GEORGE MEREDITH DEAD.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 511, 19 May 1909, Page 7

GEORGE MEREDITH DEAD.

AN OCTOGENARIAN. (BY TELEGHAFH—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPTBIOBT.) (Rec. May 18, 10.57 p.m.) London, May 18. Mr. Georgo Meredith, novelist and poet, is dead; aged 82. Georgo Meredith, tho oldest of living British novelists and ono of tho greatest literary figures of his time, was born in Hampshire, of mixed Welsh and Irish descent, on February '12,1828. Ho was educated in Germany, and'in 1843 started the study of law in England, out Boon abandoned it for literature, making his first appearance in print with a poem in 1849, f 'Chillion Wallah." In 1851 came a volume of "Poems," which, though it did not jecuro a large audience, yet so impressod Tennyson as to furnish nim with linos that ho "could not get out of his head," and during the 'fifties appeared "Tho Shaving of Shagpat," and "Farina." Tho former of theso works was at'once accorded a warm welcome in tho highest quarters, and gained tho warm praiso of Georgo Eliot and D. G. Rossetti. ''Farina," an attempt to capture tho spirit of German romance, was less successful than tho reproduction, in tho earlier volume, of tho Orientalism of tho the Arabian Nights. T ln 1859 appeared "The Ordeal of Richard Fovorel," which is still, perhaps, tho favourite of all his novels, and-which was remarkably at the timo of its appearance, and rw mains remarkar o now, for tho rapture and freshness of tLo love scenes. His second novel of modern life, "Evan Harrington," appeared in 1861, and a year later ho gave tho world the wonderful. "Modorn Love, ono of tho best-known love seqnences in tho language. War Correspondent, During 1866 he acted as special correspondent of tho "Morning Post during tho Austro-Italian war, and in 1867 was for a timo editor of tho "Fortnightly Review." Thenceforward the main foots of his life, so far as tho public are ■ concerned, are contained in the dates of his successive publications. He succeeded Tennyson as President of tho Society of Authors, and was for manv years the literary adviser of tho famous English publishing houso of Chapman and Hall. Ho marriod twice, and his second wife died in 1885.

For many years ho produced new novels and occasional books of vorse: "Sandra Belloni" (1864), "RhodaFleming" (18G5), "Vittoria". (1867), "The Adventures of Harry Richmond" (1871), "BeaucharapV Career" (1875). "Tho Egoist" (1879), ff Tho Tragic Comodians" (1880), "Diana of .the Cross'?' ways" (1885)— the. first, of his, novels to secure a wide success with ,tho general public— "One of Our Conquerors" (1891), "Lord Ormont and His Aminta" (1894), and ('The Amazing Marriage" (1895)." \His poems published subsequent to. ."Mo'dern.'Love" are:' 'Tooms'and Lyrics' of the Joy : of Earth" (1883), 1 "Ballads and Poom3 of Tragic Life" (1887), -"A,Reading of Earth" (1888), "Odes 1 in Contribution to tho Song of French History" • (1898) and: "A. Reading of Life"' Mannerisms and Obscurities. ! .As has been said,.it was not,until "Diana oftho Crossways" appeared that Meredith , became .a "popular" writer. .. As ho grew oldor, his mannerisms and obscurities, wlibh : are alleged against him as a sufficient reason why his books aro not universally read, in-, 'creased so as to continuo tho bar against his ready! absorption by the reading public, in his verses, too. ho 'is often very . obscure, moro obscuro by far than Browning,'. and oven from sympathetic intellects he demands intense and careful study.- He wrote poetry :t/iat was light, simplo, and lyrical; but li 3 wroto. also\ poems ''unintelligible-' to ..any reading oxcept that ; which one brings to . the most abstruse metaphysics. His nature, says ono critic, "is intuitivo rather than ratiocinativo; his mental processes aro "abrupt and far-reaching; and the suppression of connecting associations frequently gives his languago, as it gave Browning's, tho air of an impenetrably nebulous obscurity. It is this "aiifractuosity,' to use a word of Dr. Johnson's, that leaves much of his poetry, despite the intellect that illuminates it and the . boduty that londs it colour for readors who mil talio the trouble to put themselves at the writer's point of view, with a dimnesß and blurred outline boyond evon tho inI tricacies of his prose." In short, as Mr. 6. K. Chesterton pointed. out in his "Brown--1 ing,". the obscurity of Meredith was'tho result of his having to use unusual weapons to attack unusual situations and complications of thought. ,By the '90V-Meredith's famo was assured, and in 1898 ho was presented with a congratulatory birthday address by 30 of tho most prominent mon of letters of tho day. Long before tho century ended, indeed, ho had be-' oomo gonerally accented as the greatest of living' English writers —Mr. Swinburno of course, reigning alone amongst tho pootas puros. .■ < .