LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 21

LITERARY NOTES

Mrs. Godfrey Pcarse, the daughter of Mario, the great tenor, and Griai, the great ( soprano, has written her recollections in a volume, "The Enchanted Past."

A "Life" of Joseph Chamberlain openß up a very big stretch of Victorian and Edwardian history, and the treatment thereof, by, so vigorous a journalist as Mr. J. L. Garvin—now to edit the Encyclopaedia Britannica— should prove exhilarating. The reading of a mass of letters and papers, the selection of the vital material from tliem, and the actual writing of the book, have necessarily been a heavy task. It has been reported that the outcome will be published by the house of Nelson, perhaps in three volumes, like Morley's "Gladstone."

Signor Luigi Villari, the author of "The Fascist Experiment," is a prominent ' supporter of the Fascist movement, and a member of the Italian Foreign Office. Probably a different point of view will be taken by Signor Don Luigi Sturzo in. "Italy and Fascism." Signor Sturzo is the founder of the Italian People's Party, now in opposition to Mussolini. It, is said that "Italy and Facismo" will be a critical account, with forecasts of future developments.

"Last season there was published tho second book of a young and brilliant novelist. Its mastery of English and its style are precious accomplishments for those who pray for the redemption of English literature —yet it sold enough copies, possibly, to pay his rent for ono month," writes Mr. G. H. Grubb in the "Glasgow Herald." "It is the same with poetry. Beyond a few tailpieces in the popular magazines, who waiits poetry to-dar?"

M. Clemenceau writes on Demosthenes and is not afraid to tackle a large treatise on : political philosophy. M. Poincare produces his memoirs in nine volumes. M. Herriot writes learnedly of history and nature in "In a Norman Forest." It is altogether a striking literary record for political Trance, but British statesmen are not to be beaten in the cultural contest. Tho late Marquess Curzon wrote many a solid work, and. the Earl of Birken-hoad-'s'■•"'Fourteen-. English Judges" must count.

Eobert Southfell, the sixteenth-cen-tury poet and martyr, filled a plaeo of some distinction in the literary circles of his day. Bacon and Ben Jonson praised him, and eight editions of his poems were published within 25 yoars of his death. The number of hia readers in modern times has necessarily been limited by tho difficulty in procuring copies of his. works. Mr. Blackwell, of Oxford, announces a book meant to supply this want, to bring Southwell's verses to the notice of new readers and to tell again the tragic story of his short life. ■ «