end \ of the month by Messrs. Warne and Co. , Sir Edward Carson will write an introduction, and Mr. Bonar Law has promised to add a preface. Mrs. Edith Wharton, who now lives in France, has translated her grim story, " Ethan Frome," into French, and has published it in that form in the "Revue de Paris." Its title was transformed into " Sous la Neige." The London "Daily Telegraph's" appeal on behalf of the five necessitous granddaughters of Charles Dickens resulted in English subscriptions amounting to £6651, and American contributions to the amount of £2763, making a total of £9419. Messrs. Witherby and Co. are shortly publishing for Mr. F. W. Headley an illustrated book on "The Flight of Birds," a subject which the author has long studied. The book is designed to interest the aviator as well as the ornithologist. "How 'Twas" is the title of a new book by Mr. Stephen Reynolds, which Messrs. MacMillan and Co. have in the press. It consists of a series of stories and sketches similar to those contained in "A Poor Man's House" and "Alongshore," and deals with the same workclass life and coast and fishing scenes. Miss K. C. Laurence's book, "A Nurse's Life in War and Peace," is honoured by a prefatory note from Sir Frederick Treves. It describes the anxieties of a nurse's life in hospitals for children and adults, alike in town and country, and also gives a full account of personal adventures during the course of the Boer War. Smith, Elder and Co. are the publishers. I Mr. W. S. Crockett's recently published book, " The Scott Originals," lays stress on the fact that Scott's characters were all composites, the living person i never having been transferred to his pages simply as he was. Perhaps Daft , i -lock Gray, who suggested " David Gal- | letty" to Scott, was more closely fol- : lowed than most. Mr. Crockett tells us j that Jock had the impudence, one Sun- I day morning, to mount the pulpit of I Ettric-k Kirk, and, when the minister j commanded him to come down, replied: " Na, na, come you up, Mr. Paton, com" J you up. They are a stiff-necked and re- j I bellious people,- and it'l tak' us baith." I I Sir Edward Clarke, feeling that the ! | text of the Authorised Version of St. I j Paul's Epistles leaves a good deal to be j desired in the matter of accuracy, and ! I desiring at the same time to retain the | peerless dignity of the Jacobean English, has prepared for himself a new text of the Epiatles, which is contend to correct i only where correction is obligatory. The j result avoids the literary ineptitudes of i some of the alterations admitted into J the Revised Version of ISBI. and yet pre- ! serves the sense in passages which had j become somewhat obscurred through the errors of the translators of 1611. Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. have published the work. The study of the children of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which Messrs. Methuen and Co. have issued, is the posthumous work of the late Eleanor A. Towle, and it throws a rather pathetic light upon the heritage of the children of a genius "wrecked," as Matthew Arnold said, "in I a mist of opium." Sara Coleridgp, inI deed, enjoyed a pleasant reputation I among her friends, and was happy in I the confidence of many of the leading j men of the time. But Hartley Coleridge, her brother, lost his Oriel fellowship on an accusation of intemperance, and died at the comparatively early age | of 53, a disappointed and disillusioned I man. i __ The invention of the typewriter has brought relief to an army of publishers and compositors, who no longer have to suffer, as of old, from blind handwriting on the part of authors. Occasionally, h iTver, they are called upon to decipher the almost undecipherable, as in the case of a letter addressed by Mr. Cuninghame Graham to a certain news- | paper. When it appeared in this paper | it was quite unlike the original, and its writer promptly remonstrated. His remonstrance was published in a subsequent issue with this mournful comI' ment by the editor: — "If in I future Mr. Graham will sit in i a chair when writing, and not on horseback ] and mc a pen instead of the candle snuffers we think we may be able to do him justice." The writings of "A Japanese Artist in ; London" and his preface to "The Colour of London," are too honourably known to call for any introduction to Mr. Yoshio Markino's newest volume, published by Constable and Co., on the charms with which he invests his John Bulless friends. The book entirely disarms criticism indeed its hundred and sixty-six pages all devoted to a serious study of the opposite sex, and I built on an idealism he insists real, would! The same shrewdness and originality observable always in the work of this cheery Japanese runs through "My Idealised John Bullesses," though his English is more nearly English than beforea, pity. Nevertheless he still falls "into love" with things, his friends still "write upon him" and, in one phrase "grainplains" (in place of complains) occurs amusingly. As he says himself in the chapter "John Bulless As My Teacher," "I am now able, though not without difficulty, to sew up each word which is in the stock of ' my head and make a ragged dress of my ideas. I often rebel against myself." It. is seldom anything but stupid, just as it is seldom anything but unfair to identify a writer with his writings, but so does our Japanese writer unconsciously imbue all he says with his own personality that an interested reader cannot but conjure up a picture of him as he writes. It is that perhaps of a roguish, precocious boy by nature, though from the life he has lived and the struggles , conquered he cannot be a boy. Mr. j Markino is a well-known figure in London and. until one knows him. has nothing of the boy. most certainly nothing approaching roguishness. about him. He is a very short, grave, faultlessly dressed man with bright sharp eves that make one realize the habit spoken of in his in- ! troduction "if any John Bulless has! passed within my own small circle, I have I never 'been too lazy to observe-her'" J

