LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9178, 6 October 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Professor John Stuart Black if, is engaged on a little volume that is to bear the title, " Lays of the Highlands and Islands.' Congregation at Oxford has passed a statute admitting women to the honour examination in the final school of litercie humaniores. . . Lord Lansdowne has just sold three ot his finest pictures, two Rembrandts and a Cuyp, for a reported price of £50,000. lhe purchaser is Sir Edward Guinness. Three statues of Roman art were lately discovered at Athens, one of the Emperor Hadrian, "another of Antonius, aim the third a small Bacchus. All three are well preserved and of excellent workmanship. A fund is being raised for that literary veteran, Dr. Charles Mack ay, who is unhappily now in both reducrd circumstances and in broken health. The treasurer is Dr. L. C. Alexander, Holly Lodge, Putney. The case is a very deserving one. Edna Lvall, who devoted the proceeds of Donovan," her most, popular novel, to the purchase of a peal of bells for a church at Eastbourne, resides in that town with her sister. The latter is the wife of a curate. Edna Lyall is still a young lady. A translation of some poems by the Queen of Roumania, entitled "Pilgrim Sorrow," was made a season or two ago by Miss Helen Zimmern, who is personally acquainted with the gifted wife of Charles of Hohenzollerm Miss Zimmern, who has lately been residing in Italy, is now on a visit to London. The largest sum ever known to have been paid for a single book was £10,000, which the German Government gave for a vellum missal, originally presented to King Henry VIII. by Pope Leo X. Charles 11. gave it to an ancestor of the Duke of Hamilton, and it became the property of the German Government at the sale of the Duke's library a few years ago. Mr. Rider Haggard is, like Mr. Labouchere, a little venturesome when referring to the Ten Commandments. In his new story, "Mr. Meeson's Will," which deals with a literary subject, ho says that English authors will never be as prosperous as they ought to be until American publishers learn to respect the Seventh Commandment. There is a clear libel in this, and Mr. Haggard's only possible defence is that he is a little vague as to which Commandment is the seventh and which the eighth. Although Sir John Millais is justly renowned in his profession, there are none with whom he is more popular than his models. Many professional artists are wholly oblivious to the fact that a model has equally those feelings which Shylock protested he had in common with the rest of humanity. The great secret of Sir John Millais' popularity with the models is that he never sends them away without a good dinner. Mrs. Lester Wallack, by the way, is a sister of Sir John Millais. The Wallacks are shortly coming to London from NewYork.

Among letters sold in Messrs. Sotheby's rooms recently is one from Lord Beaconsfield, written in 1537, just after his return to Parliament. He says:—"lt was odd that my electioneering struggles should terminate in being M.P. for Maidstone. As I am already a believer in destiny, it required not this strange occurrence to confirm me in my Oriental creed." "But we are the children of the gods and are never more the slaves of circumstances than when wo deem ourselves their masters—what may next happen in this dazzling farce of life the Fates only know." There is a letter from Carlvle dated from Chelsea, September 28, ISSS, in which he says : —" I have done little else but sleep and wash myself since I got home out of Germany." A letter from Napoleon to his sister contains this passage :—" I beg you, little sister, to send me the account of property of which the Duchy of Guastalla consists, so that I may arrange your affairs." Two letters of Mr. Ruskin's are also of interest. Both are letters of advice. One is to a lady who contemplates marriage, sent from his lakeside horns on March 24, 1885, and the other dated from Amiens, is discouraging a correspondent against publishing on borrowed money, and declaring that he (Mr. Ruskin') "is the last person to promote any manner of journalism." There were also letters from the Empress Eugenie, Napoleon 111., the Empress Marie Louise, Garibaldi, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Lord Lvtton, Gerome, Millet, De Neuville, Israels, Ristori, Talma, Kean, Verdi, Gounod, and others.