THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19202, 7 January 1928, Page 11

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY.

(.MCULtt WUITT« MB TM TBaSS.)

By A. H- Grintikc

OOLi.-OX SOME CENTENARIES. William Gorman Wills was bom at Blackwell Lodge, Kilmurry, Ireland, on January'2Bth, died cn Decem ' ber 13th, 1391. In his day and generation he was a popular dramatist; now, alas he is well-nigh forgotten. iet he was associated with the Batemans and afterwards with Sir Henry Irving in many of the early Lyceum productions. First of all portrait painter he turned his attention to writing for the sWe. Retained by Colonel Jtoteman as dramatist to the Lyceum at a salary of £3OO a year, he produced a couple of I." and "Eugene \ram " the success of which went, iai to establish Henry Irving's reputation. This was in the 'seventies and to the same period also belongs another popular plav, "Jane Shore." Wills's masterpiece, Waver, was "Olivia," based upon Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," produced at the Court lhcatrc, London, under the management ot John Hare, with William Terms as Squire Thornhill and Ellen Terry as Livv. Wills's real interest was m oil painting, and his painting of Ophelia, used to hang in the foyer of the old Lvceuni. His verse was of little account, but he had some skill as a balladist, as witness "I'll Sing Thee Songs of Araby." His character is acutely summed up by one who knew him weli :

His Bohemian life, his impassioned character, his hasty method of production gave him in the distance the look ot genius. But it was a misleading look . . . his pieces are founded upon conceptions which crumble away upon analysis, and the versification is too poor to veil or redeem the weakness of the dramatic idea.

Margaret Olipliant Oliphant, one of tho most popular novelists' of her time, was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, Scotland, on April 4th, 1828; she died on Juno 25th, 1898. In her writing she was notably under the influence of George Eliot and possibly of Mr Gaskell; in her literary career she was greatly aided by Blackwoods. On her husband's death, in 1850, Mrs Oliphant summed up the situation as follows:—"A thousand pounds of debt; two hundred pounds insurance .money. Some furniture warehoused. My faculties, such as they are." These faculties sufficed to bring her in an average of £4OO per novel, an amount greatly increased as her popularity grew. "Salem Chapel," published in 1863, proved so successful that Mr Blackwood offered her £ISOO for her next novel, "The Perpetual Curate." In addition to her novels, which were numerous, she wrote a life of Edward Irving, and she took a special trip to the Holy Land to collect material for her of Laurence Oliphant and Alice Oliphant, his Wife," he being her brilliant and eccentric cousin. In all Mrs Oliphant was responsible for over a hundred volumes, besides numerous contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine" and other periodicals.

Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, was born at 84 Duke street, Liverpool, on April 13th, 1828; he died on December 21st, 1889. In the department of Biblical criticism he is acknowledged as the most accomplished English scholar of his time; he had a great European reputation, and ,as a

time and thought Sr man?"? ° f hIS taken up by the revved vll' S ?T New Testament. He Jj, ° U °/ e original members o? tht C TV,? 8 nieiit Company of Revisers «M ? ta ~ at work from July 18% 'tin v' ™ ber, 1880, and he w-i,l tll J ?So,vemdays in every Year. unW l- y by the claims was a strong advocate 0 f the 'KvhiiZ Cross'' purity movement and a i' supporter of the Church ann V V less a critic than Adolf Harnack paid

His editions and comment-,,-;,-ns his critical dissertation" hj,« perishable volume, and even wh!™'",™' .mpossible to agree with h.s ro t s "h'u grounds are never to be ne-le c t»d Th. respect for his opponent, which di.Hn-J.h-ed him has brought him the highest respect of b 1 parties. There has ner-r be" an apo ogist who was less of an advoAle t::an Lißhtfoot Xot only measured bj thl standard of the official thcologv ,7 {J* Lnglish Church was he an independent free scho ar, but he was this likewise j„ th e absolute sense oi the word. Ho has never defended a tradition for the tradition's

John Bunyan. author of "The Pilgrim's Progress," was born on November 30th, 1628. Dr. John Brown, Bunyan's faithful biographer, says:— "Tho record of that event quietly takes its place in the list of the nineteen christenings of that year at Elstow Church, in the following form: "1(328. John, tho sonne of Thomas Bonnionn, Junr. the 30th of November." Dr. Brown adds:—

The entry is conimonplare enough and made in the same routine fashion as'were hundreds more, yet as we read the record becomes more than usually suggestive of the simple beginning of a great, strong' life Once again we seem to see the wondrous babe carried on the last of the chilly dav s of the November of 1628 to Elstow Church. llu.de/was the little cradle out of which he was lifted, and commonplace the little cottage, with its grimy forge, out of which he was carried. Looking at all his unpromising surroundings there comes into our minds a rustic story told about the father of the child by quaint old Thomas Archer, the rector of Houghton Conquest parish, next neighbour to Elstow- itself. The delightful old man kept a sort of chronicum mirabilo of tho little world in which, King's chaplain as he was, his tranquil days were spent, and in his record, as a curiosity of natural history, he sets down this: "Memorandum, —That in the Anno 1625 otic Bonion of Elsto, clyminge of rookes noasts in the Bcry wood found '.J rookes in tho nest all white as milke and not a black fether on thetm."

