LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12897, 31 August 1907, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is engaged to be married to Miss Jean Lockie, younger daughter of Mr Leckie, of Glebe-house, Blackhoath, and Monks-town-cottage, Crowborough, and the wedding will take plaoo this month. Sir Arthur is a widowef.

The world seems to be pretty well agreed as to the amount of practical respect that is due to a dead man of genius (soys the "Daily Mail.) Wo mentioned last week the scandal of the American edition of Oscar Wilde's works. The history of English pu-» ludiing is marked by such episodes as the posthumous publishing of drawings which Aubrey Beardsley "vehemently refused" to allow tho public to see while he had life to prevent it. Now oumes word of a curious case from Copenhagen. In the sixties, during his Italian sojourn, Honrik Ibsen produosd a certain work. He lost the im-uuscript, and tbe work passed out of his life. He died believing, if he ever thought of it, that. it was no; upon his record. But in 1893. whi.e Ibsen was alive and famous, a Danish gentleman found the lest MS. on a Roman book-tall. »\hat did lie do? He concealed the fact from Ibsen: he kept the papers until he predeceased Ibsen in 1900; and he left them to the Royal Library at Copenhagen on

condition that a certain friend of his should have the ngnt to puo.kh it. Neither Ibsen nor his family and frieftds were consulted. .The author now being safely out of tho way, the work is to bo published this autumn.

Writing in tho New York "Evening Post,' Mr Andrew Lang says that the standard has been ra.sed against the spiritual supremacy ot Mr G. B. Shaw. "In Blackwood s Magazine' a critic, adopting tho old signature of Wilson, Lockhart, and perhaps Maginn, the letter Z.. writes of 'Sham and Supersham.' He quotes Mr Shaw thus; but does not cito volume and page, There aro moments,' says Mr Shaw, of Shakespeare, *when one asks despairingly why our stage should ever have been cursed with this ''immortal" pilferer of other men's stories and ideas, with his monstrous rhetorical fustian, his unbearable platitudes, his pretentious reduction of tho subtlest problems of life to commonplaces against which a Polytechnic debating club would prevail.' If the victim did publish, as it is to be pre -timed that he did, this criticism of Shakespeare, it really ecoms that there is no use in savins: anything about such froth. Several other quotations, abusive of Shakespeare and other Elizabethan poets, are not moro to the purpose. One such passage on<_, after a quotation from Shakespeare, 'I really shall get sick if I quote any more.' The malady would be universal if all the world road the remarks attributed to Mr Shaw. It doo3 not seem possible to combine such lack of taste with such a terrible minus quantity of humour; such ignorance with such arrognnco. But probably Mr Shaw has done much better thin-rs than his Shakespearian criticism. "To call him 'a little charlatan,' 'an ignorant jackanapo,' is to forco tho note. That old style of invective expired in the forties of the nineteenth century, after dominating tho reviews for some twenty-five years. It is enough to take no notice of Mr Shaw when he disports himself among tho Elizabethans. * If I am not mistaken, he has also vaunted his own intellect over Homer and Scott, to whom nobody else ever thought of comparing him."

Recently the "Scottish Review" invited its readers to send in lists of what they considered to bo the best 25 books by Scottish authors. The Rev. M. Stewart, M.A., passed so excellent a commentary on his own selections that tho "Review" prints it. "The Poems of Robert Burns," says Mr Stewart, "hold tho affections of his countrymen ns no other human book does, or ever did. BoswelPs 'Life of Johnson,' indisputably tho greatest biography extant, makes a good second. Upon the heels of Bo3well, Lockhart treads hard with his 'Life of Scott.' Scott''Pooms' enamour each generation, yet not a few, more fit to judge, would deny them a place here. But not so with his novels. Hero by universal consent he is facile princeps. Where all are gocd, for Scott's worst is better than any other one's best, it is not easy to choose tho choicest. We shall, however, because we must, put down as our favourite 'Guy Mannering' and 'The Antiquary'; but we would fain havo added, had wo been able, "Th*.* Heart of Midlothian,' 'The Bride ot Lammermoor,' 'Ivanhoe.' 'The Poetry of George Buchanan* must always be an ornament of our Scottish literature. The Poems of Thomas Campbell' are an English classic, and need no apology. Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd' and Thomson's 'Seasons are worthy of remembrance. Next we come to 'Drummond of Hawthornden. Last of all must stand 'Barbour.'

"And now to descend to prose, a great book is Hugh Miller's 'School ana School Masters.' Gait's 'Annals of the Parish' might not have been written but for Goldsmith's immortal Ticar. Still, it makes a good second' To> tnis great masterpiece. Smollett s Uumphrev Clinker' m-av bo entered as the best of the works of this father of tne English novel. After him how pure and chaste are the writings of perhaps tho greatest stylist ever born in Scotland. The grandsons of boys unborn will love his Treasure Island.' Mr Barries 'Window in Thrums' remains unequalled as a work of genius in tne school to which it belongs. 'tlumes Essays' must ever be memorable, and not a few of his most brilliant ideas aro reproduced by Adam Smith, a pupil or his, in The Wealth of Nations.' Because of its biographical nature, 'Sartor Resartns' must always bo one of oarlyle's best loved works, whilst his greatest is The French Revolution.' Jonn Knox's 'History of the Reformation' must always be remembered; while there can never ue forgotten Bishop Burnet's 'History of His Own Times. As our penultimate we choose Smiles's 'Self Help.' 'the last place on our list wo give to 'Tho Letters of Samuel Rutherford.'"

It would be interesting to know what the circumstances were which led tho Prime Minister to grant a civil pension of £200 to Sir Francis Burnand. Sir Francis occupied the editorial chair of "Punch" for many years, and it is reasonable to suppose that this post is ono of the most highly paid in British journalism. In addition to this. Sir Francis was a successful playwright. Tho "Spectator" takes exception both to this pension pnd to the one given to "Ouida." Of the latter it says:—"Although we are extremely sorry to learn from the 'Daily Mail' of Friday that her circumstances have been so greatly reduced, those Circumstances call rather for a subscription among her readers than for a State grant. No doubt with all their defects her stories have carried innumerable 'tired people' to the 'Islands of tho Blest.' let we Biippose the 'tired people' paid their passage-, money, and this, in the course of time, must have amounted to a considerable sum. Is it right that one who deliberately chose a popular form of fiction, a form of fiction that was 'the fashion' for some thirty years, upon which to exercise her pen, and who has earned a good deal of money, and ought to have saved some of it, should be preferred to other writers of serious literary accomplishments whose work, by its very nature, did not, and indeed could not, bring them in so much." The " Spectator" thinks that pensions should be reserved for those who "not only have put their art or research above nil considerations of money-making, but. as a matter of fact, have not ntade money out of it, nnd so are in necessitous circumstances."