LITERARY NOTES FROM LONDON.

Evening Star, Issue 11251, 26 May 1900, Page 4

LITERARY NOTES FROM LONDON.

[Fbom Our Special CoiuiePpondknt.]

LONDON, April 13. Nearly every tiling that Archibald Forbes wrote was thoroughly.good “copy," without rising lb a much loftier level. The most popular of his books are in Macmillans’ Colonial Library; and consist of collections of lijs magazine articles. I expect most of you know 'Glimpses Through the Battle Smoke,’ ’Barracks, Bivouacs, and Battles,’ ‘ Souvinirs ■ of Some Continents,’ and ‘ Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places.’ If not, I should try one. They are thoroughly apropos rending for the present juncture. An odd incident of Forbes’s career was the mysterious Metz telegram of the Franco-German War. This message described tho fallen fortress after its capitulation, and was n singularly striking Kiplingosquc picture, which set everybody talking. It was reproduced by ‘ The Times ’ witli complimentary remarks, and Forbes’s employers and friends exalted him on high. Presently, howeter, came an extremely cross letter from the war correspondent himself disclaiming the honor. The telegram was not his. Whoso, then? Goodnatured rivals of the ‘ Daily News ’ hinted not tpo obscurely that it had been vmtten up in Fleet street, but Sir John Robinson fortunately had preserved the original telegram, and made them apologise. He also managed to rout out the sender. Many people think they know his name, but outside certain sanctums in Bouverie street all is really guoss work. It was an irritating jar for Forbes at the commencement of his career.

Mr Rider Haggard has been unable to resist the temptation or another trip to South Africa, and will lepresent Pearson’s new paper, the 'Daily Express,’ at the front. The ‘ Express,’ it should be mentioned, will not belong to the Pearson Companies, but to Mr Pearson himself. Ho is running a pretty big risk, as, bar tile ‘ Mail,’ none of the halfpenny dailies are doing too well. The ‘ Leader ’ has probably the largest sale. Charles Williams does the “War Notes,” and his views on current successes or catastrophies are better worth having than those of most “ military experts.” Apropos of war corresponcfents, it has been discovered by ’Literature’ that Sir William Howard Russell was not, as generally accepted, tho first of them, but only tho first to bccomo famous. He had two predecessors—Charles Lewis Gruneisen and Henry Crnbb Robinson. Gruneisen “ did ” the Carlist War of 1837 for the ‘ Morning Post,’ and had wonderful adventures. . Crabb Robinson was sent by 1 The Times’ to Corunna in 1808. But he was a poor, spiritless creature, and foil far short of the modern military expert. “Of the merits or demerits of the retreat,” lie writes, “ and the mode in which it was conducted, I will not pretend to speak. Professional skill and most exact local knowledge alone justifies an opinion.” Such modesty is indecent. The ‘Daily Mail’ has engaged that tremendous compiler of romances for tit-bits journals William Le Queux to “ do ” Siberia in its interests. The ‘ Bookman ’ says he will start early this month for Moscow, where the authorities will provide him with the necessary permits. He will travel first by rail to Samara, end thence by the new Trans-Siberian line via Petropavlovsk and Omsk to Tomsk to visit Ine great prison there. Thenco he goes to Krasnoiarsk and Kansk to Irkoutsk. Crossing Lake Baikal by steamer he will drive in tnrantass to Nerchinsk to see the penal mines, and afterwards visit the political prisoners at the renowned prison- of Akatui, said to be one of the loneliest spots in the world. Kata, Algftohi, and other great convict centres are in his programme, and continuing his drive ho hopes to reach Biagoveslchenek, on the Amur, and then descend by boat to Khabarovsk, and by rail to Vladivostock. If, however, ho cannot get to the latter place before the sen freezes in early October, he will have to go down through Manchuria to Port Arthur. His object is not so much to see prisons—to do which he has an order signed by the Czar —as to study the conditions of life in Siberia, and its prosablo development. He intends to publish a lame illustrated book on his return. Though tho Birmingham editor, Howard Gray, was severely punished for his attack on Mr Justice Darling by a fine of £125, it cannot be said that the latter conies too well out of tho affair. In the flrst place, it drew the attention of tho entire country to the J udge’s silly affront to tho local Press, and in Uhe second it marked His Lordship as using an unusual weapon for punitive purposes. It is true that the jurisdiction which is discretionary in contempt committed by “ scandalising ” the Court itself—to use Lord Hardv/icko’s expres«ion—still exists. But in M'Leod v. St. Aubyn, a case before the Judicial Coinniilteo last year, this form of contempt is staled by Lord Morris, who gave the judgment, to have become obsolete in modem times, aud tho Judges’ remedy is declared to be by criminal information or an action for libel. Then Lord Morris significantly adds that once a trial is finished tho Judge is given over to criticism. All tho other Birmingham papers, as well ns the ‘Argus,’ protested strongly against Sir Charles Darling’s “warning.” but they didn't go in for personalities like Mr Gray. Tho cruellest cut of all in the latter’s article you will probably not appreciate, having yet, I fancy, to make the acquaintance of the famous dwarf “Little Tich.” To liken the eminent Judge to that oddity was far, far worse than to describe him as, say, “ a second Jeffries.”