The popular game of bowls has found an enthusiastic literary exponent in Mr. James A. Mauson ("Jack High"), in his "Complete Bowler," published by Adam and Charles Black, London. The book is ! intended to serve a twofold purpose. In the first place, it gives a connected sketch of the history of bowls, an account of the leading Associations, and a review of the famous tours which have been made in the United Kingdom by representative teams of Bowlers from Australia and Canada. In the second place, it explains in necessary detail, primarily, of course, for beginners, be they young or old, how the game is played, how greens are constructed and maintained, how the bowl is made and what are its peculiarities, with -much else of importance on the practical side of the pastime. Attention has been particularly directed to a thorough exposition of the features of the rink game, which so often presents difficulties to learners, and an explanation is given of those competitive exercises which have been devised with a view to rendering bowlers experts in the various modes of playing to the jack. Messrs. Constable have been entrusted with the publication of the authorised life of the late Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, M.P., which will be written by his nephew, Mr. Algar Labouchere thorold, who for the last ten years has been a close neighbour of, and in intimate personal relation with him. Mr. Labouchere frequently communicated to Mr. Thorold many details of his early life, and discussed with him his numerous activities with great freedom. Mr. Thorold has. furthermore, sole access to a voluminous correspondence, j including letters from King Edward VII. I when Prince of Wales, Mr. Gladstone, : Lord Morley. Sir William Harcourt, Mr. ; Parnell, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, which i shed a new and unexpected light upon his political and personal relations with the events and people of his time, in particular his connection with the Radical party over a period of a con- j siderable number of years. His life as ; a war correspondent during the siege of I Paris and his action in connection with the Parnell Commission culminating in the dramatic confession of Pigott, will be treated in full detail. The. house occupied by Robert Louis Stevenson at Monterey. California, was lately visited by Mr. J. Smraton Chase, who, in an article in "Chambers's JourI nal" for April, describes it as "the most I forlorn, uninhabited, and uninhabitable I house in all Monterey." All the winI dow-pane? are broken, and the building I iis rapidly falling into ruins. A disroiir- ; | aging account of "State Insurance in j I Germany" is contributed to the same j ! magazine by Richard Thirsk, who slates I that "insurance against accidents has j long since been dismissed as a delusion. j ilt does not come into force until six j , weeks after the accident has happened; i i that is to say. if a man has the misfor- i I tune to break his leg he is dependent upon his master for maintenance until the expiry of six weeks," by \vh ; time he has often recovered, and receives not a farthing of benefit- Other interesting articles in •'Chambers's'' for April deal with "Titles of Honour." "The American Secret Service," "As the Chinese See Us," and "Thomas A. Edison." The cover which has enfolded "Cornhill" magazine for fifty years was designed by Godfrey Sykes, who was recommended for the work by Thackeray's old friend, Henry Cole, knighted in 1575, in those days the moving spirit at the South Kensington Museum, and when the drawing arrived at the office, and Mr. George Smith, the proprietor of "Cornhill," showed it to the editor, Thackeray exclaimed, "What a lovely design! I hope you have given the man a good cheque for it." Mr. Smith himself wrote to the artist saying, "Wo are very much delighted with the beautiful drawing you have n— for us, and I .hope you will find that Mr. Linton has done justice to it.' When a proof of Linton's woodcut was sent to Thackeray, he wrote. "What a fine engraving! What a beautiful drawing! There has been nothing so ornamentally good clone anywhere that ( know of." In "Cornhill" for April appear the customary instalments of "Blinds Down," by Mr. H. A. Vachell. and "The Grip of Life," by Agnes and Egerton Castle. In "Sixty Years in the Wilderness" Sir Henry Lucy presents "The Mystery of Lord MaeDonnell," "The Shah." and various extracts from his diary in 188S-9. Mrs. S. A. Barnett give 3 the humorous side of "The Children's Country Holiday Fund," and Mr. T. C. Fowle completes jis account of "The Darweeshes of Damascus," describing a performance of the self-torturing sect. "On the Threshold of Russia" is a record by the Hon. Edward Cadogan of the visit recently paid 'by the British deputation to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Mr. Francis Gribble has been devoting his attention to Catherine the Great, with, the result that we have an interesting account of that remarkable woman who at the age of 15 was taken from a German Principality to Moscow as the betrothed of the heir to the Tsardom of All the Russias. Eighteen years later her husband ascended the throne, and after a few months was deposed and died, that Catherine might rule alone, which she did with remarkable vigour for over thirty years— in fact, the "lucky accident" of the murder of Ivan the Imbecile made her position secure. M. Gribble says: "The statement of the facts and the exposition of the circumstances are essential to any attempt to rescue Catherine's reputation and reconstruct her personality. She has been damned by silence, sneers, and shrugs of the shoulders. She has nothing to lose , and a great deal to gain from candid treatment. It is not to be expected that she will emerge from the inquiry with the spotless robes of a saint, but there will Ibe as little need to array her in the white sheet of the penitent. The superlatives — a good many of themwill have to go. Catherine will, in the end, appear neither so great as she seemed to Voltaire nor so licentious as she seemed to Laveaux; but more human—more womanly—than she seemed to either of them. Above all, it is to be hoped her charm will be made manifest." Mr. Gribble thinks that Catherine was probably not herself an active agent in the episodes which made her an autocrat— the revolution which deposed Peter 111.. his convenient death, or the murder of Ivan the Imbecilebut she had those about her who did not scruple to take such steps as they thought fitting for her (and their own) security. The story of Catherine, the German Princess who became Empress of Russia, has, indeed, much of the elements of Oriental romance about it. That she was a strong ruler history witnesses, that she was not without that strange quality which we denominate charm is shown clearly by her biographer, but to appreciate that charm it is necessary to remember the conditions which changed the child Princess of Anha.K-Zerbst into the unmoral Autocrat -of All the Boa——, J