LITERARY NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 8364, 15 November 1890, Page 1

LITERARY NOTES.

[Prom Our Special Correspondent. J

London, October 3.

Tha first of the long-promised series o political biographies of the Queen’s Prime Ministers will be Fronde’s ‘ Earl of Beaconsfield,’ and should be out next week. The price is 3s 6d, or a shilling more than Macmillan’s 4 Men of Action ’ series, which seems a mistake. 1 notice Sir Arthur Gordon does his father, ‘Lord Aberdeen’: Mr Stuar Reid (the editor of the series) ‘ Ear Russell’; Mr G. W. E. Russell ‘Mr Gladstone’; Mr H, D. Traill ‘ Lord Salisbury Justin M’Carthy ‘Sir Robert Feel’; and Lord Lome (of all people) 1 Viscount Palmerston.’

Andrew Lang’s ‘ Life and Letters of Lord Iddlesleigh,’ which will be published in the course of the next few days, aims, we are told, at being something more than a mere cut-and-dried political biography. Pains have been taken to impress on the reader the personality of Sir Stafford Northcote, and to show by means of correspondence, etc., the extraordinary influence he exerted from the background over Lord Beaconsfield, and how much that wary old statesman leaned on his younger, cooler, and more cultured colleague. Sir Stafford kept voluminous notes of important events, interviews, etc,, and was besides a capital correspondent. Altogether, Mr Lang’s book should be most interesting. Another notable “ life ” approaching completion is that of Laurence Oliphaut, by his namesake, Mrs Oliphant, who has been hard at work on this labor of love all summer. Special attention has been devoted to the religious and mystic side of the deceased’s career, and considerable light will he thrown by youthful letters, etc., on his curiously dual character. The work is being published by Blackwoods, and will be out before Christmas.

Talking of dual characters reminds mo that there is a singularly interesting article on that complex personality Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse, in ‘ Temple Bar ’ for October, The writer, Mr Frederick Dixon, who has entitled his paper 4 A Soldier of the Mutiny,’ appears to have taken special pains to be fair, and shows up all the curious contradictions of his hero’s (?) character. On the whole one is disposed to congratulate the deceased soldier on having been lucky enough to live in such stirring times, Had fortune been less kind to him he would almost certainly have been drummed out of the army in disgrace. Miss E. Gerard (Madame de Las/.owska who, in conjunction with her better-known sister Dorothea, wrote 4 Reals,’ 4 Beggar my Neighbor,’ and 4 The Waters of Hercules ’ has just finished a volume of Polish stories, bearing the title of 4 Bis.’ Miss Dorothea’s 4 Recha ’ was recently pronounced by no less a critic than the omniscient Lang 41 the freshest and most powerful novelette of the season,”

Messrs Methncn announce a series of 4 English Leaders of Religion ’ at 2s (id, commencing with 4 Cardinal Newman,’ by R, H. Hutton. Archibald Groves had christened his latest pennorth of snippets 4 Treasure Trove.’ Number one contains a complete story, by Rudyard Kipling. Other newspapers are 4 Golf ’ (devoted to that weird pastime) and 4 Household Stores.’

James Payn’s ‘ The Word and the Will ’ is an attenuated love story devoid of sensation, and affecting altogether only two email families residing at an uninteresting seaside resort. There is (as the Captain in ‘ Used Up ’ says) “nothing in it.” Yet so easily and agreeably can this veteran novelist write that, though one knows exactly what’s coming, one goes on pleasantly enough, turning over page after page. At the same time, such watery fiction as this novel and ' The Burnt Million ’ cannot but make one fear that, the cunning hand which invented the plots of ‘ By Proxy,’ ‘ A Confidential Agent,’ ‘ Walter’s Word,’ and a dozen other exciting stories, is losing some of its adroitness. ‘The Word and the Will’ originally ran through ‘ Tit Bits.’ Mr Oscar Wilde has been condescending enough to explain how that masterpiece of salacious fiction, ‘ Dorian Cray,’ came to be written. It seems that in 1887 a misguided lady artist from Canada yearned to portray Oscar’s features on canvas. He gave her a sitting. When the sitting was over, and Mr Wildo gazed at the portrait, it occurred to him that a thing of beauty, when it takes the form of a fat, middle-aged gentleman, who looks as if he persistently over-eat himself. is, unhappily, not a joy for ever. “ What a tragic thing it is,” he exclaimed. “ This portrait will never grow older, and I shall. If,” he added, “it were only the other way,” Then the emotion of Oscar’s soul sought refuge in prose, and the result was that precious piece of poemgraphy ‘ Dorian Gray.’ No wonder Mr vVildc squirmed when the ‘St. James’s Gazette ’ styled the great work a study in puppydom, and likened his hero to a puppy of a very unpleasant character. Mrs Henry Woods’s posthumas novel, ‘ The House of Ualliwell,’ which has been running through the ‘ Argosy,’ is now out in three volumes.

New two shilling editions include George R. Sims’s ‘ Dramas of Life,’ reprinted from the ‘ Weekly Despatch,’ and ‘ A Life’s Reminiscences of Scotland Yard,’ by Inspector Lansdowne, who follows up in the redoubtable Mdser’s footsteps. Moser’s ‘ Stories from Scotland Yard ’ are, however, the best.

Mr P. Herbert Stead, M.A., editor of the newly-started ‘Nonconformist,’ is a brother of the editor of the ‘ Review of Reviews,’ and was till recently a Congregationalist minister at Leicester. The character sketch in the ‘ Review of Reviews ’ for October will be Boulanger, and the number will contain a long account, with illustrations, of the work of the Salvation Army. The new ladies’ paper ‘TheGentlewoman ’ is a great success. I couldn’t quite understand why, till a feminine friend assured me, the dress fashions, etc., were practicable and not (as too often happens in similar periodicals) utter impossibilities. This is a hint some of your readers may be glad of.