CHRONICLE AND COMMENT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 November 1907, Page 13

CHRONICLE AND COMMENT.

In * short "recollection" of Horbert Spencer by Rosalino Mason in "Cornhill," wo find this amusing story: "Casual callors were a groat abhorrence. Threo Cabinet Ministers had once been granted five minutes and a watch laid on the table had kept them to tho given time. This dislike of callers led to, n characteristic incident. On 0110 occasion a voico, with a deoided trans-Atlantic suggestion, was hoard demanding at tho front door if Mr. Horbert Sponcer could be seen. Mr. Spencer was just round tho corner, on the dining room sofa, waiting for luncheon, and tho supposition that tho maid might bo overpowered, and tho inquirer admitted, proved insupportablo. When the American on tho doorstop becamo urgent, an amiable emissary Went forth and parloyed. 'Mr. Spencor is unablo to receive' visitors,' he was heard explaining. 'But I havo come all tho way from Noo York 011 purpose, sir! I asstire you that with us tho name of 1 Horbert Sponcer ' 'Mr. Spencer will very much regret it, but his health . 'I assure you, sir, that I would not dotain him. Tho revorenco that his great achievements cause him to bo hold in with us is ' 'I am afraid, howovor, that Mr. Sponcer 'If I could merely bo allowed to hold his hand, and toll him— : —' But this proved much. Tho agonisod philosopher raised himself on his sofa. 'Send him away I Send him away! Don't lot him comn in I' ho called out. A pauso—everybody's breath hold—and then, in tho hall, jn nwo-strickon tones: 'I havo heard the voice of Horbert Spencor! I can now return to Noo York satisfied!' "

Evorybody, probably, has at ono timo or another, asked himself, in a momont of sudden vision, why it is that lyric pootry writton before 1850 is BO much fresher, and so. much moro durablo in charm, than almost all tho lyric poetry that is quiring through tho work! in theSe days. In the second volume of Prof. Saintsbury'a "Minor Poets of the.

Caroline Period," thero aro many short, bright flights of song to suggest tho question again and again. Somo lines from a poem by William Hammond entitled "Husbandry" will illustrate tho point: Tho broken heart to mako clods torn By tho sharp arrows of Disdain, Crumbled by pressing rolls of Scorn, Give issue to tho springing grain. Coyness shuts Love into a stovo; So frost-bound lands their own heat foed; Neglect sits brooding upon Love, As pregnant snow on winter-scod. • Tho harvest is not till we two Shall'into ono contracted be; Love's crop alono doth richer grow - Decreasing to identity. "In tho days," comments Prof. Saintsbury, "when I used to review scores, if not hundreds, of volumes of verse every year, how many pieces do I remember liko 'Husbandry?' I shall not say how many, lest I should have to say how fow." "Ton Thousand a Year" is a novel that had an enormous veguo when it was first published nearly eighty years ago, and it is still read, if not so much as formerly. Samuel Warren, its author, the contonary of whose birth was reached last May, is tho subject of an interesting article by Mr. J. B. Atlay in tlio October number of the "Cornliill Magazine." Warren, "tho ablest yet vainest of men," has had the ill-fortune to bo remembored chiefly by his woaknesses of character. These included an egregious vanity and "an undisguised partiality for the nobility." There is a story told of his perambulating the Assembly Rooms at "York with a very lovely girl on his arm and saying to hor : "It is perfectly unpardonable how these people stare at me." "I am so glad you told mo," was the innocent reply. "I was afraid they might.bo looking at mo." ~ ■ • ■ .' ■)'■■■ - Thackeray satirised his snobbishness as illustrated in his famous novel, and the ofttold tale of Serjeant Murphy's b'on mot. is •worth tolling onco moro: Warren had been discoursing on his oxperioncc at a certain'"ducal" mansion, presumably Alnwick.' "Would you believe it." ho said, in tones reminiscent of Talbot Twisden, "we had no fish?" "I suppose," interpolated Murphy, "that they had eaten it all upstairs." The "British Weekly"_ draws attention to a romarkablo resolution just adopted by tho American Newspaper Publishers' Association, calling for "the immediate repeal of the duty on printing paper, wood-pulp, and all material ontering into tho manufacture of printing pnpor." "A pertinent comment on this resolution,". says the "Daily Chronicle," "is mado by the. New York 'Nntion,' one of the saiiest and ablest newspapers in tho United States. 'Thus,' says our American contemporary, 'when the shoo pinches we all becomo Free Traders. The publishers want to cut off , tho entire'tariff, not to modify it. Why should not tlio labouring man demand with equal justice the removal of tho duty on coal, on clothes, on hides, on all tho things that aro as vital to him as white paper to the newspaper? Wo aro glad that.our Republican high tariff friends In the Now York 'Press' and 'Tribuno' are ' joining in this critsade for Free Trade, or at loast aro agreed to it, for thoy have not as yet announced their desire of paying more to the trust in order to save the, paper tariff. This present difficulty is a kintl of 'argumentum ad lioininoni' that must certainly open tlio mind to tho fact that thero aro millions who are suffering from one form or another of tariff outrage or discrimination as well as they. But then it makes a V vast difference whoso ox is gored.' "

