LITERATY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume XLVIL, Issue 7719, 26 November 1890, Page 6

LITERATY GOSSIP.

Landor's admirers have always been extraordinarily fit; but they have been extraordinarily few. His peers, the admired of all admirers, the read of all readers, have read and admired him. And their praise has been pitched in no ordinary key, from Charles Lamb's to Mr Swinburne's

And though tbe trumpet of a child of Rome* R-a_ the pure music of the flutes of Qreeee. We cannot resist the temptation to decorate our column with the quotation, though all lovers ot Landor have it by heart. Why, then, does hot Landor make more way? Why does not bis choice minority swell into a majority, as is the way of such minorities in such matters f The question has often been asked, and many answers have been given. For one thi_K, till lately his books have not been the most accessible in the world. That, at any rate, is an obstacle which is being done away. The (Camelot editor, by following np the " Imaginary Conversations" (the bulk ot them) and the " Pentameron" with the " Pericles and Aspasia," has put the pick of Landor's prose within reach of the poorest; and the poetry has been included in the equallytcheap "Canterbury" series. But Mr Colvin's pretty "Golden Treasury of Selections" has been before the world ten years. Vet we doubt whether that " minority of a minority," which Mr Colvin then declared the Landorians to be. has been substantially increased. The authority of Landor's backers has imposed a widely expressed respect; but it has failed to win for him a wide acquaintance, still less to inspire a wide aflection. And one proof of this. Landor abounds in aphorisms, and quotable aphorisms, yet he is never quoted. (By the way, he himhelf condemns quotation, and himself never quoted the writers he loved.) De Quincy, who at one time took credit for being Landor's single reader, put down his unpopularity to the dialogue form. There is probably something in that. That wonderful form, whicb, as Mr Wilde has been telling us, from Plato to Lucian, and from Lucian to Giordano Bruno, and from Bruno to that grand old pagan in whom Carlyle took such delight, has never lost its attraction. That form, which Landor himself said more briefly bad been used by the best writer of every age, is undoubtedly a tempting form; but equally undoubtedly it is one hard to succeed in. In some respects it demands more dramatic skill than drama itself; and It Is commonly employed by writers who feel themselves unequal to drama proper. So whole-hearted an admirer as Mr Colvin admits that, though full of noble things, Landor's dialogues rarely " go." It is hard for us moderns to test the " go" of dialogue inancient Greek. But Plato certainly gets the advantage of comparison of style with Aristotle and Spinoza and Kant. There is a writer who can make dialogue go, and that is Gyp, the Parisian Lucian in petticoats; but Gyp ia a dramatist born.

Mr Colvln's explanation is that Landor was a classical writer in a romantic nation and age. He admits, besides, a want of legitimate literary face. In an age when every scribbler takes the world into his confidence, and when readers look to be button-holed, Landor walks arrogantly and almost savagely aloof. He must be unpopular, he wrote himself; he never tried to be much otherwise ; be never contended with a contemporary, but walked •alone on the far eastern uplands, meditating and remembering. And in another place, " I claim no place in the world of letters; lam alone, and will be alone, as long as I live and after." And so, indeed, it-has come to pass. The parallel with Milton has been pressed. Points of parallelism might be found with Flaubert. Mr R; Le Gallienne's book on *' George Meiedith : Novelist and Poet" Is to make its appearance soon. As Mr George Meredith is one who looks on critics with the eye of a Carlyie, it will be interesting if an interviewer—a being also for whom be has but a slight regard—should be able to gauge his opinion oa his latest analyst and present it to the public. Jules Verne's workshop is at the top of a three-story house. A corner room with windoWs looking in two directions is his combined study and bed-room. In his library, which adjoins it, hangs a big map of the world. It is marked all over, the routes taken by the heroes of his romances being indicated by means of lines and nags. His penmanship is small, and the pages of bis manuscripts are covered with corrections and interlineations. He rewrites his stories many times. Of his last book he made no fewer than ten versions before he brought It to perfection. He has been at work for nearly thirty-seven years, producing on an average two books a year. Madame Sarah Bernhardt's Reminiscences, it is reported, are being prepared for tbe printers. They are to take, it is said, largely the form of such books as " People I Have Met," or " Persons 1 HaVe Known," rather than of directly personal ____ri6nc6S Mr Ruskin has in the press two volumes of poems. They will be ready for issue early next year, and will contain a number ofplates. The well known publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers, of Edinburgh and London, has been turned into a limited liability company, the, capital being £100,000, The shares are nob being offered to the public, but are to be divided amongst the Chambers family and the employes. It appears, from some statistics which have just been published, that there are 12,500 daily and weekly newspapers iv the United States, 5500 in Germany, 4100 in France, and4ooo in Great Britain. There are now published 17,000 newspapers in English, 7500 in German, 6800 in French, 1800 in Spanish, and 1500 in Italian, .The original Harpers, of publishing fame, were printers, and their sons and grandsons have learned the craft. Each one of the family that intends entering the firm must learn the trade. He starts as an apprentice, and is not admitted to tbe Arm until be has mastered the craft. He also practises proof-reading, and in this manner goes the rounds. Mr Andrew Laug has just finished his long expected biography of Lord Iddesleigh. It is an open secret that Mr Lang has felt a good deal burdened by what is his first attempt at political biography, and the mass of correspondence with which he has had to deal haa taxed his patience if not bis ingenuity or skill. The book will shortly appear, and is certain to prove readable, graceful and suggestive, even if it does not in all respects follow conventional lines.

There is a good time coming for the friends of the fairy folk. Mr Lang Is going to snpplement the " Blue Fairy Book" with a " Red Fairy Book," and Mr Joseph Jacobs, the editor of FoUc Lore, is going to set to work in earnest with the whole body of English fairy lore—is going, indeed,' to attempt to do for England in this matter what the brothers Grimm did for Germany. Tbe attempt makes us his admirers and well wishers; his success would make us his slaves.

It Is the testimony (recorded in " Macmillan") of a doctor who attended him in that lest long illness, that on his mattrass grave Heine busied himself continually with twoproblems—how he could keep the state of his health from his mother's ears, and how he couldprovide for the future of his wife. One visitor to the sick chamber once ventured to ask him how he stood with God. "Do not disturb yourself," was the answer, "Dieu mc pardon-era; e'est son metier."