LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8928, 17 December 1887, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Ah English translation of Tolstoi's ".Russian Proprietor" is in the press. Halevy, the French novelist, says he is writing a novel which is to be " virtuous to a revolting degree." A memoir oi the Hon. lon Keith Falconer, the Arabio scholar, is being complied by his friend, Dr. Singer. Miss Yonge has undertaken to write a life of Hannah More for Mr. J. H. Ingram's " Eminent Women Series." Mr. J. E. Cabot, who was deputed by Emerson to be his literary executor, is to issue next week his "Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson." The majority of well-known English artists the present time have been trained abroad, and this even includes the beat of the Royal Academicians. The charge having been made that tho ] Century management once refused the MSS. j of Robert Louis Stevenson before he became famous, the Century people contradict it. To royal authors will soon have to be added King Kalakaua, who has a book in preparation dealing with the legends and folk' lore of Hawaii and the neighbouring islands. I Mr. C. M. Barrows has collected three thousand facts about American books, au- | tbors and publishers, English books and authors and popular translations, dramas and operas, and is about to bring them out in a book under the title of " Acts and Anecdotes of Authors." "Sossipn with Girls and Maidans, Betrothed and Free," by Lady Bel lairs, will shortly be published by Messrs. Blackwood and Sons, The book is intended to be of service to young women in their efforts at self-formation of character and the improvement of mind and morals. Dr. Schliamann is to begin excavations on the island of Cerigo, where the Phoenicians are supposed to have introduced for the first time on Greek soil the worship of Astarte, a goddess who became Aphrodite among the Greeks. The island is of some size and lies directly south of the Greek Peninsula. The collection of poetical works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to be published by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Co., will be introduced by a memoir by Mr. John H. Ingram (the well-known editor of Poe), furnishing some fresh items of interest and giving for the first time correct data of Mrs. Browning's Burne Jones has a way of his own worth considering. He keeps several pictures standing about his London studio which he will not sell because they are not good enough. He refused the other day to sell two of these to Dr. James C. Welling, of the Corcoran Art Gallery. He would let nothing go out of his studio whioh would not add honour to I his name

According to an article in the Revue Balvoja there used to be published formerly in happy Finland, on an average, one book only every year. From 1809 to 1855 the yearly average >f new works was ten, but after the year last named the number of books increased ia an alarming degree, so that during the last ten years it has risen to the high annual average of 1290 works. When Colonel John Hay is asked what decidedly seems an impertinent question— "Are you the author of 'The Bread Winners?' "he answers with a blank smile: "In general I have not much to conceal, but this thing is the secret of six of us who have been accused by the public of this flagrancy. Now if five of us separately confesc that we are not the guilty party, it convicts the sixth defendant, and we have mutually de, cided to stand by the author of 'The BreadWinners' in bin secret sin. ' Yoa see the situation!" ' Mr. Gladstone writes, in acknowledgment of » paper by Mr. Ivor James, Registrar of i the South Wales College, Cardiff, on the Welsh language in tho sixteenth and seventeenth centuries : —" It was only yesterday I was able to read with due care the tract you were kind enough to send me on the Welsh language and its use. I request you to accept my particular thanks for bringing it to my notice. It appears to me to be a production not lees scbolarlike than it is interesting and important, as illustrating the variety and subtle action of causes which go to determine the language of ft country."