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Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 657, 6 November 1909, Page 9

NOTES.

"Pursuing the study of,the life of to-day i in the novels of to-day n man is impressed by i the' lofty appreciation of intellect which our i instructors display,"- says Mr. Andrew Lang,. ; in the'"Post." "Now to undervalue 'minds ] and that confounded intellect,' as the poet sayjs, ; is the foib]e of our countrymen. In the in- ; tellectual race we are thought the be nowhere, ; or, if anywhere, in the ruck. Fiance and German are miles ahead of us in making ; motors and aeroplanes, while in the criticism of the Scriptures and the classics our scholars write with one eye on the texts and the other on the very latest tracts and treatises of the daringly conjectural Teuton." "Lord Eosebery has offered to Dr. Johnson , some eloquent and witty compliments," saya ; Mr.' Chesterton in the "Daily News." "It may seem : under the circumstances an ungracious speculation, but I think it more than doubtful whether Dr. Johnson would have .returned ' these. compliments. If there were five things in the world that Johnson hated, they were a sceptic, a. Scotchman, a Whig, a sophist, and a nobleman patronising letters. , I.ord Kosabery happens to be all five things at onco. Now, to anyone who Tealy loves and. steeps himself in'the-spirit of Johnson it is by no means so certain that Dr. Johnson would (have' disapproved of the -Budget as it is that he . would have disapproved of Lord Kosebery.": ■There, is a coal-heaver in Mr. Quiller-Couch's new hovel,;."The Tilda," who has a delightful 1 talent for doggerel. The , following stanza, says -one d-elighted reader,' deserves a place in that celebrated anthology, the "Tin .Treasury : of the and Lyrics":— "Stratford-on-Avon, Stratford-on-Avon — .. My truo love she is .false;" I'd-rather not go to Stratford-on-Avon' If I could go anywhere else. : "Tho love, that then I'faltered ' ''' I ani now forced to stifle; For the ease is completely altered, . And l avish I had a rifle. "I ■. wi£h I was . wrecked, Like- Robinson -Crasoo; - , -• •• ■■ But you. cannot, expect ■ 1 A canal-boat to. no 60." The;announcement as nearly ready of a new volume in verse—"Time's Laughing-Stocks,:'and other Poems," 1 by Mr,. Thomas, Hardy—recalls the fact .that it was.in 189S in "Wessex Poems" that. tlie' distinguished - novelist. first appeared before the public in the' capacity of poet... ;•'.'Mr. Meredith left behind him three manuscripts -of i novels in an, unfinished .condition," says " Mr.' ; 'Clement Shorter - in . the "Sphere." '/One' of -them - was called .'The Journalist,' another - 'The'j Sentimentalists,' and the • third, -.'Firebrand'of, the- Beacon.' All' thesevmanu- ' scripts;ofaei, of" them .'extending; to; some hiin- . dreds of -pages,- were wnsigued to',-thq flames ■by their author-soma nine months before' h* died, .'two of .his .most iintimato'- friends. 'Wok-' .- ing on the while"; j ■_ •' ;^r' - An . amusing , instance of'' the' "hair-trigger .sensitiveness" 'of- some Americans-on the .sub-, ject"of their conntry is furnished . by. an article' :in the ;New\ York. Bookman." ,It is-Kipling -who, is :the.,victim, and,, although his.-oifence imust be some twenty years.old,'the:.writer is as angry ovor it.as.it it wfu'G of last-week. (Kipling,. criticised ; iche' Eepubhc'si/dflftmdes.i-tllheirfleetTof h.Ghinathat 7 of-'America "into the blue"; such a vessel aS:'H.M:S.;Cqlliiißwood could wipe ont.all .the'f towns.-between San- Francisco Hand--Long Branch, while-three ironclads would- ac-_' .Count, for, New .yprk, Bartholdi's .statute ;and iUL.;,It:,iS; just;subh;tilk iis.itiakes John Bull;' "when' he finds.it has dropped from : the, lips of a French admiral, smile upon his newspaper. :But tho writer of the-article is hot over it; and recalls Cleveland's "thunderbolt Message," the over the Spanish, and our difficulties . in, South. Africa.' It, is thefee ■ things,, lie suggests, that - have changed; Kipling's opinion of Englishmen, so: that to-day- _wo find: him as-, cribing!to them some of .'the- qualities -of- the ■Bandarlog. At'ariyratei he declares that'Rudyard .Kipling, "the, laureate of empire, master of imagination," is pone, and wo nave instead one Joseph R>* Ivipling, middle-class Englishman, "who is afraid/' ■ - ■ ' "-r ■■ 'l - : The forger, has often exercised- his ingenuity. ,'oii 1 the;. letters .and ; other -autograph.' manuscripts of ht6rary ; men. In a book just, published, .'-The Detection oF Forgery," by.Douglas ■Blackburn and. Captain AYaifhmam; Caddell, iwe are told that', there are extant a number of forged:Thackerays ! v- !. "Their distinguishing features are that they are '■ invariably vory short, as if the feared to provide' sufficient matter, to; supply 1 .material 'for comparison; most are on single half-sheets of.notepaper,.many.on quarto sheets of varying texture and quality, and the characteristic vertical ' I,' Thackeray's trade-mark, always occurs.. It is shaky" and often, out of the, perpendicular as the x genuine rarely is." Thackeray's capital " I.".is> invariably a' simple, vertical stroke. ."His, is the most neat, uniformly readable hand of all the great literary characters." But he was far from uniform in his choico of paper. 1 "Letters are in existeitce on in extraordinary variety of material, from a quarto-sheet to.-a scrap torn from',half' a sheet of notepaper." ■ ■•/ • Among the; papers left by/George Meredith were several poems, some of which will appear in the volume already announced .by Messrs. Constable. Of even greater interest is the fact that - a large-portion of,-an unfinished novel, /'Celt and Saxon," is likely to be published this autumn. "Celt and Saxon" is a work on which . Mr. Meredith was engaged on and off -for many : years. ' ■' '/ : . J \