LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13231, 26 September 1908, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Mrs Flower, a Stratford-on-Avon lady, has. bequeathed to the Shakesr,ca'ro Memorial Association £12,300 and her residence, gardens, and grounds, to bo used as an adjunct to tho Shakespeare Memorial .Theatre.

A second Dickons Exiibition has lately been, opened in Piccadilly under tho auspices of the Dickons Fellowship. In ono room is to be soon, a complete set of first editions, also of continuations and keys to "Edwin Drood." Lettors from Jules Verno in French and Tolstoi in English speak highly of Dickens; tho latter, indeed calls him ,"tho greatest novel-writer of the nineteenth oentury," and declares that "his works, imbued with tho t«uo Christian spirit, Rave done, and will continue to do, a great deal of good to mankind.

Publication of a volume of "Becollections," by tho late David Christie Murray, evokes from "Tho a rather melancholy but very truthful summary of that novelist's career. ' Ha was a man of robust and swift intellect ; ho could wield a powerful pen; from a poorly-educated boyhood he fought his way through hardship and penury to tho position of a novelist of whom'Mr Goor_» Meredith could write: —Tour work gavo mo great pleasure ... I could wish you wero (still) engaged in creative work'; and Robert Louis Stevenson, after reading, four of his novels in a week:—T wish to thank you and to congratulate you; setting aside George Meredith, our elder and better, I read nono of my contemporaries with tho same delight.' And yet for want of concentration, method, a steady eyo on tho Bear future, he achieved but a passing popularity, an.l attained to not a tithe of the worldly success which.his abilities might have worn Printer, soldier, reporter, war correspondent', traveller, sportsman, journalist, critic* novelist, playwright, champion of Dreyfus, aird eneniy of sham 'spiritualism,' he did nothTnjj supremely well, but thoroughly enjoyed everything ho attempted." An interesting estimate of Lord Rosbbcry as a man of letters is given by a writer in -th© ''Scottish Review." who says:—Lord Rosebery 13 a maker of happy phrases rather than a writer of sustained elc-ite-irco. His stylo is often curiously uneven. Now it :a virile and full of intensity, again it betrays, obvious effort, as if tho author had become suddenly and overwhehntirgly aware of the irk*emen<?.*s of written "words by the side of tho warmth and rnpidity of thought, * > n.d ponderingly had put to h_-us<_f tho an cation, a quoi fairo? "I neither affirm nor deny." he remarks in his recent address to Glasgow Tniivcrsitv, when alluding to-Avb.it is presumably the ouestion of Soeialiem us n, necessary phase in the evolution, of tho race-. The attitude is.broad and re-sf*Miah.!o, 4 but it lacks that rote of decided individuality that is ir.rc_iistible*in compelling attention. So, too, it may bo that it is some tinge of this spirit that someliimcs rohrc his stylo of a character of dcfmitenicss. For that type of mind, aptly described cos tho "lawyers mind," whi- h when confronted by a problem cannot help baingalivo to the two op-rc-sing .lides at cure, if "cultivated to OXC3H3. is fatal to tho writer no leys than to the speaker. Lord Rosebory is himself aware of this fatality in rccpect to oratory, for in .hi_ "Life of Pitt" be declares:—"Few sn.premo Parliamentary speeches have .perhaps ever hc-nii delivered by orators who havo been unable to convince themselves, not merely that they "are absolutely in the right, but that their opponents aro absolutely in the wrong, and tho most aba.-'donod. of jxoundrol* to boot for holding a contrary opinion." Lieut.-Celonel Tyrrell writes to the "Spectator":—Shelley's almost forgotten epic poem, "Tho Revolt of Islam." reads like ?. prophecy of the events now occurring in the Ottoman Empire. The poem, written nearly a hundred years ago. describes tha inauguration of a social millennium at Constantinople brought about by the preaching of'tho gosneJ of humanity to tho people by a Greek .suffragist named Cytbna, whose lover Laon has been carried into slavery by tho Turks-and who h-3 herself been "a slave in tne Sultan's seraglio. The Social Republic is proclaimed in Stamboul, tho Sultan resigns himse'f to the situation and tho position of a private citizen, and tho Turkish lion and the Greek lamb lie down together, while the Grecian girl leads them. But the mailed Monarchs of Christian Furooo (Sbelloy wrote in tho days of tbe Holy Alliance) unite to crush regenerated Islam, and their combined forces besiege and bombard Constantinople. In spite of the beauty of style and imagery, tbe prolixity of the n?»----rativo deters and repels the reaaer, and I doubt if anyone has ever read through the poom to tho bftter end, in which the. poet nrophesies the final triumph of his ideas, and looks forward to the timo when the last King shall receive his dying shrift at the hands of the last priest.