Vividly the whole scene comes back to ■us. This Bonion o£ Elsto, the father of the Dreamer, wandering in vacant mood in the Ellensbury Wood, looks in wonder lit the three milk-white birds in tho black rook's nest. And as wo watch him, tho surprise on his 'aco becomes symbol and presage of a wider world's wonder than his, tho wonder with which men find in tho rude nest of his own linker's cottage a child all lustrous with the gifts of genius, n life memorable in the literature of the great world, stretching far away beyond Elstow Green, and inimemorable, too, in the spiritual history and experience of many souls in many nations through tho centuries to come.

Oliver Goldsmith was born in the village of Pallas or Pallasmore in tho county of Longford, Ireland, on November 10th, 1728, unci he died on April 4th, 1774. John l-orster, in his "Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, says:—"The marble in Westminster Abbev is correct in the place, but not in the time of the birth of Oliver Goldsmith f Oliver's father, the KeyCharles Goldsmith, had married in May, 1718, and before 1728 four children had been born. "A new birth was a new burden," writes Forster, "and little dreamt this humble village preacher, then or ever, that from the act of the tenth of November on which Oliver was born, his own virtues anci very foibles were to be a legacy or pleasure to many generations of men. For they who have loved, laughed, or wept with the father of the man in black in the 'Citizen of the the preacher of the 'Deserted Village, or the hero of the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' have given laughter, love, and tears to the Reverend Charles Goldsmith." Writing on July 4th, 1774, Johnson said to Bos well: "Of poor, dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told more than the papers have made public. He died of a fever made, I am ofraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to bfe heavy and all his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?"

T proposed to add.the publication of William Law's "Serious Call" to the centenaries of the year, but on reference find that the book first appeared not in 1725, as often stated, but i" 1729. The exact reference is as follows :~"A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, adapted to the State and Condition of all Orders of Christians, bv William Law, A.M., London, 1729. Second edition corrocted 1732. Tenth edition. London. 1772." Centenary hunting is a fascinating pursuit. The centenary of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, who was born on April 21st, 1828, and who died in 1892, falls in the current year. The work by which he is best known is his "Histoi're do la Literature Anglaise, published in 1864. and of which a translation into English by H. Van Laun was issued in 1873. There are some minor centenaries concerning which I may hare a word or two to say presently.

In writing about either music or literature, Mr Georgo Sampson displays in each the knowledge of an export. In the latest "Quarterly Kcvicw" lie has, "Music and tho Plain Man" for subject. Finished criticism of painting made a good beginning, lie writes, with Joshua Keynolds's "Discourses," but music has not yet found its Buskin. The best of current writers on music is, in George Sampson's opinion, Sir Henry Hadow, and "the place of Wagner in our operatic world is due as much to Bernard Shaw as to any man in the countrv." How shall the plain man be "educated up" to the best music? he enquires. "He educates himself by listening intelligently. He learns to enjoy by the very act of enjoyment. But he must give music a chance as he gives games a chance." The language and laws of music have as much c aim, asserts Mr Sampson, who is an educationist as well as a litterateur to be taught to ordinary school children as the language and laws of chemistry.

Whoever "Ephcsian" may be (says the "Newspaper World' 1 ) his volumes on Lord Birkenhead and Mr Winston Churchill have attracted wide attention. Significant among reviews of the anonymous author's estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer arc the four pages in the current "Empire Review" under the heading "'Ephesian' and Mr rimivhill " and over the signature PterE Wright. Peter E Wright supplements the conclusion of kphesiau, who "is caught in the same dilemma,-' he remarks in his opening paragraph "is all writers who write about living contemporaries. A penetrating intimate picture is indelicate. A bare polite recta lot event... such as ' Ephcs.an ' olfers. may " ot ful1 -' r jeet.' '

The American '•Bookman," which bean a new series with a proprietary change in September, has already doubled its circulation. It is now edited hv Burton Kaseoe, while John Farrar, rhe former editor, contributes each month a personal department. Arnold Bennett and Gerald Bulktt are among English contributors to the American "Bookman."