CHRONICLE AND COMMENT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 51, 23 November 1907, Page 13

CHRONICLE AND COMMENT.

It appears that we have not yet had tho last of the late Lafcadio Hearn's delightful letters. Messrs. Constable havo in the press an ontirely new sheaf of them. They were addressed to Hearn's intimato friend, Mr. Henry Welkin,, and the volume is to have illustrative notes as well as an introduction by Mr. Bonnor.

"Tho Call of tho Sea" is a prose anthology compiled by Mr. F. G. Ailalo, and fulfilling the part of a companion to Mr. Masoficld's vorso volumo, "A Sailor's Garland." It is published by E. Grant Richards. "

Another holograph manuscript of Keats has been discovered by Mr. Sabin, of Shaftesbury-aycnue, London, among some papers.of Richard Woodhouso's. It is a small, irregular scrap of paper, which has \ been carried - folded in. the pocket until it t is almost creased through, and it is evi-' dently Keats's transcript of his "Sonnet to a Friend Who Sent Mo Somo Roses,", a poem addressed to Wells, his young poet friend. Thcro are somo interesting variations . from the toxt of tho 1817 edition of the poems in ,this stray manuscript. On the outside of tho folded paper is jotted in pencil the -.word "rambled" .which in the published'version replaced the "wandered" of the first line, and was, of course, an improvement. The written vorsion runs as follows:— N As late I wandered Tsicl in tho happy fields What time the Skylark shakes the tremulous (lew. From liis lush clover covert, when anew Adventurous Knights take up their dinted Shields I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields A fresh blown Musk rose 'twas the first that . threw ,;. Its sweet upon the summer, graceful it prow As is the Wand that Queen Titania wields; And as I feasted in its fragra'ney I thonght [t~\ tho garden rose it far cxcell'd But when 0 Wells thy Roses came to me My sense with their doliciousncss was spcll'd Soft voices had they that with tender pica Whisper'd of Peace and Truth and Friendliness unqucll'd. . . . Tho most important variation, as Mr. Buxton Forman points out in a letter to the Athenaeum," is the word "swoet," instead of "sweets" in the seventh lino. Tho s, ho concludes, was added meddlesomely in the courso of printing, and tho original word .being much bettor, ought to be'restored. Some amusing curiosities of criticism are preserved in the current number of tlio "Periodical," that agrceablo little monthly published by the Oxford Uuiversity Press. There is a pretty goneral agreement among modern critics that "Ghristabel," unfinished fragment as it is, must bo taken as marking something very near tho high-water mark of English pootry in tho nineteenth century. Hero are oxtracts from the contemporary reviews of thnt wonderful poem which appeared in three of tho most reputablo periodicals of tho timo: — "Had wo not,known Mr. Coleridge to bo a man of genius and of. talents we should really, from tho present production, have been tempted to pronounco him wholly destitute ot both; Mr. Coleridge might' have spared himself the troublo of, anticipating trio chargo 'of plagiarism or servile imitation'—it is a perfectly original composition, and the like of it is not to be found in tho English language."—Tho "Anti-Jacobin Review," July, 1816. "We should not be much surprised if tho object of tho poet was to mako fools of tho public . . . and if it was really published on tho first 'of tho month before the month of May 1 wo cannot altogether disapprove of the ploasantry."—Tho "British ltoview," August, 1816. "Upon tho wholo we look upon this publication as one of the most notablo pieces of impertinence of which the press has lately bcon guilty. • • • Tho thing now boforo us is nttcrl.y destitute of value. It exhibits from • beginning to end not a ray of gonius, and wo defy any man to point out a passago of poetical merit in any of tho three pieces which it contains, except, perhaps, tho following lines on p. 32, and even these are not very brilliant j nor is tho loading thought original— 'Alas! they had boon friends in youth,' etc. With this ono oxcoption there is literally not ono couplet in the publication before us which would bo reckoned poetry, or oven senso, were it found in the corner of a nowspaper or upon tho window of an inn."—Tho "Edin. burgh ltoviow," September, 1816. The last gem of criticism is attributed bj tradition to Hazlitt.