LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12545, 14 July 1906, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Mr T. H. Crosland has abandoned tiro bludgeon for the trowel, and hisnext book, to be published by Messrs Greening, will deal with rural delights under 4;be. title of "The Country Life." Mr Sidney Lee is responsible for I tho prediction that somewhere about the year 1915 Great Britain and America will be on equal terms so far as ! tho posoession of copies of the tjhakespearo First Folio is concerned. It Seyms that somv iS)O2 American buyers have carried across tho Atlantic a number of these prized volumes, and one ardent, well-endowed collector in New York is the proud owner of no fewer than eight copies of the First Folio. A "corner in iShakespeare" is a terriblo thing to contemplate in the book market. Fortunately, not even the drawing power ot tho almighty dollar is pou-nt enough to rob lintioli public libraries ot sucli treasures, and happily more thau thirty copies of tho First Folio are in official keeping. It is odd to learn, on the authority of Professor Mac Kail, that for more than a century th© Chair of Poetry at, Oxford, which ho himself tills, was never given to anyone who had lost the frestiness of youth; Oxtord, in fact, unconsciously anticipated the rough "too old at forty' , test. During ten decades the "averago ago ot those elected to the chair did not exceed thirty. Keble, the fifteenth in the list, was the nnst « ho was" , over thirtyfive.' , Tlie romantic temperament is, however, independent of years, and the best, informed and even most impassioned love of poetry is usually the outcome of a wide experience ot liie. Th , ) University has abandoned the old restrictions, and now, as Protessor MacKail wittingly put* it, is content, so far as age i≤ concerned, to follow tho method of a shrewd Norfolk rector, who advertised for a curate, "neither so young as to bo omniscient, nor so old as to be unteachable." Criticising tlie tremd of recenit American fiction in tho ■ln<;op..iKi.en:,'' Airs L. H. Harris wants to know wiiat kis become of tho jwns*ble people who uswl to go u.b~ut. behaving tiiomsL-'lves ''©yon in fiat;oiu" "It is a question ii a publisher would risk a story in which the heroine could not bo tempted either by the author or hero iiiiU> a couiprcwmsiug situ aid en.. As for modesty, it is out oi fashion In fiction. There usod tx> ho a of spirituality about tlie gii'l wno let down 'her hair ii» Uie ol ii-time romance and knelt before tho moonlight window in her niiight.gDWJi "to say ii'er prayers, but now liernajrd Siiaw will thrust a woman iiiito the drawiaigrooan c\f liis .story clad only in a red satin oor>.c--c and her petiticoats, aaiil wo must be thankful if ho makes even tUiis contumptuous concession to decency. In tho old days a main did ocoasio-naily run anvay vrilh tho other mwn'e wllo, but mo* .nearly so much was made of it in fiction. And) what was;said went, to prove tihat tlie way of such transgressors was liard ; but now sucQi wdoked couples are found in too many modern novels, amd, tiho worst of it is tJiat they are reprosentod as having ' fcund Itui.p- , piine6s' at last—aJl of which means tliat it is a liberal education, in vice to read current fiotion. From six of the best wriiuten .novels cf tliiie session the reader may loam more about ways and moains of i>olito damnation tiiun the average bad man. can from aotiiai experionoe. Tho a-rbissne trouble witli this class of fiotion. is that it is not literature in tlie sense of being representative of tho average life, but it presents only tho obs-Lssicns of these who fall! bclcAv tihe eominon stamdard in morals. It is a fuingus art wiliicli midges us in tho dark oi our minds, which never rises above a sublimated form of materialism." The lavt of libel in America alTcws much greater freedom to the oritio than it dote in England, and tliero is thus a piquancy about, the personal Rido of Yankee criticism wJiich would titrnan Eraglifih editor's hair grey im one day, says the "Daily Mail." Wo read, for instanoe, in a recent issue of am important American magazine t<he> following paragraph on Mr J. M. Barrio as a playwright:—"His 'Littfo Mary' marked fhe low-water mai-k of dramatic formlessnos3. 