LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 233, 26 June 1920, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

.. English' papers report the death .of Mr. Ernest .Hartley Coleridge, grandson of the famous-Samuel Taylor of'that ilk, Mr. Coleridge, who passed'away at the age, of seventy-four, inherited some; at least of the great'literary talent-of .Ms famous grandfather.' He .was. a. frequent contributor to' leading, literary^periodicals, and had> a special igift for literary biography. "It is to Mr. Coleridge-that we owe what is the most authoritative and far away the best orlitinn ot 3yron-s Poems and letters, published a.few years' ago' by - Mr.. John Murray.'' Tlio Coleridge "Byrcn"'Tanks, in the estimation of those, who know and love really good standard books, • with. the - Wheiitley Pepys" and-' Mrs. Paget • Toynbee's monumental edition of Horace Walpole'is famous "Letters." ;■ ...'. ■/■'-.'■• . A famous-illustrator of book? passed away in: April Inst, in Ihe' person of Mr, Hugh Thomson. Mr. Thomson, who was of Irish birth, nude his first-hit by his .illustrations' to a- delightful series : .of articles'-entitled '"Coaching. Days'oand Coaching Ways," which appeared in that beautifully produced, but now defunct, "periodical, "The English. Illustrated Magazine," started-by Messrs. Macmillan and C 0. ,: with the idea of rivalling "Harper's Magazine" and "The Century. Mr. Thomson was nt once hailed as a 'second Randolph Caldicott, with 'whose"work the.earlier Thomson drawings had much in common. Later on he ,illustrated,-edition's of some.' of 'Jane Austen's 'novels, the .poems' of Austin 'Dobsori- (notably "Tho: Ballad of, Beau ''Brocade"); Charles Kendo's 'Teg Wof■ftnirfbh," and, his' greatest success in -my opinion,. an. edition, of "The Vicar' of Wakefield." No English artist has been more "successful in depicting eighteenth ' centu'ryl life than Mr. Thomson;... 'He 'was-also a delightful landscape artist, ■illustrating several volumes of Macnnl•laii's' "Highways nnd series. His death constitutes a very serious loss ; to,British art' a , ■ ~.< - ' 'By thedeath, in March, last, of the late William Dean Howells, America loses 1 the last of- her three great literary figures in the past generation. All thrae, Mark Twain, Henry. James, and W. D. Howells, were -great -personal friends." Howells was best'known to English readers as a

novelist, but'lie was nlso one of tho finest literary critics and essavistsAinericn has yet.produced. , In earlv lifo lie acted as American Consul at Venice, and wrote two "delightful books, "Venetian. Days" and "Italian Journeys," which may still ho road with interest and pleasure. Of his novels. I recall "A Chnnco Acquaintance," "Their Wedding Journey," "Tho 'Lady of the .Aroostook," and that fine story, "The Else of Silas Lapham." Howells's stories used to be procurable in verycharming little editions, boautifullv orip- "■<!, which were published by David Douglas, of Edinburgh., Wise bookmen', when they coTno. across' these editions in an 'auction room, should riinko a point of securing, them, for they are becoming very scarce, and .will go up in value. ;