LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9022, 7 April 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Messrs. Christie, Mansok, and Woods have just sold an imperfect copy of the first folio of Shakspere for £100. Mr. Ruskin's "Lectures on Art, de livered at Oxford eighteen years ago, are being revised by himself, and the new edition will be issued shortly. Earl Gray has finally revised a volume, to be published by Mr. Murray, givingthe results of his fifty years' observation of English politics and Irish affairs, and treating of the influence of the former upon the latter. Mr. John Fulton, brewer, Edinburgh, who endowed the Fulton Chair of Elocution in Free Church College, Edinburgh, died last week. He has left over £30,'Q00 in legacies towards the various schemes) of the Free

Church. . .• " Nudo models can hardly be ootained at all in Philadelphia," said a well-known artist "In New York there is a swell class of people who make a business of poeing before artiste, but I do not know one such

in this city." Two new one- volume novels are announced by Mr. Elliot Stock for immediate publication, viz., "In Love and Honour: A Story of Scotch Country Life," and "The Hanleya; or, Wheels Within Wheels," by Mrs. Caumont. The new edition -of Mr. Green e Short History" will be the first in -which any revision has been attempted. Mrs. Green has been aided in her work by the Bishop of Chester, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Lecky, Mr. S. R. Gardiner, and others. It is still doubtful whether Talleyrand s memoirs will see the light this year. The papers are all in order for the printer, and the period of delay expires in May. But the right of publication rests with the Due de Sapan, who represents the family. English literature is progressing in Japan. Over 85,000 English books of all classes were imported last year", as against 40,000 in 1885. The import of American books—that is to say, of books printed in America—increased from 59,000 in 1885 to 119,000 in 1886. The recordis of the Challenger expedition will soon be completed by the publication of the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty fourth volumes. This work has been in course of publication ever since the end of the voyage in 1874, and the cost of compiling and printing the report is said to have already exceeded £200,000. To commemorate the silver wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Messrs. Griffith, Farran, and Co. will publish an illustrated volume, entitled "The Silver Wedding," whiJi will give a short account of the lives of the Prince and Princess, with illustrations of the chief historical events in which they have taken a prominent part during the past twenty-five years. Publishing seems to be a better business than authorship, Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. floated their business with £100,000 capital the other day. Out of this sum the original members of the firm held £75,000, leaving £25,000 for the public. The first post after the announcement brought offers for £50,000 or £25,000 more than was wanted. So even brains and books compare not unfavourably with beer. The New York correspondent of the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette relates an interesting find at a a auction sale in aNew York private residence recently a collection of Dutch masters, sold for "about the cost of the frames." Among them were a Gerard Dow, a Teniers, a Van Dyck, a Pouesin, and a Guido. They belonged to a collection made by Benjamin West in London in 1790, for his friend, Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, by whose descendants the recent sale was made. Mr. Ruskin has expressed, m The Daily Telegraph, a desire that authors would write sequels to their good stories. It is one of the increasing discomforts of his old age that he is never allowed by novelists to stay long enough with people he likes after he once gets acquainted with them. Tales of interesting persons should not end with their marriage. For the general good of society, he thinks, " the varied energies and expanded peace of wedded life would be better subjects of interest than the narrow aims, vain distresses, and passing joys of youth." Mi , . Ryder Haggard will turn his enforced visit to Athens to good literary account. It is anticipated that he will weave some of the most beautiful of the legends of ancient Greek mythology into his next mystical fiction, and that he will also contribnte to one of the London newspapers some letters on the present position of Greece. It does not seem to be generally known that Mr. Haggard, who has chambers in Elm Court Temple, practised in the Divorce Court a little before tho success of " King Solomon's Mines" made him devote himselfto romance

writing entirely. About" Puss in Boots"Mr. Andrew Lang ?) in his gossip under " The Sign of the Ship" in Lougman's Magazine for February, says : " Puss" is a moral story in Russia, Sicily, among the Avars, and at Zanzibar. In those countries the cat helps the man from a motive of gratitude. In France, Italy, India, and elsewhere " Puss in Boots" is an immoral story ; the cat is a swindler, the Marquis de Carabas is his accomplice. Is the moral the primitive past and eesence of the story, or is the moral a later idea tagged on ? M. Gaeton de Paris thinks the Zanzibar version is the original. There the man is unfratef ul to the kind beast, and is punished by'awakening to find his prosperity a dream.