The "Spectator" administers rather a cold douche to worshippers of W. E Henley. Reviewing a collected edition of his prose and verse—which it describes as a challenge to posterity—the "Spectator" says: Over and over again as we read him wo come upon things which delight us. but which when we examine our delight seem to depend for their merit rather on the chai actor which they suggest than on any high intrinsic value of their own. His verse is as amusing, as engaging, as striking as verse could be; but is it ever anything more than this? is it ever great poetry? It is the kind of verse which is constantly making us think that the writer of it is an ex-

reedinclv clever man, and very_ rarely Sd that the writing itself is -trap _nd beautiful. Thus Hcnlov is afc his best when he is not aiming >gh,--when ho is deliberately; hgh*, as m Tome of tho charming "Bric-a-brac, or when ho is frankly conversational, as in tho sonnet on Stevenson, or wfeon ho is pungently fantastic, as in tho macabre and entertaining hues beginning— ... "M'_am Life's •*• pie«« «■ b-co-m * Death goes cc__ing everywhere. In such passages as these one conies directly and easily into touch with a rich alert, and ingenious mind. But elsewhere it is impossible not to feel that this samo mind' is working in an ] alien medium, and that it is betraying j the fact by signs of uneasiness and effort, which in the best poetry never j make their appearance. Nothing illustrates this moro clearly than Henley's use of words (continues 'the reviewer). His pages aro crowded not only with words which are in themselves unusual,- but with curious anil uiKixpc-ctccl verbal combinations. Let ti3 look, for instance, at this, description of dawn in tho City, from "Lon- ; don Voluntaries'': — ! "Ar.d did yon lwar That little tiwitteT-ar.d-chcep, Brenkicg inordinalo'y Inud ar.d clear On this still, rpcctral. eseuisito ainicsphcTe? Tis n first cert at maiics! Ard bebo d A rakche'.l cat —how f-uitivo and son id! A spent witch _c_si_:j from sorno infamous dance—' Obpci_», sec her tip »r;d fade Thrcnia-h s'cdoTT raiiirrs into a pit of shads! Ar.d r/vw! a little vivA ccd rky, | The mudl! of shins (that earnest of romance), A fen** of space*and wj-tsr, o;:d thereby A lacnplit bridse cucTiing tho troubled sky." No one .could deny that this was vividly observed, and vigorously set down, indeed, on a first reading there is little room for anything but admiration at such cleverness of image and such force of diction. Ann yet, tho more wo contemplate it, tho more unsatisfactory the whc.'e passage grows The far-fetched words and the queer construction- not onJy catch our attention, they worry it; and, for all their straining, how "infinitely far removed is the actual effect of restless-, ness and glitter which theso lines produce from tho dim suavity of the dawn which they aro intended to describe! In tho latest instalment of his autobiography to hand, Mr Hall Caino has some interesting remarks on "Wilkio Collins. It 6eems that "The Three "Musketeers" was Collins's ideal of a great story, and that ho thought '"The Brid© of Lamrnermoor" tho greatest of all prose tragedies. Some of his stories concerned his own novels and their readers, and Mr Hall Came recalls ono of them that relates to "Tho "Woman in^White." Immediately after the production of that book, when all England was admiring tho arch-villainy of Fosco, the author received a letter from a lady, who has since figured very largely in the .public view. Sho congratulated him upon his success with somewhat icy cheer, and then said: 'But,'Mr Collins, the great failure of your book is your villain. Excuse mo if I say, you really do not know a villain. Your Count Fosco is a very poor ono, and when next you want a character of that description I trust that you will not disdain to com© to mc. I know a villain, and havo ono in my eye at this moment that would far eclipse anything that I havo over read of in books. Don't think that I am drawing upon my imagina-" tion. The man is alive, and constantly under my gaze. In fact, ho is my own husband." Tbe lady was the wife of Edward Bulwer Lytton.

There is a wealth of significance in a recent little incident of London criticism. The "Snectator" declared that "Tho Old Allegiance," a novel by Hubert Wales, published by Mr John Long as a "notable new novel," was identical with "Purple and Fine Linen" by William Pigott, reviewed in its columns in 1899. An explanation was naturally requested. Mr Long acknowledged that the books wore tho same, and pointed out that/ an intimation to this effect was printed in "Tho Old Allegiance." He explained further that under the'title "Purplo and Fino Linen" the story wns not a great success. But when "William Pigott" became "Hubert Wales," under which namo his works have onmod widespread popnlaritv, ho re-published ■■ the old story, with a different title, under his new and successful norn de. guorre. Tho story is now soiling well (says a London paper), and is ono more instance of tho power of a name.