NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 199, 16 May 1908, Page 12

NOTES.

. Tho ''Manchester..Guardian" unbepds in this bright "little, leading article on "Mixed Metaphors":—With much vividness the Bishop of Manchester seems to havo explained at Halesowen the other night that Air. M'Konna's sword .-lyas.'an ,Overloaded pistol which, being hung' up in ; a/.tight, corner. : .lost' it. should burst,'■ protoiided ■to be dead'until it got up and trotted home on the friendly back of tho Bishop v !.of"St. ;Asaph., Tho' griinness of political, strife is relieved by such, ploasant pictures as this, which combine in one canvas all that is best in.the study of still life, of tho, subtjoty.of tho auimal world, and the beauty of human helpfulness.' The Bishop's figuration wvers 'an eVen; wider range than that of tho-pxford "orator who spoke of "the little rift.lin. the Jover's: lute which tho stealing hand of .time would ripen into a fathomless chasm:"; -, Tho great Mark Pattison himself, a purist of purists in writing, says somewhero'in his "Memoirs," if, we remember rightly, that "tho country squire or rector when he first, lands in Oxford, with bis cub 'under.'his- wing, often finds himself much, at sea as to tho relative merit's of tho different collegos." When theso. purists do begin to bo Corinthian' they make the Corinthian stylo of, decoration—as they might say when £nus exalted—hum. Shakespeare, of course; made Lady, Macbeth ask hor husband whothor ho bad dressed himself in a drunken hope "arid whether this, garment had been asleep since, but tlieii Shakespeare always was a wild man when he got a pen in his liand. \■-

In an article on American literature, in "Blackwood's Magazine;"-Mr. Whibley argues that "the tradition, of, literature is stronger than the tradition of lifo," and that "from tho first tho writers of Amorica have lagged honourably bohind tho ago." They do not appear to me (writes Andrew Lang) to lag so muoh at present, either in taste,

in choice of subjects, or in sedulously oultivating tho idiom and adhering to the languago of times gone by. For example, a novel by Mrs. Atherton, "Ancestors," appears rather to encroach 011 tho future, or 011 some realm "out of space, out of time". In tho past, and even in tho present, wo did not, and do not, speak (in belles lottres) of an individual as "an Ego." "What an interesting Ego you are," is a novelty-, porliaps. I>or is it a tiling so prohable as to deserve "fictional" treatment, that a British lord (who seems to liavo his bedroom in his club) should leave a group of men in the. smoking room, go and fetch his revolver, como back, and shoot an infortune convive in thp waistcoat, while the . othor revellers and two "waiters" look 011. With more easo than Morris in "Tho Wrong Box," they find a venal surgeon, who pronounces tho slain man-to havo expired after an operation for appendicitis, and so oh, and so forth. All this is remoto from, our literary traditions.

"There is living in Melbourne Mr. George Bessy, who for ten years was secretary to Mr. Tom Longman, of tho firm which published 'Maeaulay's History and Essays,'" says the "Publishers' Circular." "Afterwards he oponcd a book-shop in tho Clapham Road. Macaulay, on his way to his sister's (Lady Trevelyan), frequently called in to have a rest and a chat with Mr. Bessy. He talked mostly about _ his affection for tho Common, and'his intimate knowledge of it; its undulating : . stretches of thick, bushy growths, the -yellows and dark greens of' furze and brackenits quiet, its browsing animals; its sauntering lovers pleased his fancy. Macaulay, as a child, lived with his paronts on tho confines of tho Common, had played in his snhooldays there, had fallen into its seven ponds at times, and mado picnic excursions to its hilly rises. Those seven 1 ponds ho liamed—in later and more imaginative years—after the seas, the red clay pond tho Red Sea, the dark clay pond the Black Sea, and so on. Tho minute hills hp called the Alps, the Rockies, eta. Macaulay had little sense of humour, and was raroly jocular. Ho talked mostly (after his favourite topic, tho Common) of politics, India, modern travel and of far-off old heroic day 3 and deeds, frequently quoting his own works."

"When we read that at some tercentenary a grandiose memorial is contemplated, which j shall do hoiiofir to Shakespeare, we arb reminded that- they best reverence thp poet who read hint aright," says tho writer of the "Musings without"'Method" 'in "Blackwood's Magazino" : for April. "How shall bronze or marble celebrate tho wonder, and beauty of Shakespeqro's work ? No poet that lived has stood less in need of a monument. His famo is universal and unassailed. Three centuries ago' Milton asked and answered the question With an indisputable " , '"What needs my Shakespeare for his I honoured boiies, Tho labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques 1 should be hid : . _ ' " ' - ' Under a star-ypointing pyramid? , Dear son of memory, great heir of fame. What need'st thou such weak witness of tli.y name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Ha-st built thyself a livelong monument.' Li 'every'word of these incomparable lines is conveyed a reproach to those who would honour him, most splendidly honoured in his own, verse. To set up a sculptured memolial to Shakespeare is as ihdelicato as it were to binld a new - and .vast : monument to Sophocles.". , ' ' ' Robert Louis Stevenson taking part in.a Sunday 1 paper-chase is depicted in tho "Chronicle'' of the London Missionary Society by | Roy. W. E. Clarke, who was in Samoa with.the novelist. Mrs. Clarke reprimanded him, and suggested 110 should ex-/ press his contrition. "What,would Samoa' bo like ' without a Sabbath?" she said.

"Have you 110 thought of the effect of your conduct upon the natives, who regard you as a Christian man ? ' And do you thiuk you have set a dignified example to tho young Englishmen and ' Germans, -many of them only just - freod,'from the restraints''of home?" So Stevenson apologised, and expressed his; regret to Gorman and Erigljsh officers publicly. ■ . "To make such an _ avowal," says Mr. Clarke,' "in a placo - like Apia, where the Sabbath was systematically disregarded by irost ; of tho white • population, required plenty of moral courage. News travels quickly along the 'Beach.'. Before night it was known in every German household, and in thp wardroom of every gunboat 111 the bay, that R. L. S. had openly expressed his penitence for the misspent Sabbath."