'Alice,' etc., Jβ a trifle liett-er. I do not include 'Tlie Admirable Crichton,' as that clever piece was firet written by Liidwig Fulda, then adapted wi'tibout acknowledgement. . . . I can go 'Peter Pan,' but no more Barrie for mc if it is to bo of tho 'Alice, where art thou? typa." Tlio above is written by Mr Jamca riuneker, one of the foremost of tihe American dramatic critics, and what i& meanifc as a reflection en Mr Barrio hsm, in all probability, no battar foundation 'tihaai some idle green-room gossip. Ye>b this is the stuff American readers accept by way of "critioiem." Elinor Glyn, the author of "The Reflections of Ambrcßine ,, and "The Vicissitudes of Evangeline," is eaid to take every one of her characters from reail H'fe, each being meant for a picture of some prominent person ago in smart society. Perhaps net the least of till© literary charms of this clover lady (says "M.A.I*.") is her Lndisputiblo initi'macy witli Society and all its ways, habitfi, cii'Stome, forms of expression, and tricks of epoech, in the mowt in Unites im a 1 degree. Sho never makes a slip or a mi.es of any sort. In this she is like E. F. Benson and Mary CholmcindcJ-ey, a.nd therein used to lie the great, delight in reading Whyte Melville. It ifi related of her that She has some ways of lifo peculiarly her own. One is that the special wing of her house in. which she does her literary work 'hae a separate and strictly private front-dcor, at which everybody, even her own husband, must ring for admittance. The statement ill the note on Mr Hardy that he is better known in I>orchester as a magistrate than a niovcliet reminds mc (writes a corrospondenik of "M.A.P.") of a curious conversation I had with some Dorchester digni!taricn a dozen years ago. They had chatted freely about ''Pafi-son , ' , Barnes, the Dorsetshire dialect poet,, and I casually remarked that I vsuppo&ed they tcok even a greater price Ln Mr Haidy. The Durcheeter councillors blankly at each other. "Oh, it's Hardy, the architect, you mean,' , ono said after a pause. "Well, I never hoard of his making much money out of he building business." "And he mover will," said another. ''Whenever I tnko a ] drive I meet him walking along the j roads, and as often as not he's juet • Ft-aring in front cf him as if Ik> were , sleep-wallcing. I don't -wonder ho gets ! no business. Such were tho opinions of Dc-rchestcT oouncilldrs cm the great man who has immortalised their com- | cil in "Tho Mayor of CaKterbridgv?.' j Mr Alfred Edmonds has resigned the i managing editorship of "London I Opinion' , to be cub-editor of "Tho Throne," the new Society paper which is shortly to appear. The promoters of "Tho Throne" are keeping details n.i to tho new paper secret, but it has leaked out that the Princees Christian will bo editor-in-chief, and that dukes and duchesses and prominent Society personages will be the main : contributors. It is said that no one who does not figure in 'T[)ebrett ,J can hope to get anything printed in "The Throne." and that almost every crowned head in Europe has promised some contribution. Palatial offices are J being erected in Regent street, and I even tho temporary offices in Bond (street are furnished in Chippendale.

'Tho Throne" will evidently bo a very I elaborate production, illustrated in tho highest conceivable style. Even the advertisements are to paes the artistic eye of a very famous artist. Tho paper will not be on sale, and' single copies will ] not bo obtainable. To secure it purchasers must subscribe for a year—the price will be three guineas. ■ Already, it is said, six thousand subscribers have been secured. An advortisemenit in our columns today draws attention to the fact that I tiho '" Keview of Reviews " for Austra- ' laaia. edited by W. H. Judkins, lias been reduced to 6d. 'Hie ••Review - ' is to be congratulated on this forward step. In addition it is to contain a serial, and the first- chapter appears of Mr H. G. Welk's latest story: "In the . Days of the Comet."