"What' does tho 'man in the street' who reads bociks at all really like to read? At his most intelligent wo believe lie does both buy and road tho many volumes of classical reprints which are being issued in suoh numbers at prices to suit his pocliot. Otherwise it- would not. pay the publishers to produce them. What lie or his feminine counterpart reads in tho way of fiction, not perhaps altogether at his brightest, is indicated by the returns rnndo by a librarian who'tabulated the first 500 volumes issued by him on a certain day last month. Tho authors whoso books were asked for wero tho following, in order of numbersßider Haggard, Mario Corolli, Conan Doyle, G. A. Honty, Joseph Hooking, Charles Garvico, Rosa Nouchotto Carey, Fergus Hume, Miss Braddon, Nat Gould, ,E. Phillips Oppenheim, W. Lo Qucx, Silas .Hocking, Mrs .Hmigerford, Adeline Sargoant, Ednn Lyall, Airs. L. T. Meade, Florence Warden, Mrs.. Alexander, Guy Boothby, Max Pomborton, iiita, John Strango Winter, Curtis Yorko. It is as surprising a list as any of its kind we have soon. It does not contain tho name of a single novolist undeniably of the first rank, either living or dead. It is a pleasant surprise to find Mr. Rider Haggard heading such an assembly, and Sir A. Conan Dqylo not far off him." But what nro wo to fcliink of Mr. Rudy aid Kipling's total exclusion, oven when we have resigned ourselves to that of all the great English novelists of tho past, nml of Mr. George Meredith. and Mr.'Thomas Hardy of tho present? Rndyard Kipling and tho Rev. Silas K. Hocking! The one is chosen—seven times—and the other is loft. It is amazing! And what- has become of Mr. Hall Caine?"—"Daily Mail."

Mr. Stuart Mason, the well-known bibliographer, has compiled an ingonious littlo volume entitled "Art and Morality." It consists of reprints of all tho important reviews of "Dorian Gray." .together with Qsoilr Wilde's letters to tho St .James's Gazetto" mid "Scots Obsorror" in defence of a work severely criticised at the time of its publication. A fow years later the criticisms were used against Wildo, but without any success. It is, indeed, difficult for us to discover anything' dreadful in the really blameless pages of a book which in Fronch Government schools is now given as an English text book to young ladies studying our language j indeed the Continent has endorsed Mr. Robert Buchanan's opinion, expresed at the timo. It has been translated into seven different European languages. Mr. Robert Mason does not mention the anecdote about a friend who pressed tho author for the real secret of Dorian Gray. "You must promise never to toll anyone" said Wildo, "but Dorian Gray dropped his h's."