NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 533, 19 June 1909, Page 9

NOTES.

Lovers of Gilbert will be delighted to learn that Messrs. Chatto and Windus propose including his plays in their admirable St. Martin's Library. In this new and cheaper form the plays, with their shrewd and sparkling wit, are sure to appeal to a much wider audience than over. .

"Mr. H. G. Wells's 'Tono-Bungay' has had a larger sals than any other novel he has written," says the "Daily Chronicle"— "larger than 'Kipps' or 'Love and Mr. Lewisham,' and larger than any of his pseudo-scientific romances; which last point suggests—does it not? —that there are still many poople' who read fiction to think, as well as to be amused." .

■When, asks the "Book Monthly," will somebody write a book on the literary things that aro supposed to. have happened and did not happen? For example, most pebplo will toll you that "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "lot us take a walk down Fleet Street," ii to be found in "Boswell," that it is ah actual saying of Johnson. Really it was invented by George Augustus Sala as a motto for "Temple Bar," when that magazine. was ■started. Many instances of sayings and occurrences of a kindred sort might be mentioned, and it would be interesting if somebody would take the trouble to collect them.

M. Celestin Demblon, a Socialist Deputy and a well-known Shakespearean scholar, is (according to a Brussels telegram dated May 3) preparing for publication a. voluminous work, in which he will endeavour to show that the dramas attributed to Shakespeare were in reality tho work not of thoi.famous Stratford worthy, nor of Bacon, .but of Roger Manners, Earl of/Rutland. '(The family attained' to tho dukedom in the eighteenth century.) It may be remembered that three years ago it was suggested in an article in "Tho Nineteenth Century" that data which might solve 1 tho Shakespeare-Bacon controversy would bo found in the archives of Belvoir Castle, the Duke, of Rutland's property. M. Demblon bases his arguments on evidence; gleaned from the Belvoir papers, and advances reasons why tho rear author of suoh sublime ■ works as "Hamlet" and "King Lear" preferred to remain unknown.

It is interesting to collect 1 certain of the instances of mistakes in regard to the titles of books with which the serials have recontly furnished us (says the "Manchester Guardian"). Thus the old farmer who asked for "Edgworth on Irish Bulls" got, no doubt, something ho did not expoct, and the dainty youth who . "Love's Discourses" did not really wish a .volume of sermons 1 by Christopher Love. If application is made by messenger mistakes of a different sort may occur. ;An excitable boy ohm asked for Bishop. Cocks and Hen's "Earnest Communicant"; ho meant Bishop Oxenden's. Similarly, by Warne's "Moral Cookery" ho meant his "Model Cookery." A maid forgot all about the title of tho book she had been sent for oxcept that it was "something •like tomato soup. She ivas served with "Red Pottage..'' It may have been a fault of pronunciation on tho part of the, pur-' chaser who asked for "Rubber bands" that he received a copy of "Robert Burns," but it was certainly the bookseller who was at sea who referred an applicant for "Vega's Logarithmic Tables" to tho "furniture department,.".' In cataloguing, booksellers frequently ; err.- lliv Jladan,.■ the ■ Oxford scholar who wrote a grammar and dictionary of tho Swahcli. language,. had those works catalogued as "Madam Swaheli'a Grammar," and in the line, beneath ."D0,...d0i.-.Diction-ary;" Recently, too, a book 6'f Mr.;Liicas's, "A Swan and her Friends," giving an account of Miss Seward, "the Swan of Lichfield," was classified as "Annie Swan and her Friends."

The following letter, appearing in the "Nation," is worth the consideration of students of poetry:— .-.

The, writer of'the eloquent appreciation' of Swinburne in. last week's "Nation" raises a very interesting point. He protests against "the old, but barren criticism which insists on Swinburne's splendour of form, and says he sacrificed sensß to the music and melody of words." Ho might have.gone further and pointed out that, except in a figurative senso, tho beauty of pootry' has nothing to do with the' "musio and melody of words" at all. The beauty of poetry is wholly. concerned with the form and relation, the meaning and suggestion,- and' association of -words. It 'is this particular word, or this .particular context that makes tho poem. Rnythm, rhyme, alliteration, and assonanco, and all the other "musical" tricks are', in truth, irrelevant,. Those sublime poems,, tho Psalms of David, are untainted by any of these adulteries/ and so is the Epistle for Quinquagesima, which is probably tho finest ppem in tho langnage. The words which poetry makes her own aie often quite unpleasing to the ear. "Rapture" and "love," for instance, are beautiful arid poetic symbols, but most.unbeautiful sounds. Browning is often most inspired when he is most harsh and dissonant. Even Bernard Shaw's critical insight seems to havo failed him here. "In a deaf nation the plays ■. of Shakespeare would havo been dead 1 long since." ' In point of fact tho cbngenitally. deaf, pjbo, strangely, can appreciate rhythm though not rhyme, lovo - and-, understand Shakespearo as much as those-who hear.

"On such a night Stood Dido", a willow in her hand." There you havo,it; tho mind is filled with pictures, not with sounds. When we speak of tho music of poetry wo. should remember, I think, that we are using a metaphor—that it is a music of the mind, not of the ear. "Heinemann, tho European publisher, once noticed two pedlars standing side by side, selling toy dolls. . One of them had a queer, fat-faced, doll, which ho was pushing into the faces of the passers-by, giving it the'name of a well-known woman .reformer, then prominently before the public. His " dolls wero selling rapidly, while the man beside him, who had a'really rr.ire attractive doll was ■ doing comparatively littlo business. A thought occurred to Heinemann, and ho tried: an experiment: Calling tho second pedlar "to ono side, 'My friend,' ho said, 'do' you : want -to know how to sell twico as many of, those- dolls as . you aro selling, now?.' 'Hold.,them upUn pairs,-together in each hand,,and cry'theni as "The Heavenly, Twins;";' The toy-vendor' somewhat; grudgingly ..-.followed J his. advice. It was at a 1 time when Sarah Grand's .famous novel was'at the'height' of; its-popularity, and tho title, of .tho- book wa3 on •overynody's tongue. ''J'orhaps 'it' was merely luck, but tho Heavenly Twins dolls were an;in£ stantaneous success, and within one hour tho vendor of tho woriian-reformer dolls gave •up the fight, acknowledged himself beaten, and moved five blocks down tho street to escapo tho ruinous competition." So writes Lorin F. Deland, in the "Atlantic" for April.

. The Writer of a rather, remarkablo article on "Mario Corolli" in the May "Bookman" speaks, among other . things, of Hiss Corclli's religious views, and quotes her, as saying"For myself I believe solely and entirely in the message- brought to human souls by the Gospel of Christ. If wo followed Him truly wo should be happy—it is becauso we no not follow Him that we miss the wny to poaco. In this day nil the things that Christ prophosied aro coming truo so quickly that I wonder moro people do not realiso it; and I especially wonder at the laxity and apathy of the Churches, except for tho fact that this also was prophesied. Somo of us will live to see a time of terror, and tluit before very long." "The blasphemous things which are being done in tlie world to-day," Miss Corelli added, "cannot-go on., much longer without punu>Hiao» l "