LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19724, 14 September 1929, Page 15

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Six f.rst-tuitiev. copies of Kir James Barrie 's works brought in a total snni of £B7O at Hodgson's auction-rooms in London recently. The highest price wa<s £265 for "Better Dead," presented to

James Donald with the author's best regards in I&SS. Mr Donald, a native of "Thrums," was a friend of the Barrie family, and much of the material used, in "Auld Licht Idylte'* and "A Window in Thrums" was supplied, by Mr Donald. A first edition copy of Mr Bcrnr.il Shaw's "Cashel Byron's Profession." 1886, brought £112; and a single l?af of additional stanzas to Byron's "Beppo." 1818, brought £2lO. A letter telling of Bobort Burns** troubles when he went to Maaehiine in 178S, soon after his triumph i<i Edinburgh, was sold at Christie's lately for £SSO. In a recent number »f the "Xew Statesman" there appeared a pleasant reminder, by "Affable Hawk," of Theobald's valuable early work on the text *f Shakespeare. Churton Collins, he said, gives many example! of Theobald's imaginative emendations. "One of the most famous of these occurs in 'Henry V.'; it is the passage about the death of Falstaff. Originally it ran thus: For after I aatr him ramble -with the Sheet*. And play with Flowers and rail© upon hU ftngeri end, T knew there was lint one way: for Ms »•** "Was Sharp ae a P«n, and a table of green fielder. Pope's explanation of this nonsense was that a stage direction had somehow got into the text, and he omitted it in his Shakespeare. But Theobald, by the alteration of one letter and the addition of another flashed out the immortal a'babled of green ■*i**». thus restoring, or presenting, to dramatic poetry one of its most preeiou* D? a later number a letter from Mr Gordon Crosse clows with the following paragraph: It may he remarked that the i«»***»' "babied of green fleldea." i» dae tp Theebald only is part With hl« usual honesty. he records to hie note that "a Of*} 1 *""* sometime deceased" tugract** t] 1 * I*** 1 *** mcaning-lett word." "a table of green fleldes" ehould reed "a* .talked of green fieldes." Theobald adopted tho eonjoefau* and immensely SmproTed it by wMtttntins "babied" for "talked. Our London oorre*pondent, under date August l*t, writ**: Mr J. M. Bullock reviews briefly in the "Sunday Time*" Mr Alas Malgan'* "Horn*—» Colonial'* Adventure)." . Ho •*▼»: "This remarkable book ha* a tonic quality rare in current literater*.** Mr Mulgan "belong* to the old «ehool which prefers the nio* old word 'Colonial" to the high-Minding ornate name of Dominion conferred with a flourish upon an unenthuaia*Uo public," and, adjusting hinwlfto our scene, he sees beauty even wu*f* we ourselves may mia» it. . . . Wandering in leworaly ginay tmtiem op nnd down the country, ho found a great deal to admire and atill mora to lor», closing with a chapter on 'Hapreemons and convictions" which takes it* place beside Mr Galsworthy** aplendid "Diafnosis of an Englishman. How true fa this? The Englishman i* a practical mvstic. Behind his abhorrence °«_**r pressed emotkm. hi* worship of **»jood form," lie* tho conviction ,p«*w no* recognisable to himself, that life u ft mysterv which logical uiouasM* ©anno* solve, and that the higher instinct* axe Divine truth* which tntisstajßa reason.