Curiously enough, Mr Darling in the old days, when ho was M.P., had n tongue to the full ns mordant as tho Birmingham editors pen, and it was consequently urged as an insuperable bar against his promotion to the Bench. In Parliament his hits wore sometimes exceedingly felicitous. Failing on one occasion to get sv satisfactory answer from Sir William Harcourt, who was loading after Mr Gladstone had gono home, the member for Deptford casually remarked, in the course of his speech: "I have noticed that lately tiie party opposite, adopting an ancient precedent, have set up a great light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule tho night,” Mr Justice Darling ought not to havo bitter ideas of the Birmingham papers, for some of his earliest successes were gamed in that city. There was n person named ■Roberts who was brought to hook there in an extraordinary enso of breach of promise, flavored with false representation, a pretended luarringc. a sham parson, and an innocent victim. The cause of the injured lady was championed by T- r , F lln s ! ! q then) with such dramatic e.ioct that the Birmingham jury gave her £3.0C0 damages. This so impressed tho faithless Roberts, who had to pay that sum. ihat lie briefed Mr Darling in an action which he brought against his solicitors for negligence, and the rising barrister scored again, gaining a verdict for Roberts, with £I,OOO damages. It was Mr Darling,.when M.P. for Deptford, who suggested that a certain section of the Radical party thought that “ A.D.” means “Anno Dilku,” and that “ 8.C.” stands for “Before Chamberlain.” And, by the way, he had the temerity in his early political days to stand at Hackney against Sir Charles Russell, who yesterday upheld tho dignity of tho law in his old opponent's person. Mr A. Patchett Martin, in -a letter on the 'Poetry of Provincialism ’ in Australia in this week’s ‘ Literature,’ quotes the following “ unrecorded gubernatorial experience.” Ho says : —“ When Lord Tennyson arrived at Adelaide as Governor of South Australia it was feared that in his first public oration His Excellency had made something of a diplomatic blunder. Bearing the greatest English poetic name of the ago, tho new Governor, in that spirit of harmless all-round adulation which is the note of post-prandial oratory, was beguiled into praising certain of the local verse-writers of South Australia, which he emphatically declared to bo “ the colony of song.” Now, such partial adulation (coupled with the great name of Tennyson) was enough to set on foot an agitation in every one of tho other Australian provinces whoso bards had apparently been belittled or ignored. It was also to arouse fierce ire in the breasts of the dimmer South Australian iights.yvbo bad not been immobilised on the Teunysoniau roll of fame. Luckily South Australia has quite as good a claim to Adam Lindsay Gordon as tho rival provinco of Victoria, which usually monopolises the one widely-recognised Australian poet, who happened to bo born at tho Azores and educated at Cheltenham. So, sheltering himself under the broadening fame of Gordon, Lord Tennyson, being a man of vigor and resource, fled far away into the remote northern territory of his gigantic province, where ho and Ins charming wife made themselves quite at home with the poor remnants of the aboriginal race whom we havo dispossessed. And who shall censure His Excellency for preferring tho strange but not unpoetio utterances of these rude sons of the desert to the remonstrances, rhymed and unrhymed, of tho tribe of petty provincial poets, whom so unwittingly he had slighted?” Mr Martin then proceeds to point out that only in lus own colony hath tho Australian bardlet honor. Thus Professor Tucker, of Melbourne University, writing ‘ A Criticism of Australian Poetry ’ in the Australian ‘ Review of Reviews,’ appears oblivious of tho existence of anybody particulary save Mr J. B. O’Hara, oven ignoring “ these twin glories of tho ‘Bulletin’—Messrs Daley and Ogilvie.” This was bad, no doubt, but nothing new. Even in this enlightened city one has heard of bardlets being differently estimated in different suburbs. The pride of Peckham society, indeed, is too often fatally unknown at Bnxton. No, I don’t think what Mr Martin calls provincialism matters much. After all, if a poet is gpod enough (like Gordon) ho soon outgrows it, and becomes an intercolonial and probably Imperial possession. Readers who gushed over ' Concerning Isabel Carnaby ’ and * A Double Thread ’ can with perfect confidence order Miss Fowler’s new book Tho Farringdons.’ Like its predecessors, this story overflows with smartness. The characters talk like the puppets of a Pinero comedy, and fling epigrams about with an almost Un-

canny adroitness. Miss Fowler will go ufc lengths for a laugh. • Here is her humor,'-for which a less charmlnganu aris-M tocratib uuthorcks-would, I venture to think, have been scarified. Says one lady to another: “ You must have a Celtic ancestor' in you somewhere, haven’t you ?” , ? . 1 “Well, to tell the truth, ray great grandmother was a Manxwoman; but we are ashamed ’ to talk much about her, because it sounds as if she’d had no tail.”

And hero is yet another which just crosses the borders of good taste, though it would' extort a good loud laugh and a round of applause from the pit of a theatre:

Look! There’s Lady Silverliampton coming back again. Isn’t it a pity she’s so stout? I do hope I shall never be stout, for flesh is a most difficult thing to live down.” “You are right; there are few things in world worse then stoutness.” bnow wo —sin and boiled cabbage.’* • -r tr were n * stout as Lady Silverhampton,” said Elizabeth, thoughtfully, “ I should either cut myself up into building lots, or else let myself out into market gardens. I should never go about, whole; should you?” Apart, however, from one 0 r two little blemishes like these, The Farringdous ’ is a novel of unusual excellence, and will doubtless run into tens of thousands, like ‘ Isabel Carnaby.

U A eby T ’ s iost week the Edinburgh edij;1?11, of tt- L. Stevenson’s works acutally fetched £36 aOs, and the edition do luxe of Hio laMor, of course, includes the recently-issued From Sea to Sea.’ With reference to Kipling, those who are fortunate nf i*r 0 A” 1 editions of the original issues of the Jungle Books ’ and ‘ Captafn Courage™beJl came out may be advised to hold on to them If the Kipling “boom” lasts moderately they will, experts think, presently command much advanced prices.