LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9307, 9 March 1889, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

James McNeil Whistler has been elected an honorary member of tho Royal Academy of Munich. Mr. Albert Hartshorno (Bradbourno Hall, Wirksworbh) has in hand a work on seventeenth and eighteenth century wineglasses and goblets. Tho Russian Court painter, Zichy, it is stated, is to reproduce on canvas the terrible scene of tho railway disaster at Borki, of which he was an eye-witness. The Society of Painters in Water Colours may be congratulated on the fact that, in deference to a unanimous desire of his brethren, Sir John Gilbert has withdrawn his resignation of the presidency, and was re-elected to tho olfice he has long and honourably held. Students of Oriental art will bo glad to know thab Count cl'Hulst has received permission to photograph tho magnificent illuminated pages of tho lvorans in the public library of Cairo. They will form an important addition to the comprehensive scries of studies in Cairo art on which ho is at present engaged. Mr. Hatnish MacCunn, that talented young Scottish musican avlioso rapid rise to fiune ib phenomenal even in an age of sudden reputations, was entertained to dinner in Glasgow lately. One of tho speakers asserted" that Mr. MacCunn would accomplish for Scotland in music what Burns and Scott havo done for Scottish poetry and romance They may come true ; but such sweeping foroeastings of the judgment of posterity are hardly wise. Literary lecturers have told us many good stories of the chairmen of whoso tender morcios they have hod woeful experience, and Mr. H. R. Hawois adds one more to the number. On one occ;ision, when engaged to lecture on ' Music and Morals,' Mr. Haweis had a German professor for chairman, and in introducing him to the audience he branched off into euch an elaborate study of tho philosophy of music as made tho delivery of tho lectnro-quite a superfluity. Highland folk-lore is coming to tho front. Not only are the extreme Northern Scottish newspapers continually devoting largespace to that deeply interesting subject, but early next year a magazine is to be started which will be devoted almost exclusively to its discussion. Mr. Campbell, the capable editor of the Northern Chronicle, has the project in hand, and ho will havo the able assistance of Mr. A. Machain, whose editorship of the Celtic Magazine is noteworthy in tho annals of Scottish journalism. In Murray's, Mr. Alexander Innes Shand bewails thocontinual multiplication of books, and seems inclined to look back regretfully to " tho blank and tho black medieval ages before the day-dawn of the Renaissance, when the lamps of letters, with rare exceptions, wero only kept dimly alight in conventual colls." He complains that tho plethora of new books makes us neglect our old friends, and that even a work by one of our best writers seldom lives to a second season, so soon is it crowded out by still newer publications. The marriage question has engaged the attention of a now writer. Mr. Walter llubbell is about to give the expression of his ideas on the subject in a story entitled, "The Curse of Marriage." For his own sake we trust Mr. Hubboll is a bachelor. Another man of letters is also engaged upon the same great theme. Professor Blackio is said to bo quite as much at home among young ladies as among ancient Greeks. He "is going to publish a paper in "Cassell's Magazine " called " Matrimonial Maxims by a Married Man." Mrs. Mona Caird has completed a new novel, "The Wing of Azrael." She is the author of other novels which havo not succeeded in gaining public attention. Under the auspices of many artists and antiquaries, including Lords Whamcliffe and Wemyss, Sir 1 , . W. Burton, Sir A. II Layard, Sir F. Lcighton, and Mr. Alma Tadeina, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Colvin, Mr. H. S. Poole, Mr. Poyntcr, and Mr. Henry Wallis, a society ha-s been formed entitled "Committee for the Preservation of the Monuments of Ancient Egypt." These relicH havo been, as everybody knows, a subject of anxiety to antiquaries, and recent travellers havo reported emphatically that unless immediate steps are taken to save them, by reparation and otherwise, the speedy destruction of the ancient; buildings of the Kile Valley is inevitable. The society proposes to bring the facts before the public generally, and endeavour to induce the authorities to arrest the ruin.